Page 45 of Corrupting his Duchess (A Duke’s Undoing #1)

This time, Catherine was surprised to find that she was neither offended nor genuinely hurt.

She was angry . And it felt…good.

“Oh dear,” she said, her tone dripping more sarcasm than she’d ever permitted herself in her life . “Like the rest of my family? My loving, large family who always turns out to support one another? How dreadful .”

“Indeed. I’m sure you support each other marvelously.”

His words were right, but the duke’s tone said that he did not consider this to be a positive at all.

“You know,” she told him, her voice sharp as razors, “it’s fascinating that you think you are insulting me. But really, what you are telling me is that you are jealous.”

“Jealous?” He reared back from the words as if they stung. “Of you? Are you insane?”

That stung the tiniest bit, though she was better at hiding it than he was. For once, her practice at feigning perfection paid off. She wanted him to think her unbothered.

“What else am I supposed to think?” she asked him, all innocent eye flutters and acid tongue.

“You reveal yourself as opposed to me and mine from the very beginning—though we have so little to do with you that I scarcely recognized your name. Your obsession can therefore reveal only one thing; you are jealous that we have each other and you have…”

She trailed off suggestively. She was being vicious.

And it was dangerous to let this out. Terribly so.

Catherine Lightholder’s most deeply buried secret was that she was not, in truth, as prim and proper as she appeared.

Nor was maintaining that appearance as effortless as she wanted everyone to think.

This was one trick she pulled even on her siblings, not because she wanted them to think she was perfect, but because she didn’t want them to worry.

“My family is none of your business,” the duke snapped back at her. Good. She’d hit a tender spot, then.

“But my family is yours?” She gave him a pitying glance. “Sir, your hypocrisy is egregious. Perhaps you are too grand and self-important to hear that from anyone else, but I find myself remarkably unimpressed by your—” She waved at him derisively. “—status.”

Oh, she really needed to stop. This was not what she did.

Her brother was the head of the family. He tended to…countless responsibilities. Jason, too, was learning to manage his own household. And Ari had to focus on marital prospects.

Which left Catherine. Catherine, who could contribute in only one way.

By smoothing things over for the rest.

But today, she wouldn’t.

A muscle twitched in the duke’s face, which Catherine watched with a savage sort of triumph.

“You would focus on status, wouldn’t you, Lady Catherine?” he spat.

She bared her teeth at him. She couldn’t even pretend to call it a smile.

“You know nothing about me,” she reminded him. “And you are nothing to me.”

This awful, hideous duke didn’t need Catherine to make things easy. He had taken any such effort and thrown them back in her face.

It was rather, well, freeing .

She clenched her fists in her skirts, any worries about wrinkles long forgotten.

“Perhaps you think that this insistence on being combative makes you seem more impressive—” She waved a hand at him, then cut off her sentence with a gasp when he caught her wrist. She hadn’t put her gloves back on after dinner, and neither had he; the warmth of his skin on hers was as startling as his audacity.

Indeed, even he looked surprised at his own daring.

“Release me at once ,” she hissed.

He did not release her.

In fact, for the barest instant, his grip tightened and he leaned forward ever so slightly. She could practically see him considering pulling her closer, just to be difficult.

Goodness, his stubbornness lit her up. With anger. Naturally.

“You tried to strike me.”

She hadn’t, but she was about to. “I did not. Let?—”

“This is the problem,” he said, eyes narrowing. “You think you can just force your way?—”

“Force! You sir, have no right to?—”

They were talking over one another, each protest falling into the next, and Catherine felt her face growing hotter and hotter.

Much more of this and she would be yelling—outright yelling.

She wasn’t certain she’d even be able to stop herself, because he was still holding her wrist, and his fingers were warm, and she could feel the rough rasp of his calluses against the sensitive skin of her pulse point.

His eyes were intensely blue, though his pupils now overtook the irises so much that they looked nearly black. Something about that dark, furious glare pulled her in, and she almost swayed in his direction before she caught herself.

She didn’t look away, though. Couldn’t.

“Do not push me, Catherine,” he growled.

“I will push you if I want to,” she retorted, lifting her chin. If this brought her face closer to his… Well. That was a price she had to pay.

“You won’t win,” he warned. Suddenly, his free arm was around her waist, showing her very clearly that he could push right back if he wanted to.

She sucked in a breath through parted lips. His eyes, in response, flickered down to her mouth.

His pupils grew wide, dark, and fathomless.

This was the moment, Catherine knew, that she ought to push away. They were practically touching everywhere . And yet, her hand against his shoulder wasn’t shoving him away.

It was just resting there. Not quite a caress—God forfend—but certainly not an act of aggression, either.

She waited just long enough for that sucked-in breath to come out on a sigh.

And then…

And then they were kissing .

His mouth was even warmer than his fingers. Bizarrely enough, this was the first thought that crossed Catherine’s mind. She wanted more of that warmth—that thought came second.

She took a half step forward, bringing her body flush against his.

She’d never liked her height, which left her towering over most of the ladies of the ton , but now, she relished the way she didn’t have to crane her neck to reach him.

His free arm, the one that wasn’t still holding her wrist, came to rest on her waist.

And through it all, they kissed. At first, it was just the press of mouths, but she gasped, and he moved his lips with hers, and then her mouth was open and so was his, slanting more firmly together. They each moved. It was like a dance.

Except no dance had ever made Catherine burn like this. No waltz had ever felt so scandalous, no partner ever so in tune with her movements. It was outrageous, how good it felt—at least twice as good as the outpouring of anger had felt.

But that?—

It was wrong. It was so wrong, no matter how good it felt.

She should have felt grateful when he pulled away.

For the first moment, however, all she felt was disappointment.

And after that, blind panic.

What had she done ?

She blinked, her mouth dropping open in horror. The Duke of Seaton wore a matching expression. It was the first time they were in agreement.

And perhaps they could have come to an agreement over that—if not for the fact that Catherine, feeling like an utter coward, turned swiftly on her heel and fled.