Chapter 8
What Price Honour
“It’s blue,” Celia insisted, gazing down at the lovely bolt of silk and looking as if she might stamp her foot.
“It’s green as bloody grass, you little nitwit.”
“There is something wrong with your eyesight. What colour are the trees out there?” she demanded, waving her hand towards the front of the shop. “Or the sky?”
Damian bit back a smile. “The grass is green, the sky is blue, and—”
“It is perhaps verdigris, eh?” Madame Auguste said diplomatically. “Whatever you call it, I think it very beautiful. It suits the lady, oui?”
“Yes,” Damian replied, a little sorry she had stuck her oar in. Squabbling with Celia was rather entertaining. She was so wonderfully easy to rile. “We’ll take it, as well as all the others the lady liked.”
“Damian,” Celia replied, looking shocked. “I wasn’t expecting you to get them all.”
“I know,” he replied, tugging on his gloves.
That she hadn’t expected it annoyed him a little.
She was the daughter of a duke. She ought not to be coming down in the world.
Still, he could cover the expense. He’d had word from the company he’d invested in and things were looking up.
Several of the most notable theatres in London had agreed to fit their gas lighting, and if that was a success, well, who knew where it would lead?
She moved closer, her expression one of concern, her voice low so the proprietress could not hear their exchange. “Damian, I don’t wish—”
“Celia!” Damian let out a breath, realising he had rather barked her name, and she looked startled. “Forgive me. I can do this, and I wish to do so. Allow me to, please. I shall not beggar myself over it, I swear.”
Her expression softened, and a smile touched her lips. “Well, in that case, thank you. You know, I don’t really care if the gown is blue or green. The fabric is beautiful and I love it.”
Damian chuckled. “Good. I am glad to hear it.”
He waited until he had reached the door, knowing she must return to the changing room before she could meet him outside.
“It was definitely green, though,” he remarked, and stepped quickly outside.
“You are the most provoking man. First, you insist blue is green and now you try to vex me by pretending you do not care where we live. Surely you have an opinion?”
Cilly watched him as he shrugged. He was doing it on purpose, she knew, and the knowledge delighted her for reasons she didn’t quite understand.
“I have opinions about all sorts of things, I only wish to hear what you want first,” he countered.
It had been a wonderful day. She had not expected the visit to the modiste, which had been entirely his idea.
Cilly had assumed she would wear one of her best gowns for the wedding, but to have something new for the event made it feel rather more special, like a real wedding, with two people who loved one another.
Which it wasn’t, obviously. She wasn’t fool enough to mistake kindness for love, but she thought perhaps he liked her better than he wished to admit. It was a start.
They turned the corner and walked through the gates of Hatherley Hall.
“Well, if you wish to know what I would like best, then I must tell you—”
Cilly broke off with a gasp, clutching Damian’s arm.
“Celia, what is it? Christ, you’re as white as a sheet.”
“My f-father,” she stammered, gesturing to the gleaming black carriage that showed the Duke of Langley’s crest, standing before the front doors of the hall.
Damian regarded the elegant equipage and the four magnificent bays with a jaundiced eye and sighed. “I suppose it was too much to hope he’d just send a letter like he did for your sister.”
“I’m the last one, Damian. Hart married for love, but in the duke’s eyes his wife is a nobody, if a rich one. And Hetty—”
“And now you’ve been ruined and forced to marry an impoverished viscount when you might have had an earl. Yes, I do see, my dear. Well, we shall simply have to face him down. I suppose I must let him ring a peal over me. Are you up to the challenge, pet?”
Cilly looked up at him in surprise. “Damian, you cannot think that I will let you take the blame when I—”
“Come along, Celia,” he said, taking her by the hand and towing her into the hall.
Cilly’s heart was thudding in her ears by the time they were inside, the duke’s voice audible even from the doorway.
“I demand to see my daughter!”
“And as I have told you,” Hawkney’s voice sounded strained, as if he longed to throw the man out and would do so if he must endure much more, “you may see her the moment she returns.”
“Your grace.” Damian’s voice cut through the tense atmosphere, and the Duke of Langley spun around to face them.
Her brother Hart had inherited the man’s imposing stature, and whilst his hair was entirely white now, he still appeared vigorous, even handsome.
Yet his eyes were a frosty blue and held no warmth.
