Page 12 of Wedded to the Forbidden Duke
“I see.” He nodded a few times to himself, thinking. “So I am to understand that you are entirely silent in the company of other gentlemen? Quiet as a church mouse?”
Cecilia’s eyes narrowed. “I fail to see how that is your business,” she replied, though her attempt at coolness was belied by a hint of annoyance beginning to dance around the edges of her tone.
“I assure you, I am not attempting to pry, Lady Cecilia,” he said calmly, seeming enjoying how his unceasingly calm tone seemed only to enrage her further. “I am merely making conversation. That would be the polite thing to do, no? To make up for my previous behavior.”
She scoffed. “It would be polite, I suppose. Though you will forgive me for saying that you seem to me to be the entirely unrepentant type.”
“It seems there are a great deal many differenttypesyou would seek to categorize me as, Lady Cecilia,” he answered, sounding as though his interest had been piqued. “Do you see all the world as so easily divisible? To you, there is repentant and unrepentant. There is honorable and dishonorable. There are gentlemen and rakes.”
She furrowed her brow. “Do you disagree with my categorizations?”
“I do not believe anything to be quite so black and white,” he answered easily.
She did not immediately reply with a biting comment. Instead, she paused, interested for once in what he had to say.
Perhaps encouraged by this, Ian cleared his throat, and continued, “At least, I will say, I have not found them to be so on my travels. People rarely fit so neatly into boxes.”
“Is that so?” Cecilia answered, her voice slightly softer than before.
He nodded. “I believe so,” he said, his tone shifting to match hers.
How strange, to go so quickly from heated banter to polite, if invigorating, discussion. Though she had nearly taken offense at what he had said before, she now felt almost like returning the compliment—the Duke of Harwick was nothing if not entertaining. Indeed, she could not recall the last time he had so enjoyed a conversation with a dance partner.
“There are not honorable and dishonorable men,” he continued. “There are just men. And those men sometimes act with honor and sometimes act in spite of it. Though, in the particular case of…what did you call them? My more libertine activities?”
“Something like that,” she managed.
“Well.” A wicked smile flashed across his face, and Cecilia was heated within by the sight alone. “I see nothing dishonorable about those in the slightest.”
His hand pressed harder against her waist, and she tightened her grip on his shoulders more firmly, as though convinced somehow that she might stumble if she didn’t. His well-formed features; the low rumble of his voice; the heat of his body so close to hers. She had never felt like this before. She wanted to run away.
Worse, she wanted to draw closer still.
God, but Lady Cecilia was fun to tease. While he had been motivated to ask her to dance with him by something almost like envy, the result was quite entertaining. He was playing with fire, he knew, nettling at her like this, when she seemed already so determined to dislike him at every turn. But there was something about her, something about the way her temper played out across that exquisite face that was impossible to get enough of, impossible to look away from.
Her cheeks were bright pink after his last remark, a sight that he quite enjoyed. “Is that so?” she said, her voice strained. Her hands grasped onto his shoulders. If he wasn’t quite so certain that she hated him, he would almost accuse her of swooning.
“Quite,” he said. His heart began to thump more fiercely in his chest as he took in those tempting lips. With her body pressed so close to his, it was almost impossible to think of anything but what it would feel like to be even closer, without all the distance and layers between them. “It is simply human nature. Nothing more, nothing less. I know society may have a different opinionon the matter, but I cannot pretend to agree or to understand why. It strikes me as silly, all of the rules we have.”
“The rules are the very backbone of society,” she argued. “They are its very foundation. Indeed, some would argue that the rulesaresociety. They are what keep us respectable.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is all a charade.” He nodded at the ballroom, but kept his eyes fixed on hers, unable to pull them away. “The pretty costumes. The food, the music. The dancing. People talking in circles around what it is they really think, what it is they really want, all with the goal of remaining respectable. Respectability is more important to most people than honesty, and it is that which I disagree with.”
Her brow furrowed. He expected another scathing remark. But when she opened her mouth, all she said was, “I believe we may have found something upon which we can agree, Your Grace.”
His brows lifted. “Is that so?”
“I believe there are some rules of society which are sensible to follow,” she said quickly, as though not wanting him to think she was all too agreeable. He couldn't help but smile. “But I agree that people are often much too reluctant to speak their mind truly. I cannot help but think the world would be a much better place—a much more interesting place, for that matter—if people were to say honestly what they thought, and what they felt. It is a matter of practicality. Otherwise, how are we to ever truly know one another? It makes for quite a lonely world when one cannot trust anyone to ever be truthful.”
Something hooked behind his chest. “My thoughts exactly,” he said lowly. With every step they took, he felt himself fight the urge to draw closer to her, closer, closer still. It was overwhelming.
It was…frightening.
Ian Repington had never once dealt with a challenge he couldn’t face, or feelings he couldn’t control.
And yet suddenly, in Lady Cecilia, he seemed to have found both.
As the music wound to an end, the couples stopped in their dances. To bow would be customary.
