Chapter Six #2
“And I have always been dreadful at it.” He straightened, restoring polite distance. “One hour, Lady Rothwest. Whatever you choose to wear.”
***
She wore the blue.
It was petty, perhaps, to grant him that victory—but the gown was exquisite, midnight silk that lent her skin the sheen of pearl, and the sapphires were breathtaking. A full parure: necklace, earrings, bracelet, even a delicate tiara Sally nestled into her dark hair with surprising deftness.
“You look like a queen, my lady,” Sally breathed, stepping back to admire her handiwork.
“I look like his creation,” Celine corrected, studying her reflection.
The woman in the mirror was elegant, composed, untouchable—everything a Countess of Rothwest ought to be.
Nothing like Celine Beckett, who read Gothic novels, climbed into attics to think, and arrived late to dinner simply to see what might happen.
The Duke was waiting in the entrance hall, devastating in evening black. When she began her descent, something flickered across his face—too quickly to name.
“Magnificent,” he said simply, offering his arm.
“The jewels are beautiful.”
“I wasn’t talking about the jewels.”
Before she could respond, he guided her to the carriage, assisting her with a competence that suggested long practice.
He took the seat opposite hers—as had become their habit—but tonight the carriage felt smaller, the air drawn taut by something that had little to do with their earlier quarrel and everything to do with the way he was looking at her.
“Stop that,” she said.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me as though you’re cataloguing my weaknesses for future use.”
“I am, in fact, cataloguing your strengths.” He tilted his head, studying her with unashamed intensity.
“The way you lift your chin when you’re uneasy but determined not to show it.
The tension in your shoulders that suggests you’re braced for battle.
The way your fingers tap your gown when you’re preparing a cutting remark. ”
Her fingers stilled at once. “That is remarkably invasive.”
“That is marriage.” The carriage turned onto Brook Street. “We are about to enter a ballroom full of people desperate to decipher our union. To sniff out scandal, misstep, any imperfection they can use for amusement. If we are not united, they’ll devour us both.”
“And you care what they think?”
“I care about power,” he corrected. “Social, financial, political—they are intertwined. Lose one, the others tremble. Your father learned that too late.”
She stiffened at the casual cruelty. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes. You must understand the field on which we are playing. They smile as they sharpen their knives. They will call you beautiful while whispering that I purchased you. They will congratulate our marriage while wagering how soon you’ll take a lover.”
“I would never—”
“I know.” The certainty in his tone startled her. “You have too much pride to be ordinary. But they do not know that. All they know is that Baron Broker’s daughter wed the Beast of Berkeley Square scarcely a week after whispers of debts and gaming rooms.”
The carriage slowed before Lady Ashford’s townhouse, ablaze with light and thronged with guests.
“So what do you propose?” she asked.
He leaned forward—close enough that any onlooker would assume intimacy. “We give them a different story. A prettier one. One they will prefer to the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That you tamed the Beast.” His smile flashed, sharp as winter. “That the cold Duke of Rothwest has been brought low by love. They’ll still gossip—but it will be the gratifying sort rather than the ruinous kind.”
“And how do we sell them this charming fiction?”
“Like this.” He took her hand, raising it to his lips and kissing her gloved fingers—a gesture that looked tender and felt scorching through the silk. “Follow my lead, wife. Attempt to look besotted rather than apprehensive.”
“I’m not apprehensive.”
“No?” He helped her alight, his hand at her waist both proprietary and unexpectedly protective. “Then what is it I see in your eyes?”
“Anticipation,” she admitted, surprising herself with the truth of it.
He laughed quietly—a low sound meant for her alone. “Then mercy be upon us both.”
They entered Lady Ashford’s ballroom like generals entering enemy territory. Conversation faltered; heads turned; fans fluttered in agitation. The Beast and his unlikely bride had arrived.
Lady Ashford swept toward them immediately, a vision in puce silk and ill-advised diamonds. “Your Grace! And the new Duchess, Lady Rothwest! What a delight.”
Her tone suggested she meant scandal.
“Lady Ashford.” He bowed flawlessly. “How kind of you to invite us.”
“Well, one simply couldn’t ignore such news! Married so quietly—and so swiftly. You’ve positively shattered poor Miss Weatherby’s heart. She was certain you would offer this Season.”
“I doubt Miss Weatherby was aware of my existence,” the Duke said dryly. “As I was blissfully unaware of hers.”
