Page 47 of Corrupting his Duchess (A Duke’s Undoing #1)

“Not that I’m not grateful for the rescue,” Ariadne began, “but why…” She trailed off as she glanced around. “ Oh . Is that mean old duke at it again?”

It really was a sign of how deeply the past day had affected Catherine that her first impulse was to argue that the Duke of Seaton was not old. Nor did she necessarily think he was mean . He was just…angry.

And handsome , her useless brain supplied.

“I might protest your characterization, if only on a point of politeness,” was where she landed. “But indeed, the Duke of Seaton appears to be looking our way.”

Ariadne stole another glance. “I…think he’s mostly just looking at you, Kitty,” she offered.

“Thank you,” Catherine said dryly to her little sister. “So helpful.”

Ariadne scrunched up her nose. “Sorry. I just… What is he so upset about? Do you know him?”

“Not at all,” Catherine said, a little too sharply. When Ariadne’s brows rose in surprise, Catherine forced herself to soften her tone.

“No, I don’t know him,” she said. “But he seems to have some objection to our family. I think perhaps a political matter?”

Ariadne had been blessed with a charming overabundance of family loyalty; Catherine had always wondered if this was because Ariadne had enjoyed limited interactions with some of the more challenging members of the family.

Grandfather Cornelius had been a great man, after all, with all the personal foibles that came from such greatness.

Ariadne hadn’t ever known their grandfather, as he’d died before her birth.

And while Ariadne had been raised by Catherine, Catherine had been raised by their mother, the dowager duchess. The differences between the two were…palpable.

“How rude!” Ariadne seethed. “Xander is a very fine politician—the finest in England, I’d wager!”

Catherine loved her brother, but this was patently untrue. There were men who made their whole lives in politics, and Xander was very much not one of them.

“There’s no need to fuss,” Catherine soothed, reaching out to fix an errant hairpin in her sister’s coiffure. Ariadne always had some detail of her appearance amiss, no matter her maid’s best efforts. Catherine suspected that Ariadne did it on purpose to avoid too much attention from others.

“It sounds like there is a need to fuss,” Ariadne countered mutinously.

“No.” Catherine was calm but firm. “He’s just doing it to be difficult. Don’t give him any attention, and the problem will go away.”

She would make sure if it…even if it meant putting herself back into the duke’s beguiling orbit.

“Jesus Christ, Percy.”

Percy didn’t even turn around. He took a sip of his drink. David always had hidden the good liquor away in his study, so when Percy had found himself in dire need of a drink, he’d stolen away.

It was merely a nice bonus that this kept him away from the thrum and bustle of the party.

And her .

He could not believe that he’d kissed her. It was…unthinkable. Irrational! Nonsensical!

David came around to the front of Percy’s armchair, a disapproving look on his face. When Percy ignored this, too, David stole his brandy and downed it in a single gulp.

“Hey!” Percy objected. “I was drinking that!”

“Oh, so you can talk,” David observed with an arched brow as he sank into the chair opposite his friend. “And here I was starting to think that all you knew how to do was skulk and stare and linger like some sort of malevolent ghost.”

“I feel these insults are uncalled for,” Percy said tersely.

“Do you?” David challenged. “Do you really?”

“Yes, I do,” said Percy, who didn’t. He had been staring. He would even admit to skulking a little. The bit about the ghost was perhaps going a bit far, but he took David’s point.

He was not behaving in a gentlemanly manner.

And that was unlike him. It was, more to the point, counterproductive. It was a thousand steps back along the path that he’d been so forcefully climbing ever since he’d inherited his seat some ten years prior.

Ten years. It had taken a full decade, but he had, through dint of effort alone, elevated the Seaton name so that nobody ever thought to look down on his title merely because of the humble birth of its previous duke.

Their coffers hadn’t been empty, but he’d bolstered them, proving himself an adept businessman.

He dutifully maintained his seat in Parliament, showing up to votes far more regularly than the average peer, building a reputation as a steady-minded and even-keeled man.

And, true, the Tories hated him, but aside from that, he was generally well-liked, if not particularly close with anyone in the ton aside from David, whom he had met several years prior.

David had, for reasons Percy still didn’t quite understand, decided they were going to be friends. He hadn’t exactly given Percy much say in the matter.

But the friendship had been good—both personally and in Percy’s quest to elevate his family name.

Or, rather, it had been good until now .

David was pinning him with a look .

“Fine,” Percy admitted. He was not an unreasonable man. He was not blind to his flaws. Those qualities belonged to others, the kind of men that Percy despised. “It is perhaps not my finest showing.”

