Page 31 of Caught By the Ruthless Duke
“Tell me something,” he said, his voice low so only she could hear him. “How did this engagement come about?”
“I told you,” Cressida said evenly. “It was arranged.”
“I know.”
Confusion flickered across her expression. “Then why ask?”
“Because I want you to say it.”
Her gaze sharpened. “There is nothing more to say.”
The music carried them forward, turn after turn, as if it refused to acknowledge the shift between them.
“You must be relieved that I won’t trouble you again,” she mumbled.
“Is that what you think?” he asked.
“It would be the sensible conclusion,” she said.
“There is nothing sensible about this, My Lady,” he whispered, his eyes landing on her lips.
The final notes of the waltz began to fade.
“Thank you for the dance, Your Grace.” She pulled away with visible effort, curtsying with mechanical precision. “Please give my regards to Lady Seymore.”
Then she was gone, disappearing into the crowd, leaving him standing alone on the dance floor with unfinished arguments burning in his chest and the memory of her warmth still imprinted on his palm.
“Cressida.” Harriet caught her arm the moment Theodore released her, drawing her away from the crush of dancers with surprising strength. “Why were you dancing with the Duke of Ashmere?”
The question carried layers of concern, curiosity, and something else Cressida couldn’t quite identify. She managed what she hoped passed for a careless smile.
“It’s a very long story,” she said, refraining from clearing her throat.
“You seem to have accumulated quite a few of those recently.” Harriet’s grip gentled, but her gaze remained searching. “Cressida, what’s happened? You look?—”
The whispers started like a breeze through wheat, a rustling murmur that spread across the ballroom with gathering force. Heads turned, fans snapped open to shield gossiping mouths, and the collective gaze of London society fixed itself upon Cressida with the focused intensity of a hunting pack scenting blood.
She felt the shift in the air, that peculiar charge that preceded a scandal’s explosion. Across the room, Miss Oakley stood beside a cluster of young ladies, her expression arranged in a mask of shocked sympathy that couldn’t quite disguise the triumphant glint in her eyes.
“Oh no,” Harriet breathed.
“Cressida!” Lady Bardwell’s voice cut through the growing tumult, shrill with barely suppressed hysteria. She materialized from the crowd like an avenging fury, her husband close behind, their faces mottled with rage and mortification. “Cressida, come with us. Now.”
Strong hands gripped Cressida’s elbow—her father’s, ungentlemanly in their force—and she found herself being propelled toward the corridor with the kind of speed that suggested imminent catastrophe.
“Mama, what?—”
“Quiet!” Her mother’s whisper was vicious as she dragged her around the corner, away from prying eyes.
The moment they achieved relative privacy, Lady Bardwell’s carefully maintained composure shattered. Tears streaked through powder and rouge as she clutched at Cressida’s shoulders.
“What have you done? What in God’s name have you done?”
Cressida’s heart hammered against her ribs. “I don’t understand?—”
“Don’t lie to us!” Her father’s voice remained low but carried a fury she rarely witnessed. “Not now. Not after you’ve destroyed everything we worked to salvage.”
“I haven’t destroyed anything! I don’t know what you’re talking about?—”
