Page 22 of The Duke
How could the duke think a grubby, underhanded deal with a desperate man would satisfy her?
“I want it all done properly,” she said, her voice harsh and nakedly angry. “The courting, the ball, the banns, all of it.Eighty thousand pounds?For a French girl nobody’s ever heard of? I want to belong, not become lifelong fodder for gossip. Nothing underhanded and sordid, do you understand me?”
Answering anger blazed into the duke’s face. “No blackmail, then?”
Celine felt it like a blow. She had forgotten—an extraordinary omission—what her own criminal part in all this was.
She was flushed with shame, and still she made herself say, “Everything is to be done properly.”
The rest of the drive passed in silence. When they pulled into the front yard of the duke’s house, the duke stepped down from the carriage before it had even stopped and, with a flash of her boots and a flick of her coattails, disappeared through the front door.
Chastened, Celine entered more slowly. She had thought she understood who the duke was in Paris, but while drinking tea in Lady Pecke’s far smaller house, she had realised her knowledge was incomplete. The English ladies had transparently held the duke in awe. They had feared her. But they hadn’t known her. The curiosity about what was private—about a young woman like Celine living in the house of a tyrant—had been palpable. What did they imagine might befall Celine, here in the duke’s clutches?
What didshefear?
When she reached her rooms, she collapsed onto the sofa and couldn’t rouse herself for some time. When at last she did, it was to call for wine.
She was more tired than she should have been from a simple outing. The longing to climb into bed and find oblivion parched her veins. But when Adele returned with wine and a plate of fruits and cold meat, Celine gestured the maid into a chair.
“Sit with me please,” she said in English. “Share my meal, and speak with me a while.”
She could sleep when she was someone’s wife.
Adele eyed the plate, looking a little dumbfounded. “You’re a duke’s ward now, miss. It wouldn’t be right. But I’ll gladly stay and talk, if that’s what you want. Besides, I’ll be eating with Miss Everett and Mr. Hill now, won’t I, and I’m that nervous. Better not to ruin my appetite.”
She felt some warm confusion. Her own place in the social hierarchy had long been ambiguous. In some ways higher than the mistress of the house; in some ways lower than the scullery maid.
Having refused her body sleep, she discovered she was ravenous, and began to eat. For a long time, she and Adele talked about this and that, and laughed over her English, and improved it. She asked Adele to model the way a young Englishwoman walked, and curtseyed, and sat.
Later, when she dressed and went down for dinner, only one place had been laid at the table. Six footmen attended her in the vast and lonely room.
CHAPTER TEN
Kate was reading some interesting correspondence regarding one of her investments when she felt the air change.
Celine was here.
Her head whipped up to the study doorway. It was empty, the door closed.
She knew Celine was here. She couldfeelit, like a file dragged over her skin. It was late, and the study was lit by warm lamplight, the faces painted in their gold medallions between bookshelves looking on in the benevolent glow.
She stood, then cocked her head to listen.
Nothing.
But still she was certain. Celine was here, come to disturb Kate’s peace and solitude, come where she had no right to be. Kate had endured the afternoon by Celine’s side. She had done what needed to be done and could not be expected to do more today.
Swiftly, her boots ate up the floor. Celine should not be here.Must notbe here.
She flung open the door and there was Celine—present suddenly in flesh as well as sensory knowing—leaning insolently against the wall opposite, waiting. Her large green eyes were full of distaste, like she knew exactly what Kate would do when she reached her. And yet she wasn’t running down the hall, screaming.
Guts and sheer bloody nerve.
Kate took Celine in more thoroughly. Not just a pair of witching eyes and an insolent attitude. Glossy black hair brushed out and falling straight to her bottom. A modest nightgown, unbuttoned atthe neck. A heavy brocade dressing gown hanging open, held up almost negligently by a shoulder and elbow. Bare feet.
This was not the wholesome beauty who had taken tea with Lady Pecke. Here was Celine Genet with all her wits and wiles about her.
Her hair had grown so long.
