Page 40 of A Night of Desire with a Duke
And if her heart broke a little more with every moment of pretense, well, that was the price of propriety.
She made her way back to the blue salon, where couples were already forming for the supper dance. Pemberton's face lit up when he saw her.
"There you are! I was beginning to worry you'd abandoned me for more interesting company."
"Never," Catherine lied smoothly, taking his offered hand.
As they took their positions, she caught sight of a familiar figure in the doorway. James hadn't left after all. He stood there, his bandaged hand tucked behind his back, watching her with an expression she couldn't read.
Their eyes met across the room, and for a moment, everything else faded away—the music, the other dancers, even Pemberton's cheerful chatter. There was just James, looking at her with such intensity it made her knees weak.
Then Miss Worthing appeared at his side, saying something that made him look away, and the moment shattered.
The dance continued, and Catherine threw herself into it with determined gaiety. She smiled at Pemberton's jokes, laughed at his observations, played the part of a woman being properly courted.
But every time the dance turned her, she found herself looking for James. And every time, he was watching her, his grey eyes dark with something that looked very much like the longing she felt in her own chest.
Three months of pretense. Three months of torture.
Something had to change.
She just prayed that when it did, they'd both survive the explosion.
Chapter 8
"Lady Catherine, you're crushing the roses."
Catherine looked down at her gloved hands to find that she had, indeed, murdered a particularly lovely pink bloom. The petals lay scattered across Lady Sefton's immaculate lawn like casualties of war, which seemed rather appropriate given the battlefield that society events had become lately.
"My apologies," she murmured to Lord Ashford, who'd been attempting to engage her in conversation about his prized orchids for the past ten minutes. "I was wool-gathering."
"Thinking of someone special, perhaps?" Ashford asked with what he probably thought was a knowing wink but actually looked like he had something in his eye.
"Yes," Catherine said flatly. "The Archbishop of Canterbury. I find religious contemplation very soothing during garden gatherings."
Ashford blinked, clearly unsure if she was joking. Catherine didn't enlighten him. She let him think she was having romantic thoughts about elderly clergymen. It was better than the truth—that she was calculating exactly how many potted plants stood between the Duke of Ravensfield and her, who was currently holding court near the fountain, looking unfairly magnificent in a dark blue coat that made his eyes appear even more grey than usual.
Not that she was noticing. She was absolutely not noticing how the afternoon sun caught the lighter threads in his dark hair, or how his rare smiles, directed at everyone but her, transformed his face from merely handsome to devastating. She certainly wasn't remembering how those hands, now holding a teacup with perfect propriety, had once...
"Twenty pounds says she faints before tea is served."
Catherine turned to find Lady Pemberton at her elbow, carrying two glasses of lemonade and an expression of unholy amusement.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Miss Worthing," Lady Pemberton clarified, nodding toward the fountain where the blonde beauty was practically prostrating herself before James, her fan fluttering with enough vigor to generate a small weather system. "She's been circling him like a vulture for the past hour. That level of sustained desperation has to be exhausting."
Catherine accepted the lemonade gratefully, though what she really wanted was something significantly stronger. "She's merely being friendly."
"If that's friendly, I'd hate to see aggressive. The poor Duke looks ready to drown himself in the fountain just to escape."
Indeed, James did have the slightly hunted expression of a man who'd realized too late that he'd walked into a trap. Miss Worthing had positioned herself strategically, blocking his most obvious escape routes while her mother, the formidableMrs. Worthing, flanked his other side. It was a classic pincer movement.
"He could simply walk away," Catherine observed, trying not to feel satisfaction at his obvious discomfort.
"Could he? You know how these things work. One doesn't simply flee from unmarried ladies at garden gatherings. There are rules."
"Rules he seems perfectly happy to break when it suits him," Catherine muttered, then immediately wished she hadn't as Lady Pemberton's eyes sharpened with interest.
