Page 21 of The Duke
She seethed at this stupid bad luck. The first morning call she had paid in ten years and Mister bloody Plummer had to choose today to fall ill! Before she could give the plain refusal she had no qualms giving, however, Celine said quickly, “Dental care is so important. I am happy to wait. Lady Pecke will take care of me, I am sure.”
“Good, good, yes, excellent.” Lord Pecke was already making his way out the door and looked back impatiently. “Come on then, Duke. I don’t have all day.”
She glared murderously at Celine. She was as loath to be alone with Lord Pecke as she was to leave Celine in the company of Lady Pecke. The longer Celine was left alone with a countess, the more likely she would expose her ignorance and common habits. Oblivious of the danger, Celine returned the look with sweet, wide-eyed innocence.
As if that mouth didn’t give her away.
Kate had no choice but to follow Lord Pecke through the immaculate house and into a library of such chaos it momentarily distracted her. It took Pecke some minutes to unearth his desk.
As he did, he regaled her with his fever dreams: Tax the peerage! Give the working poor the administration of their own workhouses! A royal commission into the wages and working conditions of (of all things) governesses!
This was followed, once he found the bits of paper he was after, by the dry recitation of figures, facts, and obstacles regarding dental care, a topic Kate had never closely considered but which she now knew to be mind-numbing.
She staved off a lunatic turn by imagining all the things she would do to Celine, once she had the letter back.
When at last she returned to the parlour, her foul mood worsened when she saw that Celine was—How?—laughing with the ladies, drawn cosily about a table that had acquired a steaming teapot and cake, which Lady Pecke had begun to cut into wedges.
“Marvellous,” Lord Pecke said, dragging over a chair to join the party. “Marvellous, slice of cake just what a chap wants, eh, Duke?”
“Miss Genet and I,” Kate said with impressive restraint, “must take our leave. Immediately.”
Lady Pecke cast a concerned glance at Celine—personalconcern, Kate perceived at once, with amazement, concern because Celine was pale and had obviously not been well. As though she had made some internal decision—do-gooder—Lady Pecke impulsively wrapped a slice of cake and pressed it on Celine, who at first prettily demurred but then accepted the gift.
Only five more weeks, Kate reminded herself. This hell was finite.
CHAPTER NINE
They drove in silence for a minute or two, Celine turning her face up to search out fresh air and focusing on the houses they passed in an attempt to calm the dizzy nausea unfurling through her.
“Give it to me,” the duke said in a hard voice, her thin pretence at politeness done.
Celine handed the package over, and a moment later, felt a little better. There had been something wobbly and dense about the cake that had disturbed her. She hadn’t cooled down yet, but she began to feel steadier.
As the nausea subsided, she became aware in a new way of how close she sat to the duke, who seemed to radiate heat. She removed the shawl and threw it with her muff onto the seat beside her. If only she could remove her bonnet and lift her hair away from her neck.
It had been a disappointment not to meet Lord Burnley, but she would meet him soon enough. She liked Lady Pecke a great deal; she could imagine the genuine warmth and familial loyalty she so craved, living among the Peckes. More than a single romantic passion that time would erode, this was what she wished for.
“That went well,” she said, fidgeting with her clinging gloves. “Am I correct in understanding we will meet Lord Burnley in two days’ time, at Mrs. Johnson’s rout?”
“Yes.”
The duke was awful at polite conversation, but Celine was satisfied. After overcoming her bout of nerves, she had endeared herselfto Lady Pecke without the duke’s help. Her mind was whirling with the new social vocabulary she was beginning to learn and which she would have to navigate: routs and teas, balls and musicales.
In the circumscribed view her bonnet allowed, she could see the duke’s thighs, clad in buckskin breeches that left nothing to the imagination. From her body, and not her mind, came the memory of being cradled between those thighs. She swallowed. The duke’s gloved hand tightened over the head of the cane.
She slowly became aware the duke was staring at her. Reluctantly, she looked up.
The duke’s gaze was a weight that became heavier the longer it stayed on her. The unsettling eyes seeming to glow brighter, their queer otherworldliness oppressing her, until she felt she might be crushed and looked away.
In all her plans, it had been easy to take what she wanted from the duke, whom she hated. She had disregarded what she remembered about the duke’s searing presence. After all, the overheated, lust-addled, worshipping young woman who had made those memories had not been given a chance to memorialise them. The very depth of her feeling had been what ensured she would hate the duke when she woke alone and abandoned. The sting of rejection had sealed it.
But… she was not impervious. It was a humiliating realisation.
“I could buy you a husband,” the duke said suddenly. “Tomorrow. If I put it about that your dowry is eighty thousand pounds, we should be able to find a lord desperate enough to cooperate. I’ll speak to the archbishop and get you a license.” The duke was visibly warming to the idea. “It need take no more than a day or two, and the thing is done. You married, and I receiving what you have promised.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “No.” And then, more forcefully, “No!”
The duke had misunderstood her desires last night in this same way, and it had irritated her then. But it was nothing to what she felt now, edging into panic. Now, she had taken tea with a countessand knew beyond doubt that she hadpleased her. Now she had tasted the world, she wanted to make her own.
