Chapter Nine
“When?”
The Duke’s voice cut through the waltz music like a blade—low, dangerous, meant only for her ears. His hand at her waist held her with rigid correctness, no trace of yesterday’s desperate passion. Nothing but cold fury barely leashed. “When did you plan to tell me the truth?”
Cecilia’s breath caught in her throat.
“I…” The words stuck, her throat closing around explanations that suddenly seemed impossibly inadequate. “Adrian, please let me explain—”
“It’s Your Grace.” Each syllable fell like ice. “We’re in public, Lady Cecilia. Best to maintain proper decorum, don’t you think? Given how spectacularly you’ve failed to maintain it thus far.”
The formal address stung worse than a slap. Yesterday, he’d insisted she call him Adrian, had cupped her face and demanded intimacy. Now he wielded title and distance like weapons designed specifically to wound her.
“That’s not fair.” Her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed, not here, not where everyone could see. “You don’t understand—”
“Then enlighten me.”
He spun her with perhaps more force than necessary, bringing her back against his chest for one heartbeat that sent traitorous heat flooding through her body before propriety demanded distance again.
But in that single moment pressed against him, Cecilia felt his heart hammering as wildly as her own—proof that beneath the ice, he felt something.
Fury, perhaps. Betrayal. But not indifference.
Never indifference.
“Tell me, Lady Cecilia.” His voice remained dangerously soft. “What noble purpose justified infiltrating my household under false pretences? What possible explanation could make weeks of calculated deception acceptable?”
Calculated. As though every moment had been a performance rather than the most honest thing she’d ever done. As though her desire for him hadn’t gotten tangled with something deeper—something dangerously close to genuine feeling that made the lies taste like ash in her mouth.
“I needed to know you.” The confession emerged fierce, desperate, pulled from somewhere deep and raw. “Before binding my entire life to a stranger in marriage… I needed to know what kind of man—”
“So you lied to me. This union is off to a fantastic start.”
The interruption silenced her more effectively than shouting would have. He kept his voice even through what must have been a monumental effort, each word precisely controlled. “You thought nothing of deceiving everyone. Wormed your way into my aunt’s affections. Into my study. Into—”
He stopped abruptly, his jaw clenching, and Cecilia’s heart shattered a little more. He’d been about to say something else. Something that mattered.
Into his heart, perhaps. Into the places he’d locked away from everyone.
“I was frightened.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, though they were alone in their bubble of misery despite the swirling couples around them.
“After what happened with Wexford in Scotland, after being jilted publicly and humiliated before everyone I knew, I couldn’t face another arranged marriage without understanding—”
“Understanding what?” Bitterness laced his tone like poison. “Whether I’d humiliate you too? Whether I was worthy of your consideration? How remarkably arrogant of you, Lady Cecilia. To assume you had the right to judge me while presenting nothing but falsehoods in return.”
Arrogant. The accusation landed like a blow. Was that what he thought? That she’d been judging him from some position of superiority rather than desperately trying to protect what remained of her battered heart?
“I presented myself candidly.” Tears glittered in her vision now, threatening to spill despite her best efforts. “Everything I showed you—my conversations with your aunt, the way I handled her confusion, what I said to you—that was real. The only lie was my name.”
“Your name. Your station. Your entire purpose for being in my house.” The Duke’s laugh was sharp, utterly devoid of humour, and it cut through Cecilia like glass. “Forgive me if I find it difficult to distinguish between ‘one small lie’ and comprehensive deception.”
They turned again, and Cecilia was suddenly, painfully aware of how perfectly she fit in his arms despite everything unravelling between them.
How right it felt to be held by him, even as he looked at her with eyes gone cold as winter.
How her body still responded to his proximity with want that had nothing to do with logic or self-preservation.
“Yesterday,” he said quietly, dangerously, his gaze boring into hers, “when I kissed you in my aunt’s chambers. When I touched you, and you responded with what seemed like genuine desire. Was that performance too? Part of your elaborate intelligence-gathering mission?”
The question struck her like a physical blow. That he could think—that he could believe for even a moment—
“No.” The word came fierce and immediate, ripped from her soul. “That was real. What I feel for you is real, Adrian—”
“Your Grace.”
“—is the only honest thing in this entire disaster.” The tears were falling now despite her desperate attempts at control, sliding down her cheeks where everyone could see her humiliation. “I never meant to fall for you. I certainly never meant to hurt you. I just wanted to know you before—”
“Before what?” He threw her own overheard words back at her like daggers.
“Before fulfilling my father’s business arrangement. Before becoming an interchangeable piece in a necessary transaction.”
He flinched as though she’d struck him. “You heard that. That morning, in the drawing room.”
Of course she’d heard. And he should have understood that hearing him reduce their marriage to cold calculation would pale beside him discovering her deception.
“You eavesdropped.” The Duke spun her again, bringing them dangerously close—close enough that she could see the gold flecks in his dark eyes, the muscle jumping in his jaw—before propriety forced distance between them once more.
“I suppose we’re even now. Both deceivers. Both liars. A perfectly matched pair.”
Even. As though what she’d done was equivalent to his casual dismissal of their future together. As though her desperate need to know him compared to his complete indifference about who she was as a person.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice broke on the words, raw and aching. “Adrian—Your Grace—I’m so sorry. If I could go back, if I could change how I—”
“But you can’t.”
The finality in his voice made something inside Cecilia crack clean through. The music was ending, she realised distantly. Soon they’d have to return to her father, to society, to the elaborate performances they’d apparently both been giving.
