Page 39 of The Duke
“It didn’t matter, in the end,” Celine said, then shrugged. “You didn’t take me anyway.”
Had Celine truly thought she might? Celine, the unflinching realist, who had just admitted her own selfish motivations regarding Bastien… Surely, she hadn’t clung on to the fatuous, self-aggrandising fantasy of an English duke taking a little French nobody, a stranger, home with her?
And yet… The hairs rose at the back of Kate’s neck when she realised that she was, this very moment, doing just that. In her carriage, with Celine, going home.
“How did you fare with Lord Burnley?” she asked, turning away from the disturbing thought. “You didn’t cock up too badly, if I may take Lady Pecke’s manner of farewelling me as an indication.”
Celine regarded her, the outrageous mouth falling into a pout. “Do you always expect me to cock things up?”
“Yes.”
Celine made an affronted noise. “Why?”
“You are a mouse—”
“Amouse?!”
“—trying to pass yourself off as a lion. I expect the pride to sniff you out and gobble you up at every moment.”
“You understand,” Celine said, “that my profession has been toplease.”
“A mouse may please a lion—”
“Mayit?”
“—but that doesn’t make it a lion. There is a reason one isn’tconsidered to truly belong to the upper classes until the distinction has passed down three or four generations. Believe me, the middle classes try, and will never succeed, because upper class is something oneis, not something one does. Yes, you will cock up. Our best chance of success is a quick engagement, so again I ask: How did you fare with Lord Burnley?”
“Ipleased him,” Celine said acidly. “He made it clear enough he intends to pursue me.”
“Good.” Itwasgood. “I was surprised you went for him.” That wasn’t so good. She hadn’t meant to say it.
“Why?” Celine sounded genuinely puzzled.
“Because—”Because I know what you like.Iam what you like.She pressed her teeth together so hard her jaw ached, then looked away, her hand tightening over the head of her cane.
“Because he’s ugly?” Celine said, suddenly sounding amused. “What use have I for a handsome man?”
“You enjoy admiration,” she said, annoyed at feeling she had to defend herself. “You want people to envy you when you enter a room. Lord Burnley doesn’t elicit either of those feelings in the people around him.”
“Is that what I want?”
She shifted uncomfortably. This line of questioning was getting them nowhere.
“You are satisfied, then? You’ll accept him?”
Celine sobered. “Yes.”
That was that, then. She was aware of not feeling as happy as she should have.
She expected it to be the end of the conversation, but Celine seemed to have woken up a bit, in the mood for a chat. “He told me about his father’s bill. A clever, mercenary piece of legislation.”
“Good God, don’tyoustart! I’ve heard about nothing but this ridiculous nonsense all evening.”
“I wouldn’t call it ridiculous. Radical, perhaps. I’m surprised you’re so dismissive of it, given the implications it has for the mines you and Lord Wroth have been fighting over.”
Her troubled mind sharpened into a single, startled point of focus, which she turned on Celine. “What did you just say?”
“The mines you and Lord Wroth are fighting over—”
