Page 45 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

The timbre of his voice took Cecelia back to a moment not long after they’d first met. He’d been fifteen, and even though she was years younger, a lifetime of dealing with her wayward father had sharpened her emotional “ear.” She’d understood that behind his sulky ill temper, he was lost and in pain and near tears. And that he would rather die than let her see him cry. Her heart had responded. She’d had to help him then. And so many times after.

She sighed. They were adults now, and this tangle was entirely of his own making. It wasn’t a serious matter. Only humiliating. Everyone had to deal with humiliations now and then in life, if they grew up. And to speak again of marriage as if it was simply another chore she could perform for him, upending her life for his convenience, expecting no tender sentiment… She shoved aside the hurt and the longing and any idiotic slivers of hope that tried to creep in. “I have helped,” she answered. “I came to check on you. I brought you food. I have been a friend. You must find your own way out of the tangleyoucreated.”

“You are choosing the prince then?” he asked in a hard voice.

Cecelia felt an almost irresistible desire to throttle him. “Whydo people ask me this? Does no one understand that your ridiculous posturing had nothing to do with me?Idid not ask you to jostle each other like vulgar children. Or to bash each other with swords.”

“Foils,” he said.

Her hands rose of their own accord, crooked into claws. She struggled with the impulse and won, lowering them again. “This is not a case of me choosing anything,” she said through clenched teeth. “Except that right now I am choosing to go.”

“Will you come to visit again?”

“Do you ever listen to me, James? Even the least little bit?”

“If I apologize?”

She blinked. He never apologized.

“And admit you are right,” he added in a cajoling tone.

“Let us see if you can,” answered Cecelia too curious to resist.

“I…” He looked around as if an apology might be lurking in a corner of the kitchen. He seemed to notice the jet of steam for the first time and moved the kettle off the fire. “I am sorry.”

“For?”

“Making you angry.”

This was so typical of him. “And for not persuading me to do as you wish.”

“Well, of course that.” He smiled. Even in his current disreputable state, the smile was charming.

Cecelia ignored it. “And I am right that…”

His perplexed expression was almost comical. Or it would have been if Cecelia had not allowed herself a foolish instant of optimism. She abandoned it. “You can’t think of anything, can you?”

“What if I simply say that you are right about everything?”

“And so, admitting this, you will go back to your rooms and stop behaving like a spoilt child?”

He frowned, shook his head.

She sighed, wondering why she kept on, and turned toward the door.

“Cecelia.”

She stopped. It was so difficult to resist the appeal in that voice. Even when she knew it was the only sensible course of action. She couldn’t quite abandon him. “The poor family in the stables would probably do errands for you if you paid them,” she said.

“There are servants here?”

“Well, I don’t think they’ve ever been servants. They are more…opportunists.”

“In the stables?”

“Yes.”

“Living there without leave? Like gypsies?”

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