A blotch of colour rose on Ashworth’s cheeks. “Quite. Though some might say her standards have… altered direction rather than risen.”
The insult was scarcely veiled, and she felt the Duke go still beside her—dangerously still.
“How diverting,” Celine cut in, her tone light as lace and twice as sharp. “I had no idea you were such an authority on my standards, Lord Ashworth. Particularly since you never managed to meet them.”
A smothered laugh escaped a gentleman nearby. Ashworth reddened further.
“I meant no offence—”
“Of course not.” Her voice was honeyed poison. “You were merely observing that I chose a husband of substance rather than one who described himself—what was it, in that third sonnet?—as ‘ephemeral desire incarnate.’ I was never sure what that meant.”
Gentle laughter rippled through the nearest guests. Ashworth all but wilted.
“Come, wife,” said the Duke, amusement curling under his tone. “I believe I promised you a tour of Lady Ashford’s conservatory.”
He guided her away, past the French doors, into a glass-walled conservatory blooming with orange trees.
“‘Ephemeral desire incarnate’?” he repeated once they were alone.
“He fancied himself a poet,” she said. “The sonnets were crimes.”
“And you kept them?”
“Of course not. But some atrocities lodge in the memory.” She touched a blossom, releasing its scent. “He proposed. Twice.”
“And you refused him. Because of the poetry?”
“Because he bored me.” She faced him. “Everything about him was predictable. His conversation, his courtship, his kiss—”
“He kissed you?”
The temperature shifted. Not much, but enough to register.
“Once. In this very conservatory, actually, during a ball last Season.” She moved deeper among the citrus trees. “It was like being pressed upon by a damp cloth—eager, graceless.”
“Unlike the ones we’ve shared?”
She turned to find him closer than expected, backing her against one of the potted trees.
“Well,” she said lightly, though her pulse betrayed her, “we have scarcely shared anything at all—unless you count a kiss on the forehead at the church and another on the hand a few moments ago. And…” she tilted her head, meeting his gaze without flinching, “are you truly asking for comparison?”
“I’m asking for honesty.” He braced one hand against the tree beside her head, not quite caging her but making his presence unavoidable.
“And honesty requires evidence,” she countered. “Which, at present, is rather limited.”
His eyes narrowed—not in displeasure, but in something far more intent.
“Limited,” he repeated quietly. “Yet you draw conclusions nonetheless. About slipping. About control.”
“You asked what I thought,” she said. “I answered.”
“And you always do what I ask?” His free hand came up to trace the line of sapphires at her throat. “But you are right. They need to see something real.”
“And was it not? Real?”
He leaned closer, and she could feel the heat of him despite not quite touching. “What do you think?”
“I think,” she said carefully, “that you’re very good at control. At measured responses and calculated actions. But that kiss didn’t feel calculated.”
