Page 70 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

“Mystery?”

“The wonder of your disappearance after your abandonment of polite behavior,” the older lady replied. “Has the disorder here turned your brain?”

“People are still talking of that?” James asked. The reason for his flight seemed so much less important now. He’d almost forgotten.

“Of course they are,” replied the older lady. “It is much more than a nine-days’ wonder. Everyone who calls on us has a theory. They have become increasingly wild.”

The cat passed the doorway going the other way, the dead rat now hanging from its jaws. James wondered if she was taking her kill to the kitchen to demonstrate her prowess and solidify her position.

“And yet they do not quite come up to the reality,” added Miss Vainsmede, her tone desert dry.

To announce an engagement when he had been absent from society without explanation would increase the gossip. Cecelia would be brought into it. James didn’t want speculative whispers attached to their news. And Cecelia was still silent. Why had he wasted the chance to talk to her alone? He ought to have proposed and then kissed her. “If I could just have a moment to speak to C…your niece.”

“You may do so whenever you like,” answered her aunt. “At our house. Not here. She will not be coming here again. From now on she will be home for morning calls. As I informed thehordeof people who came looking for details about her expedition with the prince.”

“Expedition?” James asked.

Cecelia flushed. “Hardly that,” she murmured. “A visit to Vauxhall merely.”

The bolt of jealousy that went through James exceeded any that had shaken him before. It was like an earthquake. He realized that he’d imagined Prince Karl had dropped from her life, as he had from James’s. Cecelia’s visits to him here had created a small world of their own, apart from all that. He’d come to cherish it. He’d thought she did as well.

But she’d gone on with her life outside their hidden realm, and there she’d spent time with the prince. Gone to Vauxhall—with its dim pathways and hidden nooks! Prince Karl was just the sort of fellow to take full advantage of them. What was he to Cecelia now?

James felt furiously confused. She’d kissed him! And enjoyed it. She’d said so. Cecelia wasn’t a girl who scattered meaningless kisses.

“Come, Cecelia, we are going,” said Miss Vainsmede.

“I will just stay a bit longer, Aunt. A few minutes only.”

She looked as if she wanted to tell him something significant. James clutched at the possibility. “Indeed,” he began.

“No.” The older woman’s face fell into stubborn lines. “We have an agreement, Cecelia. Unspoken till now, I concede, but clear nonetheless. I stand in the place of your chaperone for propriety’s sake, and you make it unnecessary for me to act as one. By being sensible! By behaving as you ought.Andyou deal with society. I am weary of them all. You will return home with me at once.” She crossed her arms and glowered at them both.

“What about the free flight of the queen bee?” replied Cecelia. Quite inexplicably, to James.

“My dear girl, I know you are well aware that a metaphor is not to be appliedliterally.” She huffed out a disgusted breath. “If only you were a bee. We would get on so much more easily. Come along!”

Cecelia’s aunt practically dragged her through the door and away, leaving James alone in his wreck of a house, his mind seething with questions.

Thirteen

Lady Wilton was in the entryway of the Vainsmede house when they arrived home, though it was past the conventional hour for morning calls. “There you are!” she exclaimed. “I was just going. I have been waiting an age.” Not pausing for an invitation, she walked up to the drawing room with them, sat down like a one-woman delegation, and fixed Cecelia with a disapproving stare. Cecelia was strongly reminded of a raven she had once seen at the Tower of London. It had been pecking the eyes out of a dead pigeon.

The comparison nearly made her smile. But her thoughts were too full of James to be diverted. She could not have mistaken his kisses, or the look in his eyes when he said he had been thinking of her. She might have spoken up when Aunt Valeria berated her, but she hadn’t wished for her future to be settled in such a scene. She would return to him, no matter what her aunt decreed, and they would do that together. Her heart sang at the prospect.

“What have you done?” said Lady Wilton.

Wondering if she’d discovered James’s hiding place, Cecelia merely looked inquiring. Inside, she braced for a scolding.

“Prince Karl has been talking about you.”

“What?” This was the last thing Cecelia expected.

“He is giving everyone the impression that you are his mistress.”

“What?” Aunt Valeria turned on Cecelia as well. “What have you…”

“Hold your tongue, Valeria Vainsmede,” said Lady Wilton, her expression and tone sour. “You are a travesty of a chaperone. Pretending to be deaf! Idiotic! You have no right to protest now that you have allowed disaster to befall your charge.”

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