As a child she had longed for his approval and done her utmost to please him.
As she grew, she had understood this was impossible, so she had remained biddable, or at least cultivated the appearance of docility, for her father might have the power of a duke, but he was not half so clever as he liked to believe.
Her grandmother ran rings around him, and Cilly had learned the knack of doing so without being so wildly provoking.
“You dare to address me?” he demanded, scouring Damian with a look of such contempt that Cilly’s temper flared.
“Do you truly wish to discuss private matters in the entrance hall, and before the servants, Father? I believed you knew better, but perhaps you are forgetting your manners and the dignity due your position with your advancing years?” she suggested, and so politely that it took the man a moment to realise he was being insulted.
“Cecilia,” he said glacially, and the way he spoke her name made her heart jump.
She told herself there was nothing he could do nor say to hurt her, not any longer.
She had believed any affection she had felt for him had withered and died years since, but it appeared that was not entirely true. “We will indeed speak. In private.”
“You may use my study,” Hawkney said, gesturing to the door.
Langley nodded curtly and walked through, turning on the threshold as he noted Damian escorting her. “I will speak to Cecilia alone.”
It was an order, and one that brooked no argument.
“No, your grace, you will not,” Damian replied, matching his tone.
Cilly’s gaze leapt to his face, but his cold blue-grey gaze was focused on the duke. Good Lord, but how had she chosen a man with the same icy eyes as her father? Yet Damian’s eyes were not always so cold. They could light with laughter, and with warmth too. She had seen that for herself.
Still, it seemed her father wished to rake her over the coals first before putting whatever proposal he’d come up with to her fiancé. “Damian, it’s all right, I—”
“It is not all right,” he said, taking her hand. “I am your fiancé, dammit, and I have the right and the duty to protect you. If he wishes to speak with you, he may do so in my presence, or not at all.”
Her father regarded Damian as if he was of no consequence and Cilly felt his indignation burn as wildly as her own.
“Fiancé,” the duke murmured with a short laugh. “We shall see about that.”
So saying, he turned and walked into the room.
The words confirmed everything Cilly had feared most.
“Celia?”
All her lovely plans, everything she had so carefully created for herself suddenly looked as substantial as a house of cards, and her father was determined to send them fluttering away. She closed her eyes and took a breath.
No.
Everything depended on Damian now. Which meant it would be fine. He was a good man at heart, an honourable one. He would not let her down.
“Celia, God dammit! What’s wrong?”
She smiled a little at that and looked up at him, a glimmer of humour burning through the shock. “Nothing. I… I was shaken for a moment there, but I’m fine now.”
Damian watched as she lifted her hand, as if she might touch his face before thinking better of it. “We’d best go in. He hates being kept waiting.”
She walked towards the study, head up, spine straight, and Damian could do nothing more than follow her, foreboding a slimy, cold slithering thing in his guts.
He closed the door behind them and went to stand beside Celia.
The duke stood before the large windows that looked out upon the pretty gardens beneath and turned to face them. “I won’t waste any more of my time over this business. The earl will still take you, Celia, though he’s demanding another ten thousand for taking on damaged goods—”
The colour left Celia’s cheeks at the crass words, though she held herself with pride. How many insults had she borne from this man to endure such slander with barely a blink?
Damian’s temper lit.
“How dare you!” Damian growled, incensed at hearing Celia described in such terms. “And he’ll do no such—”
“As for you, my fine fellow,” the duke went on, white with rage. “You must have known I would withhold my daughter’s dowry, as I did to your brother when he stole Henrietta from her family.”
“Stole her, that’s a good one!” Damian’s bark of laughter made the duke clench his jaw, but the bastard carried on talking.
“So, the lure was a mere fifteen thousand pounds. Luckily for you, I am a rich man. I’ll give you twenty thousand to go away without a word.”
Damian stared at the duke, disbelieving. He truly thought money was the answer to all his problems, that he could push everyone around and arrange things just as he wished.
He smiled at the duke, a not nice smile—one at which he was especially adept. Satisfaction glinted in the old man’s eyes as he stepped forward, believing he knew what Damian would say.
“Go to the Devil and roast, you miserable old bastard. You and your bloody money,” he snarled, before spinning on his heel and catching hold of Celia’s hand.