“What a diplomatic way of saying you’re behaving like a lunatic!” David said brightly, as though Percy were a clever child who had said something particularly precocious.

Percy scowled and stood to serve himself another glass of David’s finest liquor. He didn’t bother offering his friend any.

If David wanted to be a prat, he could get his own drinks.

“Shouldn’t you be off playing host somewhere?” Percy inquired. “Why don’t you just leave me here? I cannot bother anyone with my supposed lunacy if I am sitting quietly, alone.”

“I should be off playing host, but no, I cannot leave you here, because you are my friend.” David paused as if considering his approach. “And also, you are ruining my party. So, tell me. What grievance do you have with Lady Catherine Lightholder?”

Her name landed on Percy like a blow. He doubted it was convincing when he tried to brush it off.

“You know perfectly well why I have no patience for the Lightholders,” he said.

David had gotten the truth out of Percy one night when the two friends were deep in their cups.

He’d listened with an uncharacteristically serious air, then nodded in a way that made Percy wonder if his friend didn’t have his own guarded hurt, his own childhood wound that had followed him into adulthood.

Percy knew that David took him seriously. It was the only thing that stopped him from growing furious when his friend now regarded him with something like doubt.

“I’m not sure you can hold the lady accountable for the sins of the grandfather,” he said.

Percy shook his head. This would be fair, except…

“She’s just as snobbish as the rest of them,” he protested. “You can see it in her oh- so -perfect polish. Women like that…they value image. Nothing else.”

David’s doubt remained. “She seems nice enough to me,” he said gently. “A bit prim, perhaps, but can you blame her? She’s a lady of the ton . They’re not exactly encouraged to wildness. At least she’s not as timid as the younger one. The poor thing looks frightened half to death most of the time.”

In truth, Percy had hardly even noticed the younger sister.

“Yes, I suppose Lady Arianna doesn’t seem to be too self-important,” he allowed.

David gave him another look. “That would be a compliment, I suppose, if her name wasn’t Lady Ariadne, but I suppose that your attention has been rather focused on her sister…”

He trailed off suggestively. Percy sent his friend a rude gesture.

His friend might be annoying, but he wasn’t wrong .

Percy had been focused on the elder sister from the moment she set foot on his friend’s property.

He wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as though the younger sister, whatever her name might have been, wasn’t pretty enough.

Too young for Percy’s notice, even if she wasn’t part of the family that he so loathed, but pretty enough.

But Lady Catherine? She was…arresting.

David was giving Percy a look like he could read his thoughts. Christ, Percy hated that look. Why couldn’t his friend contain anything more than the flippant and glib persona he tended to show the world? Why could he not be the devilish entertainer and nothing else?

“Don’t look at me like that,” he complained.

This did make David grin. Percy amended his previous thought. The devilish side of David could be just as infuriating.

“Like what?” he asked. “Like you are thinking thoughts you don’t want to be thinking about a certain lady?”

“That sentence barely made sense,” Percy groused.

“But I’m right, aren’t I?”

“No. You are not.”

“I think I am. I think I really, really am.”

He really, really was.

Percy hated himself a bit for how much he had enjoyed the feeling of Lady Catherine’s lips beneath his, hated that part of him could still feel the soft curve of her waist against his palm. And this did not even account for the self-recrimination he faced for giving in to this desire.

Lady Catherine Lightholder might not be a debutante in the first blush of youth, and she might be the granddaughter of his enemy. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t an unmarried lady. And only the worst kind of scoundrels dallied with unmarried ladies whom they had no intention of marrying.

Percy had spent a decade cultivating respectability. He’d never been a scoundrel.

But in that alcove, in that moment—he’d liked being rakish, being daring.

And that was an impulse that he had to quash. He had to.

“If I agree to stop staring at the Lightholder sisters, will you agree to leave me alone?” he asked, suddenly so weary of this conversation.

Or perhaps that was because he’d barely slept the night before, plagued with erotic dreams about tall women with soft brown hair.

“I will agree to temporarily stop bothering you about this specific issue if you come down and act normal at the party.”

David’s counteroffer was sharp; he’d always been savvy at business.

Percy sighed. This was likely the best he could ask for. And besides, he had to prove to himself that he was capable of ignoring Lady Catherine. She was nothing to him. Nothing.

“Fine,” he said. “I agree to your terms.”

David’s grin was wicked and sharp as a knife.

“Marvelous. And when you break the bargain, well—don’t say I didn’t predict it, aye?”

And then the confounded bastard stole Percy’s drink again and strode out of the room, his laughter echoing behind him as he went.