Page 43 of A Night of Desire with a Duke
The lie was so audacious, so artfully timed, that Catherine almost admired the sheer brazenness of it. Almost.
“I was in the library,” Catherine said at last, her voice carrying with calm precision. She stepped forward into the small circle of scrutiny, her chin lifted, her tone steady though her pulse thundered in her ears. “Reading. Alone.”
“The library?” Miss Worthing echoed, widening her eyes in feigned surprise. Her lips curved into a smile too polished to be innocent. “How very curious. For I could have sworn it was the study. But then, Fairfax House is so very confusing, is it not? All those rooms so very alike, all those corridors so very dark.”
The garden seemed to draw a collective breath, for the implication was unmistakable. If the rooms looked alike and the corridors were dark, how could Lady Catherine have found the library? It was a snare laid with elegance and cruelty, and Catherine, to her horror, saw how perfectly it had been sprung.
“I know where I was,” Catherine said, her tone edged with ice, though her hands trembled at her sides.
“Of course you do,” Miss Worthing replied sweetly, her smile sharpened to a blade. “However, I could not help but notice that His Grace was also absent from the ballroom at precisely the same time. Such a coincidence, is it not?”
The murmur of voices swelled at once, a restless tide that rose and crashed around her. Every fan fluttered, every head craned closer, the glittering assembly quickening with the heady perfume of scandal. Catherine felt the weight of their stares like lead pressing against her chest, the delicious thrill of gossip sparking from one whispered speculation to the next. In that instant she knew she was balanced upon the knife’s edge of ruin, her reputation tossed like a bauble before the ravenous ton.
“That will suffice.”
The voice cut across the garden like a blade slicing through silk. The company startled, a hush falling so swiftly it was as though the night itself held its breath.
James.
He strode through the crowd, tall and unyielding, the gleam of the lanterns striking the severe planes of his face. Guests shrank aside instinctively, parting before him, none daring to impede the Duke of Ravensfield in his fury. His expression was carved from stone, a mask of ducal hauteur that permitted not the faintest flicker of weakness, yet Catherine’s heart jolted when she caught the fire raging in his eyes.
“Your Grace,” Miss Worthing simpered, dipping into a curtsy with artful innocence. “I was merely...”
“You were merely attempting to destroy the reputation of a lady whose character is above reproach,” James interrupted, his voice low and deadly calm. “And one cannot help but wonder what motive compels such venom, Miss Worthing.”
A flush crept up Miss Worthing’s throat, staining her face a mottled crimson. Still she lifted her chin, defiance clinging stubbornly to her. “I saw what I saw,” she said, the words trembling but loud enough to be heard by all.
"Did you? How fascinating. And what exactly were you doing wandering the private areas of the Fairfax house? Areas that, I might add, are quite far from the public rooms?"
It was a masterful counterattack. Miss Worthing's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.
"I was... that is..."
"She was looking for me," her mother interjected, coming to her daughter's rescue. "Amelia has such a poor sense of direction."
"Indeed?" James's smile was sharp as a razor. "Then perhaps she also has a poor sense of observation. Mistaking one room for another. Mistaking one person for another. Mistaking innocent behaviour for something scandalous."
"I know what I saw," Miss Worthing insisted, though with less certainty now.
“You saw Lady Catherine in a corridor,” James said, his tone flat, his authority absolute. “A corridor, which by your own admission was dark, in a house where every door and room resembles the next. And yet you presume yourself qualified to cast aspersions upon her character based on this fleeting, mistaken glimpse?”
“I merely thought people should know...” Miss Worthing began, her voice tight with indignation.
“Know what?” James’s voice rang out, sharper now, cutting through the garden air. “That Lady Catherine has the ability to read? That she, like any person with nerves and sensibilities, may sometimes seek a respite from the din of a crowded ballroom? Pray tell, Miss Worthing, what is so scandalous about that?”
A ripple of sound swept the company. Fans fluttered furiously, heads craned forward, eyes glittered with avid delight. This was better than any performance at Drury Lane; a duke defending a lady’s honour, the scent of impropriety in the air, and the promise of spectacle hovering like lightning before a storm.
Mrs. Worthing, older and sharper than her daughter, spoke into the silence, her voice deceptively careful. “If there was nothing improper,” she said slowly, “then one must ask why Your Grace is so very eager to leap to Lady Catherine’s defence.”
It was the question everyone else had been thinking but none had dared to utter. At once the garden fell silent. The hush was profound, so complete that even the trickle of the fountain seemed to still. Every gaze fixed upon the Duke of Ravensfield, waiting, hungry.
James said nothing at first. His jaw tightened, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, but he maintained the picture of ducal control. Yet Catherine, standing across the space, felt his eyes find hers with unerring precision. The intensity of that gaze pinned her in place, her heart pounding against her ribs. She knew—instinctively, with terrifying certainty—that he was weighing something, balancing on the edge of a choice from which there could be no return.
And then, before the entire assembly, he stepped deliberately into the abyss.
“I defend Lady Catherine,” James said, his voice low but carrying, “because she deserves defending. Because she is a woman of uncommon worth and remarkable character, who hasbeen subjected to whispers and petty malice merely for existing in the same rooms that I do.”
A collective gasp rippled through the gathering, sharp as a blade drawn from its sheath. The implication was unmistakable.
