Page 9 of Duke of Destruction
His look was incredulous. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
Shebarelykept back her huff of impatience. God, menwoulddo whatever it took to make themselves feel important, wouldn’t they?
“Of course,” she said sweetly. “You’re the Duke of Seaton. You’re someone with whom I shall become the dearest of friends by the end of this party.”
As the group was called in to dinner, she turned on her heel, leaving him behind her. Perhaps it was rude, but she couldn’t help it. She’d built a reputation on being good, always.
But Lord help her if the Duke of Seaton didn’t make her want to be the very worst she could be.
CHAPTER 3
Damn every last Lightholder in England,Percy thought as he watched Lady Catherine charm her way through supper. He didn’t understand why the rest of them couldn’t see that her cheerful smiles and little laughs were just a gilded veneer. Who knew what lay beneath? She was too good at hiding it.
But of course she was. She was a Lightholder. And they were the masters of using good breeding and money to cover up the cesspit of snobbery and insularity that lurked at their core.
He speared a wedge of roast potato as Lady Catherine laughed at something that Miss Susannah Reid was saying. He watched as Miss Reid clearly blossomed under Lady Catherine’s bright, focused attention.
It’s all a lie, he wanted to warn the girl. Miss Reid’s father might be titled, but he was a lord only, one who was titled within the last two generations or so.
Not the kind of person a Lightholder would consider their equal.
No doubt Lady Catherine would laugh about the poor chit’s plebeian origins later.
“Can you please stop staring? You’re going to put the women off their suppers,” David hissed from where he sat nearby.
David Nightingale was Percy’s best friend. And some days—like today—he wanted tomurder him.
“You made me come to this party,” he reminded his friend.
“‘Made’ is a very strong word,” David drawled. Drawling was David’s most favored method of speaking. It would be annoying, except Percy knew all too well that it was when David got serious that you truly needed to worry. “Might I remind you that you are a duke? It is, as it happens, nearly impossible to make a duke do anything.”
“Please,” Percy scoffed. “There are hierarchies of power, as you well?—”
“Save it,” David ordered flatly. “I’m already bored. Just please behave like a normal person, all right? Is that too much to ask?”
It really wasn’t very much to ask, but Percy still felt disinclined to obey the command.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was going to be here?” he demanded. “You know how I feel about them.”
“By ‘she,’ I assume you mean Lady Catherine Lightholder, and by ‘them’ I assume you mean her family. To which I reply: I did not tell you about her coming because your rivalry with her family is stupid. And because it is my party and I can invite whomever I please. Besides,” he waved a hand. “The little sister is on the marriage market, I gather. Perhaps she’ll make her match at the event. I fancy myself a bit of an Eros, recently. I shall give a toast at the wedding and become dearest friends with the groom, whereupon I shall replace you for your crime of being terribly irksome.”
Percy was unimpressed by this threat. If David was going to replace him, he would have done so ages ago.
“I wish you and your new friend many happy returns,” he deadpanned.
David huffed air out through his nose in a highly expressive manner, but he let Percy be through the remainder of the meal.
In return, Percy tried to glare at Lady Catherineslightlyless.
It was a true challenge, however. She was just so…perfect. It wasn’t just that she was pretty, though she was, what with that slim frame with its gently sloping curves. And her light brown hair should have been unremarkable, but it flattered her coloring well, highlighting the blue eyes that all those Lightholders seemed to possess.
But the worst part of it was that, as far as social mores went, she never seemed to make a mistake—that infinitesimally small show of temper when he’d goaded her aside. And it wasn’t the stiff, polished kind of propriety, either. She seemed genuinely attentive to those around her. She smiled and nodded and asked the right kind of questions.
She brought others out of their shells. And none of them seemed to realize that, in doing so, Lady Catherine revealed nothing about herself.
Absolutely typical. He wouldn’t put it past the Lightholders to train their women as spies, sent out into Society to learn the secrets of other aristocrats that the men could then use to crush them like gnats.
Not that he was obsessed or anything like that—no matter what David accused him of being.
