Chapter Sixteen
The duke had been able to tell Celine so little about Lord Burnley that when at last he appeared, she was impatient to form an impression of him.
He took after his mother, of whom she was already fond.
He offered his hand to the duke quite unselfconsciously, his easy manner showing an innate confidence that she liked.
She took a deep, steadying breath. She wasn’t here to be distracted by the champagne fizz of an evening out—her first party in years!—she was here to exchange herself for a bed to sleep in for the rest of her life. This man’s bed. And the first impression was good.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, offering her hand for a kiss. He liked that. He liked holding her hand, though he did so with brief formality, and he bowed over it rather than kissed it. Lady Pecke offered Celine her hand as well, with a warm greeting.
Lord Pecke was already deep in conversation with the duke, not bothering to be introduced. (Again.)
“Forgive my husband’s rudeness,” Lady Pecke said fondly. “Every second of the day feels urgent to him, poor man.”
“I know the feeling,” she said, eliciting a small laugh from Lady Pecke.
“Miss Genet,” said Lord Burnley, “might I fetch you a drink?”
“Yes, do, Henry,” Lady Pecke said, waggling her closed fan at her son. “It is uncomfortably hot in here, and nobody has seen to Miss Genet’s comfort.” This last was spoken with a small, reprimanding glance in the duke’s direction, which Celine was certain the duke saw, and this tickled her no end.
“Thank you, sir, you are kind.”
Lord Burnley smiled, and his cheeks dimpled in the most startling manner. Then he was gone to fight his way to the drinks table, which had become more crowded since the girl had stopped singing.
“My son has been looking forward to making your acquaintance.”
“No more than I,” she said truthfully.
“Shall we join my young cousin Miss Finemore in the next room?” Lady Pecke asked. “She has a number of suitable young friends you will enjoy meeting. Though I must warn you, they’re all terribly enamoured of the violinist who is to perform next.”
Celine cast an anxious glance over at Lord Burnley, who hadn’t yet obtained her drink.
“Lord Burnley will follow us as soon as he is able,” Lady Pecke said, with a twinkle in her eye.
Celine happened to catch the duke’s eye as she turned to leave and knew she was furious.
Furious at being stuck talking to Lord Pecke; furious at Celine for leaving her side (the duke seemed to have an unwholesome fear of what Celine might do without her watchful eye: hand out copies of the letter, perhaps, or offer to suck the footman off for a shilling).
Somehow, learning more about the duke’s past and character had only made Celine’s hatred of her more potent. Perhaps because the duke had taken such care with the reputation of a maid and had struck her own cousin to protect an unknown girl on Bond Street, yet hadn’t bothered to save Celine.
Slowly she smiled at the duke. As slow, and hot, and dazzling as she knew how.
And for a moment—just the briefest, most impossible moment—the duke’s face went blank, wiped clean of all feeling. Then, hotter than before, fury returned.
It was sweet, so sweet. She couldn’t unlive the past three years, but she could extract a small measure of suffering from the duke in recompense.
She knew the mad urge to use her hold over the duke, here and now, in front of everyone, to exercise this single power she had.
She could tell the duke to go to her knees before her in supplication.
She could tell the duke to kiss her slipper.
And she knew—and the duke, in that burning fury, knew—that the duke would do it.
“My dear?” The gentle query from Lady Pecke brought back sanity so suddenly she heard her fevered fantasy pop. The ordinary world returned. The kind woman beside her returned, with concern in her eyes, who thought her a sheltered young innocent.
“Forgive me,” she said, taking Lady Pecke’s arm, her hands prickling and sweating inside her gloves. “I had a queer turn. I am well again.”
In the salon, Miss Finemore greeted her with shy good humour, but as the violinist had just begun to play, most of Miss Finemore’s friends spared Celine only the most cursory greeting before turning back to watch, eyes shining.
One young woman, however, came directly to Celine and baldly looked her over, head to toe and back again.
The girl was dressed very elegantly, and she waved a fan before her face which made the feathers in her hair flutter.
Her clothing, which must have cost a fortune, faded entirely into the background beside her face.
Framed by a tumble of pale golden curls, it was exquisite.
When her perusal reached Celine’s face again, she snapped her fan shut and said decisively, “You are also very beautiful. You and I shall be friends.”
Celine wanted to laugh, but she said as mildly as possible, “Forgive me, your name?”
