Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
“ W e’ve been invited!”
George entered the library in the ebullient good mood that only overtook him when social climbing, disrupting Helen’s efforts at sulking, er, reassessing .
After all, without the Duke of Godwin as an ally, she had to find a husband all by herself. And she did not, she had to admit, have the faintest idea of where to start.
It wasn’t at all that she was sad because she couldn’t ask him. And if it was —which it wasn’t—that was for practical reasons, not…conversational ones.
These worries had been weighing heavily upon her shoulders for the two days since she’d bid the duke farewell in his garden, and the burden showed no signs of growing lighter anytime soon.
She did not, therefore, have much energy for whatever George was about.
“Invited to what?” she asked tiredly, continuing to jab in a desultory manner at her embroidery hoop. Any attempts at a decent design had long since been abandoned. She was now just stitching for the sake of something to do with her hands.
George made an exasperated sound. “The Willioughby-Williams-Winn ball, of course!”
Helen might have been in the doldrums, but she’d have to be dead not to pick up on that one.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But that absolutely cannot be someone’s name.”
George, who was lacking in anything that someone might consider a sense of humor, merely scowled at her.
“Of course it’s a name—an ancient and venerated one! The family came to be when the Willoughbys joined lands with their neighbors, the Williams-Winns, in order to unite against…”
She tuned out her cousin. She’d forgotten he was basically a walking and talking copy of Debrett’s. It was several minutes of Norman conquests and ancient bloodlines before she had to listen again.
“…thus they have remained one of the eminent families to know and impress. Besides,” he added, and his slimy, self-satisfied tone rang like a warning bell in Helen’s head, “the Duke of Godwin is supposed to be there.”
Helen was very careful not to react, even though something like excitement, mixed with a healthy soupcon of dread, settled in her belly at the mention of the duke’s name.
“I’ve told you before, George,” she said, her tone carefully bored. “There’s nothing between me and the Duke of Godwin. Perhaps he was just in a mood to be entertained that evening at dinner. I doubt he even remembers my name.”
This did not mollify George any more than it had mollified him the hundred times or more that Helen had already said it.
It did not sting to say it less than it had the previous hundred times, either.
“Well, then you had best make him remember it, hadn’t you?” George snapped. “I assume you don’t need a reminder of what’s at stake?—”
“No,” she interrupted. If he was going to take away all pretense, then so would she. “I haven’t forgotten. I will find myself a husband.”
“And your sister,” he added. “Though of course, she already has one option…”
Helen hated her cousin for half a dozen reasons, but none of them were as violent as this one. She hated him, well and truly loathed him, because he did not even seem to want to marry Patricia, as much as he enjoyed using the threat of it to make Helen dance to his perverse tune. It was wicked. Cruelty without purpose.
And yet he had enough power that she could not do anything but dance as he commanded. Because he was a man and he had everything. And she was a woman, so she had nothing.
It made her burn with impotent rage.
She clung to that rage, however, as her cousin dictated what she would wear and how she would act, then left her in a flounce, completely satisfied that she would follow his instructions to the letter.
Which, damn him, she would.
She held the anger to her like a child holding a doll or stuffed bear, clinging to it as an anchor.
Because if she focused on that anger, she didn’t have to think about what it might feel like to see the Duke of Godwin again.
“I cannot help but notice,” Catherine commented as she made an invisible adjustment to her perfect gloves, “that you seem to be in a particularly sour mood of late.”
“Subtle,” Xander grunted as he feigned interest in the gathered guests of yet another stupid ball. He didn’t even know how he’d ended up at this one. His sister—and now both sisters, he supposed, as Ariadne was of age—tended to socialize more than he did, but they were young ladies who were, at least nominally, on the hunt for a husband.
Though Xander could only assume that once Catherine decided she actually wanted a husband, she’d have one in an instant. This wasn’t even necessarily about her family name or substantial dowry—though those things did help, of course—but more about Catherine’s seemingly impenetrable ability to get things done.
He, however, was not in search of a bride and had no reason to be at this overcrowded affair.
No reason, an unhelpful voice inside him chimed in, except that you might see Helen.
“Well, then,” Kitty said. “Allow me to be less subtle. What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” he said, the answer too quick and reflexive to seem honest.
“Convincing!” his sister said brightly. “Well, let’s pretend that I believe you. I will then say to nobody in particular that if you need someone to talk to about your problems that do not exist, I am always here.”
He shot her a quelling look but could not resist breaking into a smile when she shot an impish grin back at him. Catherine was like him; she showed her polished face to the world and kept her truest self for only a select few.
“’Thank you, Catherine,’” she supplied.
“Thank you, dreadful little sister of mine,” he returned fondly. “Now, go manage someone else, would you? I’m sure Jason is up to some mischief somewhere.”
She narrowed her eyes at him in an I know what you’re up to sort of way but disappeared into the crowd. And yet—likely because Society life was a horror, Xander thought sourly—he did not feel any better for the lack of his sister’s meddlesome eyes upon him.
He did not feel better when he temporarily retreated to the gentleman’s smoking room, nor did he feel better when he left the redolent air behind for the crisp spring night out on the veranda.
Instead, tension ratcheted higher and higher inside him with each restless prowl until he felt less like a duke or even a man, and more like a beast in a cage, struggling to remain calm despite the unnatural confines in which he found himself.
What was wrong with him? Yes, he was playing a role, but it was one he’d been playing his whole life. Why did he feel so bothered all of a sudden?
And then he saw her.
Helen, dancing with—well, damn, he found he didn’t much care about the identity of the gentleman, even though it ought to have been the first thing he noted. He should have, deal or no deal, confirmed to see that she was in the arms of someone who would make a suitable husband.
But the restless creature inside him insisted that, as she was not in his arms, this was wrong, anyway.
This was, he told himself, a ridiculous thing to think, and, if anything, he ought to stay away from Hel— Miss Fletcher —as she inspired him to think so very many ridiculous things. He’d almost convinced himself of this, too, when she turned, and her eyes caught his, just for a moment, over the shoulder of her partner.
The dance was ending—thank God for small mercies, as his feet were already carrying himself in her direction.
“Miss Fletcher,” he said, still ignoring her surprised partner, who’d scarcely stepped back from the final movements of the dance by the time Xander approached.
He gave her his most ducal smile.
“Would you do me the honor of the next dance?”