Page 24 of The Duke
Celine’s lip was darker where she’d bitten it, and wet. “If you don’t scorn the nobility for their choices, you can hardly scorn me. Besides, my title shall make me very happy indeed. Maybe”—Celine’s brows slanted wickedly over her sparkling eyes—“I shall even become a duchess. Who will look down on me then?”
The idea of Celine as somebody’s duchess hit in the solar plexus. Even as Kate’s ward, it shouldn’t be possible for an unknown miss from Paris to catch the attention of a duke. But what if she did?
“Iwill know who you are,” Kate said, something dark singeing her voice. “What you are. I will always know.”
“That’s all right,” Celine said breezily, “I shall avoid you as much as possible. I shan’t beyourduchess.”
No, by God. She wouldn’t.
And what if Kate had to attend a dinner hosted by Celine and pay her the proper courtesies?
What if Kate and Celine were invited to the same country party, and she had to sleep next door to where Celine and her husband slept—knowing her husband could not satisfy her—and encounter her in the breakfast room?
She glimpsed for the first time how this torture might not end when she retrieved the letter, and it made her want to smash everything.
She had known better. Never expose yourself. Maintain control at all costs. And yet she had succumbed to Celine’s attractions; she had given herself up for a night of fantasy.
What thin enamel the irresistible shine of that night had proved itself to be, easily scratched off.
“Then we will proceed as planned,” she said, without inflection or feeling, “and get you Lord Burnley.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On the way back to her rooms, Celine stopped a footman who was hurrying along the hallway holding a wooden box. “Excuse me. Who is the woman, she waits downstairs?”
That is the worst person in London. You will stay away from her.
The footman knew immediately who she meant. He scowled and shifted the box to his hip. “Oh, her? That’s Her Grace’s cousin.”
“Hercousin?” she said, appalled. It was obvious the woman had been waiting a long time, and that she’d been given neither refreshments nor company.
She had known the duke treated other people like dirt, without mercy or consideration, but it somehow still shocked her to find the duke wouldn’t see her own cousin, to whom every law of human decency bound her. Celine thought with longing of the Pecke household, where affectionate warmth was a matter of course.
“Aye, Her Lordship the Marquess of Royston. A real scoundrel, though it ain’t my place to say so. Don’t you give her another thought, miss, she’ll leave eventually.” Something seemed to occur to him, and he added, “Maybe lock your door tonight, though. Just in case.”
“Thank you,” she said, still reeling a little from the revelation.
She waited until the footman had disappeared around the corner, then made her way down to the green salon and peered in.
Lord Royston was still there, sprawled in a chair by the fire. The glow reflected off her tall black boots and the gold stitching in her scarlet waistcoat. Her cravat hung loose around the openneck of her shirt where a familiar pendant hung on a necklace. A greatcoat with at least five capes was thrown over her shoulders. It gave her tall, athletic form the nonchalant elegance of a brooding prince. She stared into the flames with an expression of unutterable boredom.
Where the duke was light, Lord Royston was dark. Her face was thinner and less brutal, her mouth and eyes heavy from habitual overindulgence. Her long hair was pulled over one shoulder within the mantle of her coat.
Now that Celine was looking for it, the family resemblance was clear in the severe brow and cheeks, and the nose with its fine, chiselled tip. But the sharp features had a different effect in Lord Royston’s thin face. She looked dissolute. Sardonic.
Defeated.
Celine buttoned her dressing gown, then entered and announced herself with a delicate cough.
In the first instant, Lord Royston’s expression was inscrutable. Had she hoped it was the duke who had come? Feared it? It was impossible to tell.
Then she tipped her head back against the seat, exposing the long column of her throat, and looked at Celine from beneath heavy lids. She smiled, slow and wicked. Sprawled in the chair, her clothes half undone, her beauty wrecked by dissipation, she looked like Lucifer incarnate.
“Oh goody,” she purred, “a pretty little morsel for my supper.”
Celine pursed her lips, amused. “Does your supper scream or swoon, usually? I want to get it right.”
The lids dropped a fraction, and the mouth twitched. “I’ll make you do both, if you like. Scream first, swoon second, for preference. What a delightful accent.”
