Page 53 of The Duke
Celine rested her teacup against her closed lips and watched the old woman. She distantly heard the door below open and slam shut. “We have spoken of your French forebears,” she said, placing the cup down, “and your deep roots in that country. It is not out of the realm of possibility that I am your great-grandmother’s cousin’s grandson’s nephew’s girl… Is it?”
Pounding footsteps sounded up the stairs, growing closer.
Lord Seaton’s eyes gleamed, caught up irrepressibly in the gambit Celine was offering her.
“The Duke of Howard,” Celine went on, “who was a great friend of my father’s, would of course do everything in her power to keep her word to him and see my future secured. Knowing who I might be—”
The urgent tread had cleared the stairs and strode now through the reading room.
“—to you.”
“What,” the duke said hoarsely, “is going on here?” Celine turned to look up at her. The duke was breathing hard, her hat under her arm, and she had brought in the cold evening air and a trace of smoke.
“Duke,” Lord Seaton said comfortably, “do join us. I have been making the acquaintance of dear Miss Genet, who, it turns out, is a distant relation of mine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kate had expected the worst. The five-minute ride from the club had seemed interminable, giving her ample time to progress from her fear of Lord Seaton giving Celine the cut direct to hysterical images of Lord Seaton slapping Celine, rending her dress, erecting (somehow) the pillory in Charing Cross, and throwing the first vegetable at the sinful whore of the sinful Duke of Howard.
Kate hadn’t been able to imagine… this.
She got no help from Celine, who was fussing about Lord Seaton, scolding and flattering her in familiar tones. Like she had indeed grown up by her knee. ScoldingLord Seaton. And the old harridan, who had once scared an entire season of debutantes into tears, looked like she was about to burst from happiness. Every one of her arch frowns was a smile in disguise.
The taut string that had pulled Kate here loosened, a sweet sensation. She hadn’t been destroyed. Not quite yet.
“Your relation,” Kate said. “What a happy coincidence.”
“Isn’t it.” Celine smiled up at her with eyes that were witch-green, sparkling with residual magic. What spell had she cast here?
Looking amused at Kate’s expense, Lord Seaton said, “Sit, Duke.”
Kate sat. A fresh tea service and an extra cup were placed on the table. Celine did the honours, very prettily. Kate felt dazed, the quaint teatime taking on an almost unreal quality. Lord Seaton had been a liability for twenty-odd years, refusing to acknowledge her in public, turning her nose up at being associated in any waywith the whiff of treason. How cosily that breach was now being mended!
Somehow—Kate still couldn’t fully grasp it—Celine had taken a moment of great jeopardy and turned it to her advantage. Kate had been deserted by her dearest friend today and had raced here expecting to find her reputation and her future unravelling beyond rescue. Instead, she had found Celine, a light in the dark.
Lord Seaton said tartly to Kate, “You have done your best, I’m sure, but you will allow me to see to it that Miss Genet is properly launched. I like her, Duke. I like her a great deal, and I mean to show her off.”
I like her a great deal, too, Kate thought, unsettled.
Celine and Lord Seaton carried the conversation, occasionally soliciting Kate’s opinion on some point or other. She hardly knew what she answered.
She couldn’t take her eyes off Celine. The way her mouth pursed and smiled, contemplated, spoke, its articulation far beyond words. Her hands were plain and square, then graceful in movement. Her eyes had a depth that spoke, in disturbing flashes, of the human soul.
It was starting to sink in that Celine hadn’t only won her a temporary reprieve: She’d stopped Lord Wroth in his tracks. He couldn’t stir up rumours about Celine now without calling Lord Seaton a liar. Kate would love to see him try to besmirch the most upright lord in the ton. And with Lord Seaton and the Duke of Howard openly allied in opposition to the Inheritance Bill, the House would vote against it.
It was like an excellent joke; she felt the urge to laugh.
She was conscious her perception of Celine was becoming overblown, that she was in danger of seeing Celine as a totem, full of meaning. Rationally, she knew Celine was fallibly human. But she had crossed some internal Rubicon and she could no longer be rational about Celine. There was no more suppressing what she felt.
What she wanted.
She met Lord Seaton’s knowing eyes. Lord Seaton guessed at the carnal bent of Kate’s thoughts.
“Now, Duke,” Lord Seaton said, “you have rushed Miss Genet straight onto the marriage mart—”
“It was Miss Genet’s express wish that—”
“—without even giving her a proper debut! And when have the wishes of a young woman, innocent of the ways of the world, overridden the good sense of her far wiser guardian?”