Except hers had been real. Every moment, every conversation, every touch—real in a way nothing else in her life had ever been real.
“We’re bound now, Lady Cecilia. By your father’s arrangement and my agreement. The marriage will proceed as planned.”
Hope flared painfully in her chest despite everything. “You... you still want to marry me? After everything?”
He stopped dancing, standing perfectly still in the centre of the ballroom as couples swirled around them like water around stone. He looked at her with all the coldness he could summon—and it was considerable enough to make her shiver despite the ballroom’s warmth.
“Want has nothing to do with it. I made a commitment. I don’t break my word, regardless of how spectacularly others break theirs.”
The hope died as quickly as it had sparked, replaced by something far worse than anger or even hatred. Indifference masked as duty. He would marry her because his honour demanded it, not because he felt anything for her beyond contempt.
He released her as though touching her burned him, stepping back with devastating finality. “I trust you can find your own way back to your father. I find I require air.”
“Please—” Cecilia reached for his arm desperately, needing some connection, some acknowledgement that yesterday’s passion hadn’t been entirely imaginary. But he stepped back before she could touch him, putting distance between them that felt far more permanent than mere physical space.
“We’ll speak again when I’ve had time to... process this revelation.” He bowed with cutting formality, every line of his body radiating rejection. “Until then, Lady Cecilia, I suggest you enjoy the ball.”
He walked away without looking back.
Cecilia stood frozen in the middle of the dance floor, vaguely aware of other dancers parting around her like she was an obstacle to be avoided. Her vision swam with tears she could no longer contain, her breath coming in short gasps that probably looked scandalous.
He was leaving. Walking away from her. From them. From whatever fragile thing they’d been building.
And it was entirely her fault.
“Cecilia?” Her father’s voice materialised beside her, concern warring with disapproval in his expression. “What happened? Where’s the Duke goin’?”
“He needed air.” The words emerged mechanical, empty. “We’ll speak later.”
“Later? But—” Her father’s face darkened. “Did ye say somethin’ inappropriate? Do somethin’ to offend him? I warned ye to be on your best behaviour—”
“Father, please.” Cecilia pressed trembling fingers to her temple, feeling the beginnings of a headache pounding behind her eyes. “Not now. I need... I need a moment.”
She fled toward the retiring room before he could protest, desperately needing privacy, needing to fall apart where society couldn’t witness her complete devastation.
The corridor outside was blessedly empty, and Cecilia sagged against the wall, pressing her hands to her face as sobs tore through her chest.
He hated her. The Duke hated her, and she couldn’t even blame him because she’d lied. She’d deceived him. She’d infiltrated his household and his life and his carefully guarded heart, and then she’d let him discover the truth in the most humiliating way possible.
She’d ruined everything.
“Well, well.” A familiar voice made Cecilia’s head snap up.
Henry leaned against the opposite wall, studying her with something that might have been sympathy—or something far more calculating.
“The mysterious Lady Cecilia. Or should I say Clara Vale? I must admit, I’m impressed by your audacity.
Infiltrating a duke’s household under false pretences takes considerable nerve. ”
Cecilia straightened despite her tears, lifting her chin with what remained of her dignity. “If you’ve come to gloat, sir, I assure you I’m sufficiently miserable without your assistance.”
“Gloat?” Henry’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hardly. I’m simply fascinated by the drama unfolding. My cousin storms past looking like death itself, you’re weeping in corridors… It’s all rather like watching a tragedy at the theatre. One can’t help but wonder how it all ends.”
“It ends with me having ruined everything.”
“Perhaps.” He tilted his head, considering her with a focus that made her skin crawl. “Or perhaps it ends with you proving that your intentions were honourable all along. Surely you didn’t go through all that trouble—the disguise, the deception—just to give up at the first obstacle you encounter?”
Something in his tone made her uneasy, though she couldn’t quite identify what. “He won’t even look at me.”
“Adrian is stubborn. He builds walls to protect himself, Lady Cecilia.” Henry stepped closer, and Cecilia had to fight the urge to retreat. “But walls can be breached. The only question is whether you’re brave enough—or foolish enough—to try.”
He moved toward the ballroom, pausing to glance back at her with that same unsettling grin. “I do hope you’ll try. It would be such a shame for this all to end so anticlimactically.”
And then he was gone, leaving Cecilia with the distinct impression that Henry had found her heartbreak entertaining rather than tragic.
Through the doorway, she could see the Duke standing at the edge of the ballroom beside her father, his expression carved from ice.
He looked untouchable. Unreachable. Every inch the Duke of Devonshire society whispered about—cold, controlled, capable of nothing resembling warmth.
But Cecilia had seen beneath that ice. Had felt the fire he kept locked away. Had watched his hands gentle for his aunt, had heard his voice soften despite himself, had tasted the desperate hunger in his kiss.
The real Adrian was still there, buried under layers of protection and pain.
The question was whether she could reach him before the ice became permanent.
And whether he would let her try.
Or whether she’d destroyed her only chance at happiness by being too frightened to trust him with the truth from the beginning.
Cecilia wiped her eyes, straightened her dress, and forced herself to return to the ballroom. Her father frowned at her red-rimmed eyes but said nothing, likely too concerned with salvaging the engagement to scold her now.
Across the room, the Duke’s gaze found hers one final time, and in his eyes, Cecilia saw the answer to her question.
The ice had settled deeper, colder, more permanently than it had ever been before.