Page 12 of Her Duke at Midnight
And she was most definitely not the only one to notice his arrival.
Indeed, his presence seemed to cause a strange energy to ripple across the gathered guests. Heads turned. Conversations quieted. Then the whispers began. Ladies leaned toward each other, their eyes on him as they spoke quietly to one another. One gentleman turned his back—an unmistakable cut—though the man who’d come to her room didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh my,” Fiona murmured.
Cecily’s heart dropped into her boots, and a dreadful realization dawned. The man who’d come to her room, the man who’d touched her—he was the scoundrel duke she was supposed to avoid.
Fiona clutched her arm, confirming what Cecily had surmised. “That’s him,” she rasped near Cecily’s ear. “That’s the man I warned you about on the way down. As you see, the Duke of Everton tends to cause a stir.”
Based on the way the house party guests continued to appraise and whisper about him behind cupped hands or lifted fans, he was causing more than a stir. He was causing a bit of an uproar. Two ladies who’d been watching his every move began bickering with each other. Then one broke away and approached Everton quite boldly.
As the lady approached the duke, his eyes locked on Cecily’s and widened momentarily in recognition. Then he did something extraordinary. He said something to the tall, handsome, brown-haired man at his side and then turned on his heel, exiting the room before the lady crossing toward him could reach her objective.
“Probably for the best,” Fiona said as she took another drink from a passing servant. “It’s actually quite honorable of him to remove himself from the situation.”
“I wonder where he’s gone.” Cecily reasoned that if the duke had been invited to the house party, he had as much right to partake in the activities as anyone else. It didn’t seem fair that he’d been put off from merely walking into the room. “And if he’ll be at dinner.”
Fiona turned an assessing gaze her way. “I know he may seem more appealing because of my warning, but I promise you, Cecily, the man has only ever offered momentary satisfaction to the ladies of his acquaintance, as far as I can tell.”
Cecily bit her lip and refrained from pointing out that Fiona had all but encouraged that when she spoke of taking a lover. But she knew it was best not to discuss the Duke of Everton. If anything, the man had departed so that the other guests wouldn’t gossip about him.
She took a sip of cordial, found it too sweet, and wished for a simple cup of tea. Most of all, she tried not to keep watching and wondering if the Duke of Everton would reappear.
“Lord Bellwether seems determined to monopolize Portia,” Fiona said, linking her arm with Cecily’s. “Shall we go and rescue her?”
“Yes, why don’t we?” Cecily was curious about the young widow and looked forward to making her acquaintance, though once they’d approached, they found themselves waiting awkwardly as Bellwether continued a soliloquy on the merits of a fisheries act that he hoped would pass in Parliament.
Cecily couldn’t help but notice that the man Everton had entered the room with looked a bit glum without him. She excused herself from Fiona’s side and made her way toward him—
“I don’t wish to alarm you.” That voice. That deep, rumbling voice that she’d been replaying in her head for hours sounded at her back. “But I think you should come with me.”
Cecily glanced back and began turning toward him.
“Don’t. Neither of us wishes to cause a scene, but there’s a…” He wasn’t facing her as he spoke. He’d somehow reentered the room without her noticing and lingered in the corner near where she and Fiona stood waiting for an opening with Lady Portia Hastings.
“There’s a…?” Cecily prompted as she stepped closer, but followed his lead and kept her attention focused on Fiona, hoping her friend wouldn’t notice her proximity to Everton.
“We should leave the drawing room,” he said quietly, almost a whisper.
Cecily couldn’t pretend to ignore him anymore. She turned to face him. “What on earth are you suggesting?”
Everton stepped toward her immediately, laid his hands on her upper arms as lightly as he’d touched her elbow earlier, and spun her so she faced away from him again.
“How dare you touch me so freely?” she hissed.
He immediately dropped his hands from her body.
Cecily frantically scanned the other guests and was shocked to find that no one seemed to notice their exchange in the corner.
“Forgive me,” he murmured, “but your gown is torn.”
Cecily closed her eyes and recalled a detail that had slipped her mind until that moment. The sound of a seam ripping as she’d taken her tumble.
“Where?”
He stood so close that when he let out a sigh, his heated breath unsettled the wisps of hair on her neck. “Your…backside,” he finally whispered.
“No.”
