Page 27 of The Duke
She glanced down at Celine, expecting Celine would be thoroughly enjoying herself. Instead, she looked sober and thoughtful.
She pressed her advantage. “I say this not because I enjoy speaking of such things, but because you must understand she will not look kindly on any ward of mine.”
“I understand,” Celine said, and oddly, Kate believed her.
She realised with some surprise that she wished to continue speaking with Celine—though she couldn’t imagine on what topic. She tried to suppress the urge, just as she had with the hot tide of attraction she’d felt in the haberdasher. To her amazement, she realised she wasn’t going to succeed. She reached desperately for another way to stave off conversation.
“Are you hungry?” she said.
“Well, yes,” Celine said. “Starving.”
Celine’s surprise at this modest show of consideration spoke volumes about her opinion of Kate.
Ignoring the immature wish to change Celine’s mind about her, Kate sent one of the footmen to acquire a couple of sticky buns, and another for a chair and parasol. She stood silently by while Celine ate both buns, one after the other. The sun played over Celine’s hat and shoulders whenever the footman’s attention wavered. Kate was aware of feeling uncomfortable and even a little foolish. She was aware of feeling something close to pleasure.
She had some notice of disaster descending on them. A handful of seconds, maybe.
CELINE LICKED HERsticky fingers and wondered if anyone had ever felt so happy.
Compared to the soaring stone arcades of the Palais Royal, Bond Street was not particularly grand. It looked more like the high street of a well-to-do country town. But Celine had only frequented the Palais Royal as wares to be bought. She had never been one of the pedestrian shoppers, looking with delight into windows, knowing if something she saw there took her fancy, she could enter the shop and buy it.
More—the shopkeepers would fall over themselves to sell it to her. It was a duke who escorted her today, as it had been a duke who owned the entire Palais Royal.
A pristine handkerchief appeared beneath her nose, and sheaccepted it, absentmindedly wiping her fingers while she watched a boy make his dog jump for treats in the street, and only belatedly realised it was the duke who had offered it to her. She stared first at the handkerchief, suspecting some trick, and then, bewildered, at the duke.
The duke was looking away down the street, frowning.
Celine heard the disturbance, then, as it drew closer: sharp yells and whinnies, the crash of an overturned cart, and something splintering.
She stood. A rider was driving her horse much too fast down the busy street, with no consideration for those in her path. It was Lord Royston, and she was making directly for the duke and Celine.
Celine’s first blank feeling was the annoyance of a competent planner whose instructions had been ignored. She had told Lord Royston to encounter them by accident and to be on her best behaviour. The duke would have acknowledged Lord Royston and even allowed her to accompany them up the street rather than risk a public altercation.
Then the possibility of real trouble began to dawn on her.
Lord Royston pulled her horse to an abrupt halt, its hooves skidding and sending up clouds of dust from the road. The boy and his dog, who had been playing bare inches away, dashed off. Lord Royston was wearing the same clothes she’d had on last night, now rather worse for wear. Her coat was slung over her shoulders, her billowing shirtsleeves were on scandalous display, and she wore no hat. Her hair streamed, long and dishevelled, over her shoulders, and the dripping topaz and pearls at her ear clacked together as she swayed to dismount.
Halfway down, her boot caught in the stirrup and she fell the rest of the way, landing on her back with her leg above her. She lay in the dirt, laughing. Her horse snorted in irritation and dragged her two paces before one of the duke’s footmen leapt forward to catch its bridle.
Celine stared down at the dusty English marquess patheticallycontorting herself to disengage her heel—so different to the urbane aristocrat she’d spoken to last night—and realised with a queasy tilt that she’d got it wrong. She’d been so thrilled to find someone who hated the duke as much as she did that she hadn’t really applied herself to thinking beyond what gratified her.
That is the worst person in London. Nobody could be more dangerous to your fledgling reputation.
“Help Her Lordship to her feet,” the duke said, her voice grim. The subtle ease that had entered her manner through the morning had vanished.
Lord Royston, possessed by a contrary spirit, struggled against the two footmen who tried to help her. “Borrow Cupid’s wings,” she said as she came upright. She put her boot into the bottom of a footman. “And soar with them above a common bound.” And pushed. She began to chase after the other footman, who started up like a hare, but she was brought to an abrupt halt. The footman made his escape. Lord Royston looked down to where the metal tip of the duke’s cane pressed into her chest.
When she looked up, her face blazed, and she lifted her arms wide. “A happy coincidence, cousin! I came to see you yesterday, but perhaps nobody told you. I waited.”
By this time, a small crowd had stopped to watch. It was the opposite of how Celine had hoped this meeting would unfold.
“Go home,” the duke said coolly. “You will regret this when you have sobered.”
Lord Royston stared at the duke and then began, helplessly, to laugh. “But how shall I find such a puny regret,” she said, “among the wreckage of twenty years?”
Celine’s queasiness worsened.
“Royce,” the duke said. “Go home.”
