Page 10 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

“Good grief, are you?”

“For a while I was. But it…hasn’t.” He looked appalled at this slip of her tongue, which was lowering. Cecelia knew that James never thought of her and love in the same breath. The two were completely separate things in his mind. She ought to be the same. Shewas. She’d stifled her feelings about him years ago. They were gone! Or, if by any chance they weren’t, they would never be allowed out, even though he’d begun talking of love. She would not have her feelings trampled by consternation, perhaps even revulsion. Horrifying. They were gone!

“And so you gave up that ridiculous illusion,” James said, looking smug. “There, you see. We are the same.”

Cecelia didn’t try to deny it. That would be perilous and futile and other dangerous things she didn’t care to contemplate. Instead, she would enjoy the fact that there was no one else she could talk to as openly as she did to James. “Love is an illusion?”

“The sort that the poets maunder on about, certainly. Look at me. I shall marry as a duty, to provide an heir for the dukedom. And a hostess I suppose.” The latter idea seemed distasteful to him. “Another portrait for the long line of languishing females in the gallery.” He grimaced. “Not that anyone can see them in the house’s current state.”

“That does sound rather dreary.”

“Well, marriage is dreary, as far as I can see,” said James.

Cecelia wondered if his parents had loved each other. She hadn’t known them. Hers… They’d been affectionate, now and then. But she suspected that her mother had loved her daughter far more than her distracted husband. It was not an example she wished to emulate.

“I challenge you to name a happy one,” James added.

“The Tuttles and the Burleighs and the Cranes,” replied Cecelia promptly.

James shrugged as they danced. “They seem contented enough, I suppose. But what do we know of their private moments? Nothing.”

“And so they may be as rhapsodic as the poets claim.”

He made a contemptuous sound. And as if on cue the music ended, and they drew apart. As they always would, Cecelia acknowledged. He saw her as a fixture in his life, useful once, safe and familiar now. But nothing more. She must be reconciled to that.

James declared that he intended to take refuge in the card room and asked where she wished to be taken. Cecelia noticed her four new acquaintances sitting in gilt chairs on one side of the ballroom. They had not been waltzing because they were waiting to be approved by the patronesses at Almack’s. She accepted James’s escort over to them and his bow of farewell.

During their shopping expeditions Cecelia had discovered that these girls were intelligent, curious, and ambitious far beyond the next ball or the roster of eligible young men being brandished at them. They had moved to first names already and were on the way to becoming good friends.

“Did you enjoy your waltz with the new duke?” asked Sarah Moran. “They say Tereford is the handsomest man in England.”

“They,” repeated Charlotte Deeping contemptuously. “I am already sick to death ofthem, whoever they are. If indeedtheyexist.”

Looking over her shoulder Cecelia watched James stroll through the doorway on the other side of the large room. Dozens of feminine gazes followed him.

“You must admit that heishandsome,” said Sarah.

Charlotte rolled her dark eyes. “My brothers admire him.” In the satirical tone she used to speak of her siblings, Charlotte began ticking off points on her fingers. “He is ‘handy with his fives,’ which apparently signifies an ability to knock people down whenever he pleases. He is ‘up to every rig and row in town’ and ‘complete to a shade,’ absolutely ‘top of the trees.’ I take this to mean that he sets fashions and possesses polished manners. Of course he has money and now a title, which boost people’s opinions, I’m sure.”

“And the coldest eyes,” said Harriet Finch.

Cecelia wondered at this. James’s blue eyes cold? She’d seen them blaze. Mostly with anger, admittedly.

“My mother considers him a very eligibleparti,” Harriet continued. “She tried to maneuver him into dancing with me. He refused as if I was a beetle to be crushed beneath his heel.”

The eager mama would account for the coldness, Cecelia acknowledged. James hated having debs pushed on him. But this reference to insects must be an exaggeration. He had fine manners. She’d noticed that Harriet was eager to despise society.

“Lydia Pottington said he’s the most selfish creature on earth. Is he really?” Ada Grandison asked. She turned to Cecelia. “You’re quite well acquainted with him, aren’t you?”

“Cecelia knows everyone,” said Charlotte.

It wasn’t a jab. By this time Cecelia understood Charlotte’s sardonic manner. “I am,” she answered.

“Well, then.” Ada Grandison gazed at her. Cecelia had discovered that Ada was already engaged to a duke of her own, so her interest was clearly more abstract.

The others waited. Cecelia thought they were likely to accept her opinions about society and follow her lead, a heavy responsibility. What should she say to them about James? Hewasselfish. Didn’t she often tell him so? He could be cold, and he saved his sympathies for his close friends. Indeed, he scarcely noticed other people. And when accused of these failings, he simply shrugged.

Yet Cecelia found herself reluctant to voice these familiar criticisms. It was one thing to throw them in his face, and quite another to share them with people who knew nothing of him or his history. “He can be a bit toplofty,” she said. And was at once conscious of a desire to defend him. Better to change the subject. “Have all your new gowns arrived?”

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