Page 86 of Duke of Destruction
There was the usual round of polite murmuring as Catherine made the requisite introductions, then gave the same bona fides that went along with every uninspired Society meeting.
Yes, I met Lady Catherine at a house party hosted by the Duke of Wilds. Indeed, the country could be so lovely this time ofyear, but it reallywasso unpleasant when it got chilly. And the rain—of course, nobody liked to be caught in the rain. We are lucky it is so pleasant out today, though there is that bit of bite in the air. But then again, what can one expect from autumn in England?
It was all so terribly banal. So boring. Percy could have held up his end of the conversation in his sleep.
Which meant that he could dedicate the entirety of his mental energy to looking at Catherine.
She was looking uncommonly pretty in blue, he thought. Her fashion sense was respectable rather than daring—but it would be, since it was Catherine, he thought, an irrepressible fondness slipping in alongside the observation—but her dress was, of course, of the very highest order. But it wasn’t the gown that made her the most beautiful woman in attendance. That was just Catherine.
“Oh, goodness,” Lady Halle said suddenly, looking over at a man about her age with the kind of exasperated fondness that suggested a long, happy marriage. “My husband is gesturing for me. Do excuse me, both of you. The poor man is absolutely helpless on his own.”
She slipped away, and then Catherine and Percy were alone.
They were in the middle of a party, to be sure, but the space between them and the nearest partygoers might have been miles instead of a meter or two, as far as Percy was concerned.
He dug deep for something to say that wasn’tI’m sorry; I should be staying far, far away from you.
“I saw the Duke of Wilds here earlier,” Catherine observed in the same tone she’d used with Lady Halle. Just Lady Catherine Lightholder, commenting upon a mutual acquaintance amongst theton. “I’m not sure I ever knew if he wintered in London or in the country.”
“It differs year to year,” Percy said through the tightness in his throat.
Her eyebrows raised slightly, but she wasn’t looking at him. If she did, he knew that her eyes would be bluer than her dress.
“How pleasant,” she said mildly.
Christ, he couldn’t take it.
“Catherine,” he said, pitching his voice low.
She still didn’t look in his direction, but the corners of her mouth tightened, slightly enough to be almost imperceptible. He could see it, though. He could see her.
“And the weather really has held quite well,” she went on. He read the warning in it. “A very nice surprise for this time of year.”
If she kept talking about the weather, he worried that he might break.
“Catherine,” he said again. And then, before he could stop himself, “I miss you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it at once—would have known it before he had even spoken, if he had taken the time to think. And even if he hadn’t known that, and even if he hadn’t heard the way it sounded, coming out of his mouth, he would have seen it in the way her perfectly straight spine drew up just a little bit higher, in the way her shoulders drew back the tiniest bit more, the way her chin lifted.
“Good day, Your Grace,” she said. “I must return to my family.”
She spared him not a single glance, not even the tiniest shred of her regard. And she walked away. Back to her family.
What have I done?She walked away, and the thought wasn’t only about these past few moments.What have I done? What have I done?
Catherine didn’t react at the party.
She didn’t react on the carriage ride home.
She didn’t react as she had tea with her sister and Helen.
But when Ariadne went off to answer some correspondence and Helen headed up to the nursery to spend time with little Cornelia, Catherine looked inside herself and found nothing but a boiling pit of lava-hot rage.
Howdarehe? The unmitigated gall! How?—
Well. There weren’t swear words strong enough to describe how Catherine felt. Or at least not ones that she knew, which was another black mark against stupid, overprotective gentlemen, and since Percy was one of those, she was going to blame him for that, too.
But Christ, she was mad.
