Page 78 of Duke of Destruction
She tried to come up with a logical counterargument to keep herself from bursting into tears. Failing that, she kept her gaze fixed on the front door. Just a few more steps and she would be gone.
Just a few more seconds for Percy to come after her, to apologize, to dosomething?—
But he didn’t. Catherine left with a stiff nod to the footman, who had been dozing again, then walked with an iron spine back to the hack that she had paid handsomely to wait for her. The driver didn’t make a sound as he handed her up to the carriage, then took his front seat and gently urged the horses into motion.
She forced herself to wait until Percy’s house was entirely out of sight before she unclenched her fists, slumped back into her seat, and let the tears spill silently and furiously over her cheeks.
She had nobody to blame but herself. She had known it would end badly, and it had. She had only one small shred of comfort to cling to.
She would never, ever have to see the Duke of Seaton ever again.
CHAPTER 19
Percy was proud of his parents’ humble beginnings. Defiantly proud, most of the time, but still proud.
For once, though—and he was not at all happy with himself for the thought—he wished he could be the sort of callous aristocrat who scarcely ever noticed their staff.
Because four days after Catherine had left in the night and four days since Percy had left his house at all, his staff was starting to give him tiny, sidelong glances that said they were concerned or alarmed (or both, he allowed) by his behavior.
These looks were doing serious damage to his plan to stay inside his house for the rest of his life. Or until he left to go to a session of Parliament, and Xander Lightholder murdered him in plain view because he learned how dishonorably Percy had treated his sister.
Murdering a duke would be a hanging offense, even for another duke, but Percy half hoped that the Duke of Godwin would get away with it. Not nearly as much as he hoped the man never, ever heard about what Percy had done, but still.
He had behaved like the worst kind of man. He deserved some kind of punishment.
“Can I help you with anything, Your Grace?” Percy’s valet asked with a hopeful note in his voice that made Percy feel like vomiting.
In fairness, his stomach hadn’t settled since he’d seen Catherine’s face as he had rebuffed her. She’d hidden it quickly—of course she had; she was Catherine Lightholder, not some Society neophyte who wore her heart on her sleeve—but he’d seen it.
He’d beenguttedby it.
And, worst of all, he still hadn’t been able to stop himself from acting like the worst kind of bastard.
“Ah, yes, I suppose so,” Percy said, realizing that his valet was still waiting for an answer. “The weather is fine today. Perhaps I’ll go for a walk.”
His valet was so openly delighted by this that Percy felt the crushing weight of his own misery all over again. He had becomethe kind of man for whomtaking a walkwas an uncommon excitement.
“Right away, Your Grace,” the young man said happily. “I shall find you something suitable to wear at once.”
Percy let his valet’s pleasure remind him of the depths of his own misery. He didn’t try to rise out of them. He would stay down there. Make a little civilization for himself.
It didn’t even help to rationalize that he hadn’t been thinking at all when he’d behaved so abominably toward Catherine. No, his mind had been just a sheer, white wall of panic, one that threatened to consume him if he had done…anything.
After all, it had beendoing somethingthat had gotten him into that situation in the first place. He had made love to Catherine.
And it had been so good that it had nearly wiped his mind clean of anything else before or after. He had lost himself in her. It had beenso easy. He had been able to see the whole depth of his fall, the way the Percy Egelton that had always assumed himself to be would vanish, replaced by the Percy that he was with Catherine. The two of them, together, not beholden by their family names.
But they were beholden. And more than that, his family history was who Percywas. He didn’t know who he was—who he could be—without that.
So he had held on tight. And it turned out that the version of himself that he had held to was the kind of man who could cruelly dismiss a woman moments after taking her virginity.
Thus, he was left with no choice but to torture himself forever.
Well, notforever. He would die eventually. Maybe in as little as three or four decades! No doubt, unrelenting misery had an effect on a man’s lifespan.
There was a cheery thought.
“How about this, Your Grace?”
