Page 85 of Duke of Destruction
CHAPTER 21
“Goodness,why?”Percy asked. “Why would you make me come here?”
David shrugged. “You’re sad.”
“I’m notsad.”
Another shrug. “Something is wrong with you.”
“Nothing is wrong with me. Besides, I thought you didn’t like to talk about feelings.”
A third shrug. Astonishing to note that they grew exponentially more irritating the more he did it. Percy’s mathematics don at Oxford would have marveled at it.
(He would have replied to Percy’s letter, too, because Percy, unlike every other young nobleman of his age, had left with afirst. If this was because he had been consumed with proving himself since his childhood… He still wasn’t thinking about that, actually.)
“That was before I knew it annoyed you,” David said with the winsome smile that made him one of Society’s most popular (or notorious, depending on who you asked) hosts.
Percy bit savagely into a cake. Why were the cakes always so tiny at garden parties? Also—who hosted garden parties this late in autumn?
Suffice it to say, Percy’s mood had not improved overmuch.
“Oh, fine,” David said. “The truth is that I have to talk to Lord Marburg, and this is his wife’s party. And I brought you because people think you’re respectable?—”
“I am respectable.”
“—and because he thinks I’m a cad?—”
“Youarea cad.”
“—who had an affair with his sister.” At Percy’s raised brows, David rolled his eyes. “And yes, fine, that’s true, too, but she’s awidow. Quite a merry one. Not that she doesn’t deserve it, dear girl; her husband was forty years her elder. She’s earned her good time.”
“And you’ve earned Lord Marburg’s dislike. What a beautiful world we live in!”
Percy would not admit to beingsad, no matter what David said about him, but he would allow that he understood why David liked to pester him. It wasn’t as though Percy didn’t give it back as good as he got it.
“In any case, I am standing here talking to you right now because he’s looking at me. And then he will remember that you and I are friends and agree to put me in contact with his man of business in Cumbria to talk about—you don’t actually care about that part, do you?”
“I do not,” Percy confirmed.
David gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I am so blessed to have a friend like you,” he commented. “But you have done your duty by standing about, looking staid. Please go glower elsewhere now. I will find you when I am finished.”
Summarily dismissed, Percy wandered off to look at all the dead foliage, which he was sure had been beautiful flowers five or so months prior. He put his best effort into this activity, but had to give up after a few minutes—there was only so long you could admire a dead stump before the people around you began to fret that you were just a touch simple.
He sighed, turned, and?—
Catherine.
His heart thumped, and he took a half step in her direction before his mind caught up with his body’s reaction to her presence. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t.
But the motion had caught the attention of the middle-aged lady with whom Catherine had been conversing. The matron turned and saw Percy looking in Catherine’s direction. Catherine looked, too, and then there was nothing else for it—he had to go say his greetings or else look like an accursed lunatic.
And he didn’t want to hurt Catherine’s reputation by looking as though she associated with lunatics.
That was his argument, and he was sticking with it.
“Lady Catherine,” he said with an exacting bow as he crossed to her. He hoped it covered up the way it felt as though her name burned his throat. “How good to see you this afternoon.”
Catherine gave him a smile that was just as exacting. “Your Grace,” she said. “Do you know Lady Halle?”
