Page 15 of The Duke
If the servants were already gossiping about Celine, she was going to have to do everything by the book, even at home. The air she could freely breathe reduced by half. She reminded herself that in five weeks, Celine would be wed and she would have the letter.
Shaw, keeping pace a step behind, said in a different voice, “By the way, Lord Royston called on you early this morning. She’s still in the entrance hall, hat in hand. She would wait.”
Royce, here? That was a new and unpleasant development. Kate reversed course away from the entrance hall and began climbing the stairs to the first floor. “You may tell Lord Royston I haven’t time to see her today.”
Shaw’s breathing had become audible, but his quick, neat steps didn’t falter. He said hopefully, “And the French woman?”
“I won’t send Miss Genet away.” When he opened his mouth to argue, she said in a low, warning tone, “Do not push me on this.”
It was so much worse than he knew. Yes, if the ton discovered she was shoving a prostitute down their throats, there would be hell to pay. And as bad as it was, the alternative was still worse.
The letter, and everything it implied, was worse.
Forget the mines. What judge would rule in her favour once her childhood act of treason became common knowledge? What society would accept a woman who had killed her own family? What bank would loan her money, or lord countenance her presence in Parliament? She would have to leave England, living the rest of her life in exile.
She had built herself power and prestige as the only monument to her family she could afford. Guilt had not been allowed. Remorse had not been allowed. The smallest sign of either would have been the weakness her enemy used to destroy her. And to let herself fail would have been to let her family’s deaths be for nothing.
No. She would find the unsuitable Miss Genet a husband, sparing neither effort nor expense.
“I’ll need you to get me the full social calendar. Do I still get invited to any of these things?” It was ten years or more since she’d attended anything a debutante might attend.
“Yes,” Shaw wheezed. “All of them.”
She snorted, somehow not at all surprised. She could just imagine the steady flow of envelopes coming through her door every day and Shaw grumpily disposing of them.
She gained the top of the stairs and strode down the hallway towards the north stair. “Good. I’ll be attending anything Lord Burnley or Lady Pecke attends for the next two weeks. As will Miss Genet.”
His footsteps stopped, and as she kept walking, he fell quickly behind. “I’m going for breakfast,” he said sourly, and left without a farewell.
SHE BATHED THOROUGHLYfrom a basin of hot water—the time-sapping, languid heat of a bath irritated her—then sat, attempting to focus on the paper while Everett trimmed, brushed, and styled her hair.
Instead of reading the print, she was staring at the signet ring on her left hand. It was a mark of rank she wore even when she was naked. She had wanted it for as long as she could remember, and she had fought for it.
She had killed her family for it, and had to live when they didn’t, and had to livewith it.
She would not let a French vagrant render it worthless.
“Has Miss Genet woken yet?”
“Not yet, Your Grace.”
CHAPTER SIX
When Celine woke, she was so comfortable her body experienced it as pain. Her ankles rubbed across fine, warm linen. The mattress cradled her. Pillows as deep and soft as dreams bloomed around her, and all was enclosed in heavy drapes, her own drowsy universe. Did every person who had woken in a bed this morning understand the primal gratitude they should feel?
When she at last opened her eyes, she pushed the bed curtain aside with a heavy arm and looked at the clock. Just gone eleven, its chiming must finally have woken her. It was a mantel clock in the style of Thuret, upright and potbellied, standing on small peg feet and wearing a crown of finials. She had inspected it in a dreamlike delirium last night and hadn’t taken in the huge fireplace upon which it sat: carved of pale marble, two half-naked women with lovely tits holding the mantel aloft between them.
A deep, self-satisfied shiver ran through her, and she came up onto her knees, impatiently opening all the bed curtains. She looked about her as though her bed were a raft, and while she slept, it had sailed her into some distant safe harbour, exotic and unknown.
A rug covered the entire floor, though it was a large room. The walls were painted an indeterminate colour—a cool blue, or grey—and were decorated with white geometric moulding. The restraint felt almost unbearably mature. The vast ceiling, thesilence, the elegance were all the more deeply felt.
Bowlegged chairs sat about the room on their dainty feet, andagainst the far wall was a long sofa covered in silk a shade darker than the walls. Beside the window was a woman’s writing desk, well furnished with new paper and ink, upon which Celine’s exhausted candle from last night still sat.
Last night, she had thought the footman would show her to the attic and lock her in. Instead, this.
A brisk knock came on the door, and though she’d expected it, her breathing quickened. She had known the duke would want to make use of her while she was here. She would greet the duke with something crude and abrasive—Here for a fuck?—or should she pretend to be asleep? Sick?
Before she could settle on a response, the doors opened and the world spilled in. Maids in caps and aprons, their happy chatter lighting up the room even before the drapes were opened. In sunlight the walls became a gorgeous pale green, the polished wood of the furniture a deep, warm brown. One maid built up the fire, and two others began laying bathing things on a cloth-draped table. Her fright began to warm and melt into giddy amazement.