“Oh, you dreadful man!” Lady Ashford tittered, already turning her talons on Celine. “And you, my dear! What a triumph! However did you secure him?”
“I am not certain I take your meaning,” Celine replied with a serene smile.
“Why, capturing the uncapturable His Grace, the Duke of Rothwest! He’s refused every girl flung at him for five Seasons. We had despaired of him marrying at all.”
“Perhaps,” the Duke interjected smoothly, “I was simply waiting for the right woman.”
He said it lightly, but his hand found the small of Celine’s back—a touch that appeared supportive and felt unmistakably possessive.
“How romantic!” Lady Ashford breathed, eyes alight with ravenous delight. “And there we all believed you quite incapable of softer sentiments.”
“One’s capacities and one’s willingness to display them are rarely the same,” he replied. “Now, if you will excuse us, I promised my wife the first dance.”
He spirited Celine away before Lady Ashford could pounce again, navigating through the crush with implacable purpose.
“I don’t recall you promising me a dance,” she murmured.
“Would you rather have remained in Lady Ashford’s talons a moment longer?”
“Point taken.” She allowed him to lead her to the dance floor, where couples assembled for a waltz. “I ought to warn you, I am not—by any stretch—an exceptional dancer.”
“You’ll do splendidly. I’m exceptional enough for both.”
It should have sounded unbearably arrogant. Instead, it merely proved true. When the music began, and he drew her into the steps, she understood why: he moved with absolute certainty, guiding her so skilfully she felt graceful by association.
“You’re doing it again,” she said as they turned.
“What precisely am I doing?”
“Controlling everything. Even this.”
“Would you prefer to stumble?”
“I’d prefer to be dancing with a man—not a puppeteer.”
His hand tightened infinitesimally at her waist. “You wish me to be less controlled?”
“I wish you to be human.”
“Dangerous request.” He spun her, and for a heartbeat, she felt as though she floated. “Humans are unpredictable.”
“Yes,” she said. “Wonderfully so.”
Something shifted in his hold, became less technical and more... present. He was still leading, but now it felt like a conversation rather than a lecture. She could feel the heat of his hand through her gown, the strength in his shoulders beneath her palm.
“People are watching,” he murmured.
“Let them.”
“They’re wondering if it’s real.”
“What is?”
“This.” His breath brushed her ear. “Us. The fiction we’re spinning.”
“And what do you think they see?”
“A man dancing with his wife.” His thumb traced the barest arc against her waist. “A man who waited five Seasons for the right woman and married her the moment he could.”
“Is that the story we’re telling?”
“Unless you have a better one.”
The music ended, but he didn’t release her at once. They remained suspended in the posture of the dance, and she felt the weight of a hundred stares.
“Kiss me,” she said quietly.
For the first time since she’d met him, he actually blinked. “What?”
“Kiss me,” she repeated, softer this time. “On the hand.”
A faint, unmistakable colour touched his cheekbones—gone almost before it appeared, but she saw it. He straightened, as though schooling himself back into composure.
“I thought you meant…” He stopped, jaw tightening.
“What?” she pressed.
“Nothing,” he said too swiftly, recovering his equilibrium like a shutter snapping closed. “It is merely—”
“Unexpected? Unmanageable?” Her chin lifted in challenge. “Everything you despise?”
His eyes flashed—something like irritation, something like something else entirely.
“Very well,” he said, voice dropping to a low, controlled register.
He reached for her gloved fingers, and she felt the slightest tremor he tried to hide. Slowly—almost reverently—he lifted her hand. And as he brought his lips to her knuckles, he did not look at her hand.
He looked at her.
The kiss itself was perfectly proper. The eye contact was not.
A ripple went through the ballroom—fans fluttering, whispers blooming like wildfire.
He released her hand with the barest brush of his thumb. “There,” he murmured, voice rougher than she’d ever heard it. “Scandal enough for you?”
Before she could answer, he was leading her off the dance floor, past the shocked and delighted faces of the ton, to a relatively quiet corner where champagne and whispered commentary flowed in equal measure.
“That was...” she began.
“Necessary,” he finished, accepting two glasses from a passing footman and offering her one.
“Observe.” He inclined his head subtly toward the ballroom.
“We have given them precisely what they craved—romantic spectacle, a hint of passion, the suggestion that beauty has succeeded in taming the Beast.”
She glanced around. Everywhere she looked, faces were turned toward them—not with hostility, but with avid interest, envy, speculation. The story they’d just told was already taking root.