Page 82 of My Deceitful Duchess
“—And now that she’s got your babe in her belly, she has youtrapped.”
“Trapped? Father, Jenny doesn’tneedme. She never did!” Sebastian threw up his hands as his mother made frantic littleshushingnoises. “If there was anytrappingdone, it was the other way around.”
“What the devil do you mean by that?”
“I mean it was never her intention to wed me!”
But Mr. Knight was not to be stripped of his fury—no; now it merely careened in the opposite direction, offended all over again. “What? Was my son not good enough for you, then, madam? Good enough to debauch, but not to wed?”
“Debauch,” Sebastian groaned, sinking still further in his chair. “Christ.”
And Jenny said, coolly composed and entirely sedate, “Your Grace.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your Grace,” she repeated, in an even but firm voice, and placed her palms upon the table, rising to her feet. Though she could not claim the height that Mr. Knight could, still she notched her chin high and met his scathing stare with a demanding one of her own. “I am the Duchess of Venbrough, sir. When you address me, you will do so by my title.” And in the stunned silence that followed, during which Mr. Knight deflated like a leaky bellows as he sunk back into his chair, she turned to Sebastian and asked, “Was that seven pegs, do you think?”
“Atleastnine.” Sebastian gave her an admiring grin.
“Winston,” Mrs. Knight hissed, when she had recovered from the shock of the row that had erupted over her dinner table. “Don’t be—be—”
“Anarse, Father. Don’t be such a stodgy old arse.”
“Sebastian,” Mrs. Knight said. “Language.”
And Jenny laughed, politely smothering the sound in her fingers. “Mary,” she said, “My apologies. I have made such a wreck of your dinner—”
“Not at all, my dear.” Mary offered a weak smile. “Of course, had I ever imagined that dinner would run the way it has, I would have demanded their best behavior from the beginning.” This, with a pointed little glare toward her son and husband.
A little scoff from Charles, who had remained scrupulously quiet through his father’s tirade. “Too late forthat,” he said. He lifted his fork, flicking the tines to indicate Jenny. “You haven’t exactly been onyourbest behavior either, have you, Madame Laurent?” And then he sent a supercilious, snide smile toward Sebastian. “The baby—if indeed thereisone—probably isn’t even your get.”
The stillness that descended over the table was thick and heavy, and Mrs. Knight gave a short, sharp, and resigned, “Oh,Lord.”
Just as Sebastian vaulted across the dinner table.
Chapter Thirty Seven
“Ow.” Sebastian flinched away from the chunk of ice wrapped in a cloth that Jenny pressed over his eye, which was swiftly blacking. She had dragged him off to the kitchen—the very moment she was able to pull him off of his brother, who had been simply overcome by the fact that Sebastian had gotten the better of him.
“Serves you right,” she snapped. “What were you thinking?”
“That I was defending your honor?” It was issued sullenly, with a sheepish expression—or as sheepish an expression as he could manage, given that half of his face was obscured beneath the cool cloth. He gave a little sniff, and though it sounded pained, his nose did not appear to be broken.
“Fisticuffs,” she said, and let the word draw out into a disapproving hiss. “In your mother’s dining room! I’m certain she taught you better than that. And you’reluckyto have escaped with only a black eye for your pains!”
“It was worth it.”
“You knocked one of your brother’s teeth loose!”
“He deserved it.” Sebastian groaned as she pressed the ice against the swelling of his face with even more force. “Taught him a valuable lesson or two.”
“And which lessons were those?”
“That just because I have not chosen before to answer his jibes with violence does not mean I am incapable of doing so.” He managed a grin, made slightly macabre by the faint streak of blood across his teeth. Probably his teeth had cut his cheek in the fray. “And that if he wishes to keep the teeth remaining to him, he’ll refrain from maligning you in my hearing.” His hand curled around hers. “Iamsorry to have ruined dinner.”
“You arenot.”
“I’ll admit I rather enjoyed you taking Father to task. The rest of it I could have done without. But Ididwarn you.”
