Page 37 of The Duke
The duke was tall and exquisitely dressed, her powerful stature set off by the tailored coat. Her diamond pin and cufflinks flashed in the candlelight, her eyes no less bright. Mr. Howard might have some likeness to her, some echo of the force she exerted on the world around her so effortlessly, but as Celine beheld her, his seemed but a very pale echo, fading into nothing. Here was the Howard quality, distilled. And all that power and vigour was turned with serious contemplation on Lord Pecke as she listened to him.
The duke made a sudden retort, at which Lord Pecke reddened and responded in kind. The duke fell back into listening, and after a time, too low for Celine to hear the substance, spoke. Lord Pecke, in turn, listened.
Those hard lips… The decisive shapes they made… Not the smallest admission of doubt as the duke spoke. She couldn’t hear the duke’s voice, but such was her focus she could almost understand what the duke was saying, like a blind and deaf child holding her naked palm in front of the duke’s lips as they moved, learning the shape of words. The duke shook her hair back, revealing the brutal plane of her cheek.
“Miss Genet?”
She turned back to Lord Burnley, her heart pounding, and for a moment, beholding him, she felt absolutely nothing. She made herself take him in, detail by detail—the slight concern in his eyes, the equable line of his brow, his soft mouth that she couldn’t imagine ever speaking a hard word—and all at once she felt a rush of relief.
Here, before her, was a good man who wished to have her in his life. A dream of her, a carefully cultivated version of her, yes, but every relationship had an element of dreaming, an element of cultivation. She was comfortable living with that.
This man would not devour her and spit her out again. He would be solicitous when she was ill and mindful of her comforts. And he would not regret it, if he chose her. She would please him until the day he died.
“The duke and your father look angry,” she said in a confiding tone, “but I think they’re happy actually.”
That made him smile. “It’s true, nothing makes Father happier.”
“Tell me about your father’s bill.”
And so, as the supper progressed, he did. More than the content of his conversation, she listened to the phrases he used. The punctuativerather. The declarativeI daresay. The anonymising subjectone. Her English was improving.
And all through the conversation, she couldn’t quite shake her awareness of the duke which, once woken, was difficult to stuff back into the box.
I daresay one would rather prefer to lose one’s mind.
Wine flowed freely, and the mood around the table becameinformal. Once, Lord Burnley made her genuinely laugh, and she was aware in her peripheral vision how the duke turned to look at her.
When dessert was being laid on the table, she asked, “And does the duke support your father’s bill?”
Lord Burnley looked at her incredulously. “Support it? No. No one does. My father hasn’t passed a bill in decades.”
“But… The duke seems so much interested. She has listened to your father all evening…”
“I hope,” Lord Burnley said delicately, “perhaps she has some other reason for listening to him that didn’t exist before.”
It was what she’d been angling for all evening. An honourable man like Lord Burnley wouldn’t make his interest so clearly known unless he planned to pursue it. It was the chance at a bed to sleep in for the rest of her days.
And yet all she felt was a curious blankness. A goal accomplished. An item checked off the list. She had caught his interest, and now he would court her.
“I hope so as well,” she said, and made her voice a warm promise.I might not love you, but I will be grateful. I will please you so well you won’t know the difference.
WHEN THE GENTLEMENremoved for brandy, Richard performed a minor miracle and extricated Kate from Lord Pecke’s clutches. She wasn’t entirely certain how he’d managed it, only that she could have kissed him in gratitude.
Until they were in the empty billiards room, smoking, and he made no bones about the reason he’d got her alone.
“Let me have her,” he said bluntly.
She didn’t need to ask who he meant. He’d orbited Celine all evening. She groaned and tipped her head back, letting out clouds of smoke. “Trust me, cousin,” she said. “You don’t want her.”
Richard shook his head. He stubbed out his unfinished cheroot in a glass bowl. When he looked up, his eyes were bleak, and inthem was a slow, banked fire. “I want you to say why you won’t let me have her. I want you tosay it. Is it because I have no rank? You yourself told her I’ll be prime minister someday. Are those empty words?”
Her voice loosened immediately into an affection that was rare for her. Vanishingly rare. How had he misunderstood her so badly? “Richard,no.” She stepped toward him and cupped his face with her free hand, her fingers around the back of his skull, obliging him to look at her.
Those dark, steady eyes, full of uncertainty.
There was a vein of insecurity in Richard, well hidden, invisible to most people. It had to do, she thought, with what he’d been born to, and what he deserved. She sometimes thought it went all the way back to the small boy sitting in a duke’s house, staring in bewilderment at the treasures one branch of the family possessed, when he had nothing.
Waiting among treasures while his mother was inside begging.