“Lady Florence Morton. You shall call me Florence. As we are to be such intimates, I shan’t call you Miss Jennet. I refuse to speak French so long as your nation persists in the ill-mannered practice of beheading my relatives, and the name sounds so ill in English. What is your Christian name?”
She gave it, feeling a little dazed. “And are you acquainted with my guardian, the Duke of Howard?”
Florence’s response was a bored shrug that showed no interest in the topic. It seemed she truly wished to befriend Celine for her own sake, as though somehow their both being beautiful made friendship obvious.
“You don’t moon about this young man on the violin?” she asked, nodding towards the player on whom the other girls were so fixated.
“Celine, I am an heiress. I don’t moon about over anyone.”
Speculatively, Celine cast an eye about. She and Florence together had attracted a significant amount of attention. “No, you are the moon,” she said. “I understand.”
With a look of approval, Florence linked her arm through Celine’s. “Being a singular celestial body, alone in the vastness of space, does occasionally make one feel so morose, does it not?”
“Calling yourself a lump of rock, Flo?” The straightforward, no-nonsense voice broke into their conversation and a moment later, Lord Burnley was by Celine’s side. He passed her the hard-won drink.
Florence made a very funny little face, her mouth pulling down and her tongue pushing out. “Shut up, Henry. At least you’d know what to do with a lady, if she were a lump of rock.”
“Throw her over the back fence?” he said mildly.
“You would, too,” Florence said in disgust. “God save the poor woman who marries you.”
An awkward silence settled between Celine and Lord Burnley. It had obviously not occurred to Florence that anyone might have designs on becoming Lord Burnley’s wife, least of all her new friend, but Celine and he were only too aware of what they were about this evening.
“You two know each other, I think?” Celine said, passing lightly over the awkwardness.
“Lady Pecke is my godmother,” Florence said. “Ipso facto, Henry has been lecturing me since I was a baby. He is only six years older—an insignificant number of which he takes grievous advantage—but even at six I believe he would have had the vocabulary and general demeanour of an elderly vicar.”
Far from being offended, Lord Burnley smiled at this, flashing his dimples. Celine’s good opinion of him grew. Florence pulled her funny face again.
The duke’s cousin, Mr. Howard, appeared then in eye-catching black and white, and offered Lady Pecke a glass of ratafia with a courtly bow. She looked a little flustered, accepting it.
“You forgot to get your own mother a drink, you dolt,” he said, moving into their small circle and knocking his shoulder against Lord Burnley’s in a friendly manner.
Lord Burnley coloured a little and glanced at his mother, who was deep in conversation with another middle-aged woman. “Did she want some?”
Mr. Howard darted a conspiratorial look at Celine. “You didn’t hear her ask? Why, was your attention devoted elsewhere?”
Celine bit back her smile.
The resemblance to the duke was less stark in Mr. Howard than it had been in Royce, but he bore the unmistakeable mark of being a Howard. The height, the honed cheeks, the intensity of his gaze. A quality that drew the eye.
“Wait,” Florence said, put out. “Why are you doing that with your eyebrows? Are you suggesting Henry thinks Celine is a rock?”
Mr. Howard blinked, then stared at her.
“Well?” she demanded impatiently. “Does he want to throw her over the back fence or not?”
“Lady Florence,” Mr. Howard ventured, “are you feeling quite well?”
“Yes, very well,” she said with a brisk frown. “Why do you ask?”
“I…” The duke’s cousin seemed at a loss for words, prompting a softening from Florence.
“Are you quite well, Mr. Howard?” she asked solicitously.
Celine could no longer hold back her laughter, and a moment later, Lord Burnley’s rumbling voice joined hers.
Lady Pecke saved Mr. Howard by interceding then, returning the conversation to a saner course.
She introduced Celine to their hostess, Mrs. Johnson, and a number of other acquaintances as well, as the evening drew on.
The room grew warmer, and the faces and conversations began to butt into one another, some impressions more lasting than others.
Throughout, Lord Burnley, Mr. Howard, and Florence remained by her side, bickering with one another and making funny and considerate observations to her.
She barely knew them, really. And yet she felt a fragile, ghostly sense of belonging.
Steadied by them, as though she stood not on two feet but on eight.
She was beginning to find her place here in this foreign land, and in a foreign class.
When it came time to go through for supper, Mr. Howard and Lord Burnley both turned to her, but it was Lord Burnley who said warmly, “Miss Genet, would you be so good as to take my arm?”
She looked up into his kind, uneven eyes.
“I would be delighted,” she said, meaning it with all her heart.