Page 51 of The Duke
Lord Seaton would cut Celine direct, if she didn’t do worse. Perhaps she would have her thrown out; perhaps she would publicly decry her for indecency. It would cause a stir in the busy library, whose patrons crossed the full spectrum of political and social clout, and Lord Wroth’s campaign against Kate would have started with a bang.
She checked her pocket watch, and her palms prickled with a sudden cold sweat. After five o’clock. Surely they hadn’t already met—
“Kate,” Richard said gently. “You’re too late.”
She stared at him, feeling slow and stupid. So even this last conversation between them had not been without its ulterior motive. He had been keeping her so that she wouldn’t be able to intervene in time. And there was excitement in his eyes. He hadn’t told her as a last gesture of love, but because he wished to witness her realisation that he had bested her.
That he, at last, had the upper hand.
She didn’t say the final goodbye she’d intended. She didn’t see the rooms or faces as she half ran back through them. Lord Wroth’s laughter chased her out into the street and onto her horse, and even when every other sound was lost to the thud of her horse’s hooves and the wind rushing past her ears, she could hear him laughing still.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The circulating library on Piccadilly had a frontage of handsome, gleaming wood and two broad windows displaying prints. On entering, the first impression was of a wall of books. A long desk bisected the room, behind which industrious clerks spoke in low voices to their predominantly female clientele. Up a stairwell full of light was the reading room, different in almost every way from the borrowing hall. Here, the walls were hung with silk. Delicate chairs were grouped around the room, and diffuse afternoon sun came in at the tall windows.
Celine cast her eye briefly over the company and saw very few people actually reading. Most were quietly talking—she caught snippets about the theatre, and politics, some gossip from the assembly halls—and some were drinking tea served by serious young men.
She spied Lord Seaton standing by a window with a number of other matrons, on the lookout for new gossip.
She touched her lips once, then her close silk bonnet. Perfect.
As she approached Lord Seaton, she began to draw a disconcerting level of attention—slowly the general conversation died off as library patrons watched her progress, eyes widening. “What is shedoing?” she heard one young woman whisper, the colour leaching out of her face. Last to notice her approach was the tight circle of women at whose centre Lord Seaton stood.
“My Lord.” Celine dropped into a deep curtsey. Someone let out a strangled gurgle.
Lord Seaton turned. She cut a grand figure—tall and swaddledup to the chin in lace, her silk turban pinned with an enormous amethyst above a face in whose folds and jowls a high, bladed nose was still prominent. She stared down her nose at Celine with a chilly, forbidding expression. One of the other matrons took a large step back and began madly fanning herself.
“And who,” Lord Seaton said, “are you?”
Celine was momentarily taken aback, and then she laughed and said, “I have the advantage of you, My Lord. You could be none but the Earl of Seaton, whereas I might be any young woman in London.” She thought for a moment then added, “Though not Essie Compton, who has come down with the measles.”
Whatever Lord Seaton had expected for reply, it was not this. Nonplussed, she said, “You are French.”
Celine’s accent was getting better, but she’d only been in England a week, after all. She gave what she supposed was a very French gesture of admission.
Lord Seaton’s expression turned arctic. “You are the Duke of Howard’s ward, I suppose? Miss Genet?”
“I will admit to being Miss Genet,” Celine said merrily, “and not a scrap more until I am certain you mean to make friends with me.”
Lord Seaton seemed to grow even taller, and said in stunned tones, “I cannot imagine why I should.”
“Well,” Celine said, “because of the Inheritance Bill.”
The timing of Lord Seaton’s invitation to meet her at the library had not been a coincidence. The only way to guarantee the defeat of Lord Wroth’s bill was for Lord Seaton to throw her social power behind the duke, presenting a united front. The library was a perfect setting to do so.
But Lord Seaton frowned, seeming at a total loss, and behind her several matrons began furiously signalling at Celine to shut up.
Surely she had already been told the news? Celine looked around the room at all the gawping, abashed faces. Was it possible Lord Seaton truly didn’t know?
“Forgive me, perhaps you have not yet heard about the bill Lord Wroth introduced in Lords this morning?”
The matron who had been fanning herself started going double-time.
Lord Seaton said, very coldly, “Of what do you speak?”
No one had told her? It made Celine angry. “Lord Wroth introduced a bill that would disinherit every female lord and heir. He calls it the Inheritance Bill. That is, he proposes to disinherityou.”
She could see the information travel physically through Lord Seaton’s body: a flush so dark it was nearly purple, except around the pinched, white nostrils. The shocked eyes that became hard in a flash, so furious they were pressed into diamantine brightness.
