Page 85 of The Duke
But she doubted herself.
She feared what the violence in her might mean, what the pressure bearing up through her might mean. She was going to break something, and she had spent a lifetime learning not to break the things she loved.
She feared she was a coward. She feared the reason she didn’t want Celine near her was not to protect Celine, who was thestrongest person she had ever met, but because if she let down the drawbridge and opened the gates, it might be her own cold fortress that trembled and shook and broke apart.
Lord Burnley reached Celine and offered his hand, then led her into the opening promenade of the minuet. Royce sucked her teeth in disgust and wandered off to find another drink.
Kate couldn’t go to Celine, but she couldn’t take her eyes off her, either. She tracked the wide circle Celine made around the room, the brilliant sway of Celine’s skirts lighting up her senses. When the promenade was complete, Celine and Burnley entered the floor alone and the other couples stood back, impatiently awaiting their own minute of display.
Kate and Celine had danced the minuet together under the strict eye of the dancing master, Mr. Forsyth. It was a flirtatious dance of coming together and moving apart, eyes holding but never for longer than a moment. She had felt the power of what they were mimicking and had kept the mood playful, light, never allowing the full effect to be felt.
She felt the full effect now.
As though she and Celine moved side-by-side to the slow, wistful music, she felt Celine’s body dip exactly with hers, stride forward exactly with hers; and then she let Celine go, almost like letting a flower loose from her hand into a river’s slow current.
Celine moved ahead of her, and she behind, and still they were perfectly synchronised. Their gestures flowed and exactly mirrored one another as they turned, and turned again, prowling closer and then moving apart, dipping in unison, as though their every breath were taken from one unifying lung.
She stood at the side of the ballroom and watched Burnley make his inadequate attempt at partnering Celine and knew in her bones it should be her out there, Celine’s equal, Celine’s lover. The pressure inside her surged. Yes.Yes.
She put all the old arguments to herself as to why she would not trap Celine into marriage.
Celine would be bound to her with no legal means of dissolvingtheir union when Celine realised what she’d married.Yes, came the immediate, possessive response.She will be yours forever.
Celine would be in danger from Lord Wroth and his mad bastard.Celine will stand with you against any threat.
Celine loved her because that was what Celine did—she fulfilled the perverse desires of those with power over her.She has held your future in her hands from the moment she arrived. She is the angel holding the knife.
She isyours.
The minuet at last ended just before midnight, and ten circles formed up for a lively cotillion. She watched Celine spin and bow and sway and skip like a winking star come down to bless them all for one night. But Celine didn’t—wouldn’t—look back. The room seemed to shimmer and shake.
Richard stepped up beside her, also looking at Celine. “You’ll make yourself a laughingstock if you keep looking at her like that. The duke who fell in love with her own ward. Which is still worlds better than the truth.”
“I’ll send for you when I want your opinion on anything,” she said coldly, without looking at him. If she hadn’t been so absorbed, he wouldn’t have been able to approach her. Anger and hurt surged within her and she welcomed the way everything cooled in response. It focused her mind. It brought her back from the edge of something terrifying.
Richard grabbed her arm and turned her roughly to face him. “You didn’t have to fucking ruin me!”
She looked into his face that had been so dear, into his dark, perturbed eyes, and laughed. “What did you think was going to happen? You know the consequences of crossing me. Did you think you were going to be any different?”
The briefest pause said he had.
“You really are a heartless bitch.”
She held his eye and showed no response, and in a strange way, it bored her. How quickly one of the most important relationships of her life had fallen into this familiar, antagonistic back-and-forth.
“A special election has been called,” he said, “because I suddenly lack both lands and funds on which my seat in Parliament depends.All my funds.”
She was incredulous. “You expected me to keep bankrolling your seat? Ask Pater to buy you another one.”
Richard’s eyes flitted to the Wroth party, and he grimaced.
She shook her head, feeling pity and disgust and something else she didn’t want to think about. “He’ll have to, now the dukedom’s not coming your way. He can’t let his heir marry a poor gentleman of no particular distinction.” She slapped his shoulder. “Buck up, cousin. It looks like you’ll be prime minister someday after all.”
But as she walked away, she was dissatisfied. He had sold her future out in exchange for his. He had thrown his lot in with her bitter enemy and hoped for her downfall. She had every reason to hate him. And yet she felt as disgusted with herself as she was with him for falling so easily into hatred.
THE PIG ONthe sideboard looked worse for wear. Most of its skeleton showed through its carved flank, and its one cloudy eye beheld what was left of that night’s long supper with the jaded knowingness of the dead. In each of the three connected rooms were many tables that were now in much the same state as the pig: variously stripped and occupied.
Celine had gone into supper on the arm of her dance partner, as was proper, and had ended up across the room from Kate. Kate could no longer doubt the distance was by design. Celine would not let her near. She watched people leave their own seats so they might stand around Celine and be included in her conversation—in such numbers the room would have unbalanced then capsized under the momentum, had it been a ship.
