Page 88 of Duke of Destruction
The part of her that felt like a wounded animal who needed to lash out to show its pain was glad for this, that he had interrupted her, that he had given her something new to object to. But he didn’t keep speaking, didn’t really argue. He justtilted his head toward the street. It wasn’t busy, but it wasn’t abandoned, either, and they were within view of half a dozen houses, at least a few of which were still occupied in the off season.
Thetoncould be watching. It always was. Sniffing for gossip.
“You’ll regret it later if you do this where everyone can see,” he said. “Let’s—” He gestured toward the alley that led to the back garden. “You can keep yelling at me there. I know I deserve it.”
She absolutelyseethedover the idea that he was looking out for her reputation. He had no right to care about how she was seen in public! She had no right to tell her how to comport herself, no right to worry about what she would or would not regret. No damned right.
She was twice as furious that hewasright. She would be upset to see this in the gossip pages come the morning. She would be sorry that she’d let her temper get away from her—at least where someone else could see. She hated that he knew her. Hated it, hated it.
Or, at least, she hated the way it prodded cruelly at the wound in her chest.
She whirled around and stalked into the alley before he could see any of the emotion that she feared was showing on her face. She would not be swayed by his agreeability. She would not be tempted to forgive by his solicitousness. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.
She only turned back to face him when she felt certain that she wouldn’t reveal anything she wanted to keep to herself. She was gratified, at least, to see that he’d followed her into the narrow space between the stylish Mayfair homes. If he hadn’t, she wasn’t certain she wouldn’t have chased after him in the street like some kind of furious fishwife.
But no, he had come after her, and was now standing there, his shoulders shrugged in tight around his body, as if he was bracing himself for impact. He didn’t look particularly well, she noticed. She hadn’t realized it at the garden party. Oh, he was still handsome, of course, the utter menace. But he looked weary in the way that came from longstanding, unshakeable exhaustion.
She clung to her anger like it was the only thing stopping her from drifting out to sea.
“You were horrible,” she said to him, pleased when her voice came out even. “You treated me like I had done something to you, like I had tricked you. Or like—or like I would try to. Like I was clinging to you when you had been trying to get rid of me.”
He licked his bottom lip slightly, then sank his teeth into it, hard.
“I know,” he said. “It was…unconscionable. I’m so… Catherine, I’m so sorry.”
He sounded sorry. He looked so piteously sorry.
“Stop it,” she snapped. She could feel that prickling feeling behind her eyes that said that tears were not far off. “Don’tapologize.”
Percy looked desperate and confused. “But…”
Darn it all, it was too late. She sniffed hard as sobs tried to climb up her throat.
“Don’t you realize how unfair it is?” she asked him. “It wasn’t just that you sent me away; I obviously knew I couldn’tstay, Percy. It was that you treated me like I was—like I wasspoiled,” she said, seizing up on the word. “Like every wretched thing that Society has ever said was true, and that what transpired between usruinedme.”
Percy looked as though he was going to be sick. She hated him for that a little bit, too. She hated that he hadn’t already thought about this, that he got to be a man who had never been told that his value and his chastity were the same thing, who had never been cast the kind of sidelong glances that said that six and twenty was far too old to have any use left, not the kind of use thatmattered.
He had never had to worry about any of that, and right now, she blamed him for the whole of that injustice.
Percy was holding himself with that terribly familiar stillness, the one that said he was keeping his energy in check, though it perpetually threatened to spill out.
“Catherine, no! No, I never meant?—”
But she couldn’t stop, the words pouring out of her like she’d lanced an emotional boil. It all just pulsed forth, everything that she had held back for so long, through all those years of careful self-management. There was no longer any stopping it.
“All of that was bad enough. But then you say that you miss me, like it was something other than your own choice that kept us apart? And now you’re here, apologizing, as though you mean to—to drag me back in? It’snot fair, and it’s not kind, because you had the audacity to go and make me fall in?—”
Percy’s eyes widened, thank God, because that was the only thing that made her catch herself before she revealed far, far too much.
It hurt, physically hurt, to stop those words, but she choked them back, because letting them out would hurt so much more.
“Catherine.” He breathed her name. She didn’t know if it was surprise or pity or—or something else she couldn’t even think of, but knew she probably ought to fear.
“No!” She threw up her hands in front of her like this would protect her from whatever agonizing response he was certain to have. “No. I’m done.”
She whirled, intending to stalk back into the garden, which would at least afford her a decent place to have a nice, privatecry. She’d only made it a few paces, however, before Percy reached out and grabbed her arm, not tightly enough to force her to stop, not firmly enough to hurt.
Except for all the ways itdidhurt. It was simply that those places were deep inside her instead of on the surface.
