Page 80 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

“Brazen…” A lady did not curse. Another unfairness imposed by the so-called polite world. She gritted her teeth instead.

“While an active…opponent adds fuel to the fires of gossip.” His expression had gone hard with this reference to the prince. “That’s no good.”

Cecelia silently consigned Prince Karl and the gossips and just everybody to perdition.

“Don’t you want to fight? You never had any difficulty opposingme.”

His smile goaded her. But then she thought she glimpsed something else in his eyes. They seemed sympathetic rather than satirical, warm instead of combative. Cecelia’s throat grew tight. Over the morning, she’d been feeling very much alone.

“You always argued matters of principle. Are they not involved here?”

The soft look was gone. No doubt she’d imagined it. “That was about estate business and your trust. This is rather different.”

“Is it?”

“Yes!” Cecelia sat straighter, closed her hands into fists. “How does one combat whispers and sneaking lies, James? I have spent the morning trying. It’s like trying to strike fog.”

“Difficult,” he agreed. “However, you don’t need to battle it alone. Perhaps your father would come to the play as well?”

“He never goes to the theater.”

“So would his presence signal solidarity or panic?”

The mere question goaded her further. “I don’t wish to tell him about this matter,” said Cecelia. Papa would be distressed, yet still reluctant to bestir himself, guilty about his reaction, resistant to any shift in his routine, and then annoyed. She didn’t care to deal with any step of that process.

“You don’t think he would want to help you?”

“What have you ever observed in him that makes you think so?” She heard the brush of bitterness in her voice and clamped her lips down upon it.

“And so you took up his tasks for my benefit,” James replied softly. “You must allow me to reciprocate. I insist that you come to the play.”

“Insist? What makes you think you have the right to do that?”

“Thatis the Cecelia I know,” he answered with a smile that shook her to the core. “I don’t have the right. But I have a sincere desire to enter the lists at your side.”

The soft look was back. She hadn’t imagined it. Perhaps the man who had kissed her so tenderly had not vanished into the old James.

“Unless you will give me that right?” he added.

He moved. It almost looked as if he meant to kneel at her feet.

“Ah, they told me you were here, Tereford.” Aunt Valeria strode into the room and plopped down in a chair directly across from Cecelia. She gazed at them, her round face disgruntled. “I told the servants to inform me if any gentlemen called.”

Now,nowshe was going to play the chaperone? She’d left Cecelia to the spite of the gossips, but she chose to interrupt James. This was to be a day when nothing went right, Cecelia concluded.

James sat back. “I came to invite Ce…Miss Vainsmede to a play tomorrow.”

“I don’t care for the stage,” said Aunt Valeria. “All that silly prancing and ranting while one stifles in a reek of perfumes and pomades. The stench of a crowd! I don’t believe I can…”

“Lady Wilton will accompany us,” James interrupted.

“Ah.” Aunt Valeria’s complaint was arrested. “Well, I suppose that’s all right then.” She brightened. “She can’t complain about my chaperonage if she’s taken charge. I will allow it.”

“Al…” began Cecelia.

“Very good of you,” said James.

His tone and the understanding look he gave Cecelia cut off her explosion. She throttled her temper and refrained from telling her aunt that she had no right to allow—or forbid—anything. She was going to have to deal with this new, infuriating Aunt Valeria. Who sat staring at them, showing no sign of turning to her notebook and her customary oblivious state, nor any vestige of enjoyment. Clearly, she was willing James to go.

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