Page 89 of A Night of Desire with a Duke
At last, between sets, she slipped free of the crowd and made her way toward a quieter corner, fanning herself lightly. Her cheeks were flushed, her pulse too quick, not from dancing, but from exhaustion. She had been performing all evening: smiling, laughing, pretending not to see the speculative looks or hear the whispers that followed the soon-to-be Duchess of Ravensfield. Three more days, she reminded herself. Just three more days, and all of this would be behind her.
But even as the thought soothed her, something in the atmosphere changed. It was subtle at first; an almost imperceptible shift in the pitch of conversation, a collective intake of breath that rippled through the room like wind over tall grass. Fans fluttered with renewed vigor. Heads turned toward the entrance. Somewhere, a violin faltered mid-note before recovering.
Catherine knew that sound. That dreadful, delicious stir of gossip waiting to hatch.
She turned and her stomach dropped.
Miss Worthing had arrived.
The girl looked radiant in a gown of white satin that bordered on bridal, her hair gleaming like spun gold beneath the chandeliers. She carried herself with the easy confidence of a woman who knew she was being watched and relished every second of it. Catherine’s heart gave a slow, cold thud. She had not seen Miss Worthing since that night at the Cowper’s ball—since James had chosen her instead. She had hoped, prayed even, that the girl had retreated to the country to lick her wounds and find another victim for her charms.
But no. Here she was...uninvited, glowing, dangerous.
Their eyes met across the ballroom, and Catherine saw it: triumph.
“Lady Catherine,” Miss Worthing purred as she glided closer, all sweetness and poison. “How lovely to see you. And so close to your wedding! You must be positively beside yourself with excitement.”
“Miss Worthing.” Catherine’s curtsy was polite, her smile brittle. “What a surprise.”
“Isn’t it? Three days, is it not? Such a pity it’s all about to come apart.”
The words were spoken softly, but Catherine heard the knife beneath them. Her blood ran cold. “I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t know, of course,” Miss Worthing continued airily, examining her fan as if the matter were of no consequence. “You weren’t at the Middleton dinner last week.”
Catherine forced her voice to remain steady. “No. I was otherwise engaged with wedding preparations. Was there… an announcement?”
“Of a sort.” Miss Worthing’s eyes glittered. “A fascinating little piece of news about a certain coaching inn...the Black Swan, I believe?”
Catherine’s world tilted. The words hit like ice water down her spine. She could feel her pulse pounding in her throat, but she willed her expression into stillness. “I cannot imagine what you mean.”
“Can you not?” Miss Worthing’s smile widened. She reached delicately into her reticule and withdrew a folded sheet of paper. “Then perhaps this will refresh your memory. The inn’s register, from a particularly stormy night three months past.”
Catherine stared at it as though it were a loaded pistol. The register. Of course there had been one. How could she and James have been so reckless? For one mad night they had forgotten the world—and the world, it seemed, had not forgotten them.
Her mouth was dry. “That proves nothing,” she said, though her voice came out too low, too strained.
“Doesn’t it?” Miss Worthing’s tone dripped false innocence. “It lists a Mr. Wrentham and a Miss Mayfer, sharing the corner chambers. How very cosy. Oh, and I do happen to have a witness who saw considerably more than that.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Miss Worthing’s lashes swept up. “My witness claims they saw you leaving Mr. Wrentham’s chamber the next morning. Not your own. His. Wearing nothing but your nightgown.”
Catherine’s composure wavered for the briefest instant. Her breath caught; her vision dimmed around the edges. Because it was true. All of it. Shehadleft James’s room in the dawn light, her gown rumpled, her hair undone, her heart still racing from the night before. But nobody could have seen that as their rooms were in the same chambers. She never left the chambers, she did not have to.
Miss Worthing leaned in slightly, her voice silk-soft but sharpened to a blade. “Shall we test it? Shall I share this little document with our esteemed company? Let London’s finest judge whether their perfect duchess-to-be is quite as pure as she pretends?”
Catherine’s hand tightened around her fan until it cracked. Around them, she could feel the shift, the curious glances, the subtle hush of a crowd that sensed blood in the water. Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs. Every instinct screamed to run, to deny, to fight but her voice seemed trapped in her throat.
In three days she was meant to be a duchess. In three minutes, she could be ruined.
Catherine felt the world tilt. Everything she'd built with James over these weeks, their careful courtship, society's acceptance, it would all crumble. She'd be ruined. James would be forced to either abandon her or marry her under a cloud of scandal that would follow them forever.
"What do you want?" she asked quietly.
"Want? Oh, I don't want anything. I simply thought the ton should know the truth about their darling couple. That you're not the innocent you pretend to be. That you trapped the Duke into marriage by seducing him at an inn."
"That's not..."
