Chapter Thirty-Three
Celine claimed exhaustion to excuse her silence on the way home.
The duke’s frequent, worried glances only worsened her mood.
When they arrived back at the duke’s house, she stormed up to her rooms and called Adele to come attend to her, then immediately dismissed her again. She couldn’t stand being around anyone.
She paced her bedroom. Poured herself a glass of water and didn’t drink it.
Fumbled her pelisse open and let it fall wherever with a metallic rush, like something breaking.
She clawed pins out of her hair, throwing them about, and scrubbed her hands over her scalp, letting the full length of her hair cascade down.
She went into her library and pulled down a book to read. She threw herself into the tall-backed armchair and opened the book, staring at the tiny, printed letters. They refused to organise themselves into words; all she could see was the higgledy-piggledy way each letter had been placed by hand.
Her heartbeat didn’t slow. It was as thunderous as hooves against packed sand.
How the duke had looked down at her, and smiled.
That smile.
So full of herself. So sure of her place in the world, starting with her seat on that monstrous horse. And … giving it to Celine. Smiling like she was giving it to Celine. Asking Celine to enjoy it, to admire it.
Celine was back there, under the blinding sun with the horse’s deep snorts of exertion and the dry slap of leather, the brush of the duke’s boot against the horse’s hide.
And then, instead of going inside the house with Mr. Benson directly after, as she had in reality done, she was in the dark stable when the duke rode the horse in.
She and the duke locked eyes. She stood quietly, barely visible against the wall as the duke patted the horse and gave him another apple and discussed his care with the groom, all the while aware Celine was waiting.
And then the duke walked past without even glancing her way, but grabbed her wrist in a punishing grip, making her follow after.
And as soon as they had turned a corner, the duke had her pushed against the wall, had her skirts pushed up—skirts and chemise and petticoats all, a violation of the tied parcel—and in some indefinite way was penetrating her, pushing her into the wall and kissing her. Taking her.
The duke pulled back, breathing heavily, her eyes holding Celine captive.
Then sucked her own bottom lip into her mouth and let it drag slowly out over her teeth: the first shape a mouth would make to curse.
Those sharp teeth, that monstrous, perfect mouth that had smiled down at Celine, inviting her to look.
Inviting her to want.
The book hit the carpet with a dull thud and brought her back to herself.
Night had all but fallen, and the library was gloomy, lit only by the low fire.
Her harsh, panting breaths filled the room.
Her hands clasped one another in her lap, so tight it would have hurt if she could feel anything but pleasure.
She didn’t.
She couldn’t.
She tipped her head back and stared up into the tall ceiling. Her breaths were the only living thing in the room, as startling as a bird that had fallen down the chimney and couldn’t find its way out again.
How had this happened?
How had she, who planned so carefully, who saw the true motivations in others’ hearts with ease, not seen it coming?
Even when she had declared herself to the duke as part of her little performance on the phaeton this morning, over and over, clearly and unmistakeably, she had been totally oblivious to her own feelings.
She wanted to belong to the duke for a lifetime. She didn’t want to marry Lord Burnley, she wanted to marry the duke. It was a startling piece of audacity or folly, but it was right, it was true. It had always been true.
It was impossible.
Surely it was impossible?
The duke would never marry the woman who had weaponised her childhood mistake. The day Celine had shown up with that letter and used it, she had surely made any future between them impossible.
If she had known what she wanted, she would have done everything differently.
She was uprooted, the pieces of her in chaos, and when the image of the duke smiling down at her from the horse returned, it set every little thing on fire.
She unclasped her hands and cupped herself through her dress.
Her head tipped back, eyes sliding up, and the bright arc of the duke’s smile cut the world open. Or did it cut Celine open?
It felt like a wound, but instead of bleeding her out, pleasure was rushing in, so much of it, there was so much pleasure, like the duke had infected her, had got inside her, like nothing was real but the duke smiling down at her, like her heart was only beating because hooves beat the packed sand inside her.
“Fuck!” She flung her hands wide and lay almost supine, panting up into the ceiling. “Fuck.”
This wasn’t just love. It was even stupider. It was infatuation. A bloody crush.
It was that magic spell humans were capable of that turned the very air into elixir and every breath into a high. It transformed the world from something ordinary into heaven.
So what are you going to do, Celine? She was going to die of love. What are you going to do? She reached for sanity. There was no point being self-pitying; if anyone could find the path through, it was her.
Very well, she was not as strong, or as pragmatic, or as cynical as she thought herself. But she was clever, and she was in love, and she would find out for certain whether marrying the duke was impossible before she gave in to despair.