Page 92 of Duke of Destruction
He had returned to Catherine’s room, and only when he saw that her chest was still rising and falling did he let out a breath of his own.
Godwin sat, precisely where he said he would be.
When Percy returned to his previous position, however, Godwin did not show any indication that he wished to leave. Instead, he settled more firmly back in his seat and regarded Percy thoughtfully.
“So,” he said. “You are in love with my sister.”
Percy let out a wheezing breath, as though he’d been punched directly in the gut.
“No,” he said, and then, when Godwin raised an eyebrow and began to look a bit mutinous, Percy raised a hand. “Not—I just—I need to speak with Catherine. Lady Catherine,” he corrected, because, realistically, Godwincouldhave him thrown from the house if he wanted to, and Percy could not bear that.
He would do just about anything to avoid it, actually. He would even, if forced, admit things that Catherine really ought to be the first to hear.
Because it wasn’t about his pride, and it wasn’t about his fear. Not any longer.
It was about Catherine and finally,finallydoing right by her.
And maybe Godwin understood that, because he gave Percy a thoughtful nod.
“Right,” he said. “Well, it turns out that I haven’t had the faintest idea what’s going on in my own house recently, so I’m just going to be clear with you from the start: if you hurt her, I will kill you. I don’t care that you’re a peer. They won’t hang me for it because they’ll never find the body. Do you hear me?”
Percy considered this, not because he felt that Godwin’s threat was overblown. Instead, he wondered if they would never find Crompton’s body.
Damn it all, he mightlikeXander Lightholder.
“If I hurt her,” he replied, “I’ll load the pistol for you myself.”
Godwin gave him—well, it wasn’t quite a smile, because how could it be, when everything was so dreadfully terrible and Catherine was still lying there, hurt and pale?
But there was approval in the look, at the very least.
“Good,” Godwin said, pushing to stand. “You can stay as long as you need, Seaton.” He crossed to the door and looked over his shoulder. “Please don’t tell my wife that I threatened to murder you. She will take exception.”
Hewas,alas, still the Duke of Godwin, for he swept out on this proclamation without waiting for Percy’s response.
And Percy settled back into his vigil, left with only a few thoughts able to penetrate his fear, among them the tiniest shred of hope about what could be if he could give up his prejudice against the Lightholders once and for all.
Everythinghurt.
Or, no, wait…
Catherine considered this as she gradually rose toward wakefulness. It was mostly her head that hurt. And her arm. And her back, a bit. And her rear.
Oh, very well. It wasnearlyeverything.
But somehow more egregious than the pain that radiated from a distressing number of places was the raging thirst that made her throat feel like it had been coated in a fine layer of grit.
Right, she thought, even though she was finding this curiously challenging to do. If she was thirsty, she had to drink. If she wanted to drink, she had to wake up.
Experimentally, she opened an eye. When that caused the pain in her head to flare up only a little , she courageously opened the other one.
She was in her bedchamber; that was normal.
What was less normal—aside from the pain—was that she was lying flat on her back like a corpse in its coffin. Catherine had slept on her stomach since she was a child. Her mother had always considered the lines her pillow left on her cheeks in the morning as among the many reasons Catherine had never found herself a husband.
And even less normal?
When she turned her head—ow—she saw…
