Page 69 of The Duke's Last Dance
As she looked around at all the people in the ballroom, she caught a glimpse of her fiancé. He was talking to some of the ladies, but there were other men around. He was the only man, in fact, without a woman on his arm. He spoke with them gently, but she could not hear the conversation.
Then, one of the ladies laughed and put her hand on his shoulder. He did not shrug it off as he had done before. In fact he took her hand in his, kissed her knuckles, and then pulled her closer to him.
He had never done that with her, and she now realized that Nicolas had done it to her before. She loved being pulled into a man like that, and not once had he ever done it to her. As she thought about it, looking at how he was interacting with the other ladies, Catherine came to the realization that she had never loved the Duke of Hestina.
And, perhaps, he had never loved her. She had talked to him once about how she liked to be danced with, how she liked to have her knuckles kissed, how she wanted to share a kiss after being pulled into him as he had just pulled the other lady into him.
If he were willing to do that to the other women, but not to his fiancée who had told him she liked that kind of thing, then why would he marry her?
Her stomach twisted and turned, knotting up. She suddenly found herself doubting if she could go through with the marriage. He gave away his affections freely to all the ladies but herself; and she did not like it. She felt…shefelt jealous of the way he was looking at the other ladies.
Lord Burton continued to interact with the other ladies, and the more she watched him, the more Catherine realized that he could philander at any moment he wasn’t being watched. She was not going to marry someone who needed a mother to watch him at all times to be faithful to his wife.
It would only make her worried that any time she left the home; he was going to invite a lady friend over and philander his way into her heart. For all she knew, he could leave her the moment she started to lose her beauty and leave her scandalized…
Chapter Thirty
She had managed to make her doubts disappear into the back of her mind for a little bit. Lord Burton asked her to dance with him, and they shared a waltz. He pulled her close, as if he did not know that she had been watching him interact with the other women.
He held her close to his frame, and for a few minutes, she felt as though everything was right with the world again. Lord Lockhart did not know what he was talking about, and he was only jealous that she was getting married to someone else. That he had missed his chance to be with her because he had not written her for two months and expected her to be okay with that.
He should have learned from when he disappeared into the Navy.
Their first dance finished, and Lord Burton kept her close as another song began to play in the background. This one, she recognized. It was the same song that had played when Nicolas had first promised to marry her during all those years ago.
As she danced with Lord Burton, his clunky frame and unwieldy stride caused her to stumble a couple of times. He could not keep time, and he did his best, but it was horrible to dance to a song she so loved like this.
That was the moment she realized she needed to get out of the engagement dinner. She had to bring it to an end somehow. Her first instinct was to pretend to faint; she had seen a few other parties and dinners brought to an abrupt end when the hostess or someone in the hostess’s family fainted before.
She waited for the dance to finish, and as Lord Burton escorted her to the refreshments table, she stumbled. Lord Burton caught hold of her under the arms and she allowed herself to go completely limp, closing her eyes.
She refused to shake awake for him.
“Oh dear… please wake up, Catherine,” Lord Burton said.
“I do apologize, guests, but it seems my daughter is having some problems tonight,” her father’s voice echoed. “If you would please be so kind as to leave so we could attend to her. I do apologize, again, for having to cut the festivities short.”
She heard the footsteps of all the guests leaving, but she still felt Lord Burton holding her.
“Lord Burton, perhaps you ought to give us a few moments with her. Maybe she will wake naturally if she lies on the cold floor for a few minutes.” Her mother spoke next.
The duke agreed, and gently laid her down on the floor. He left the room, and she waited until she was certain he was not coming back to compose herself. She slowly opened her eyes, moaning.
Lord Burton had not left the room. It seemed he had had his suspicions about her fainting spell.
“Lord Burton,” she began.
He walked back over to her, and he helped her up.
“I would like to talk to everyone in private. Perhaps we could move to the study?” Catherine asked.
She looked to her father. He was shocked, but he nodded slowly.
They all made their way up to his study, and Catherine made it a point to walk as far away from the duke as she possibly could.
“What is this about, sweetheart?” The duke started the conversation before her parents could get involved. Thankfully, he had waited until they got to the study to say anything. “Why do you give me such treatment now when only a few minutes ago, you were dancing so wonderfully with me?”
“I’ve heard the most horrible rumor about you…” She pulled away from him when he tried to take her hand. “How dare you try to hide your philandering ways from me!” She did not want to touch him, and she did not want to marry him. She took the ring he had given her that night off her finger and dropped it on the floor. “Our engagement is over, Lord Burton. I want nothing to do with a man who will ignore what I want, and then turn around and give other women the kind of treatment I have specified makes me feel wanted, loved.”
