“No?” His hand stilled on her necklace. “That’s not a compliment.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I don’t lose control, Celine.” It was the first time he’d used her given name, and it sent a shiver through her. “Never.”
“Never?” She reached up, covering his hand with hers where it rested against the sapphires. “That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s necessary.”
“Why?”
For a moment, she thought he might actually tell her. His eyes searched hers, and she saw that struggle again—the man beneath the marble fighting to surface.
Then someone laughed in the ballroom, the sound carrying through the glass walls, and the moment shattered. He stepped back, putting proper distance between them again.
“We should return,” he said. “Our absence will invite comment.”
“And far be it from us,” she said lightly, “to do anything noteworthy.”
“You’ve already been noteworthy enough for one evening.” Yet there was warmth in his voice now—real warmth—a fleeting echo of the man who had lifted her hand to his lips rather than the Duke who controlled everything.
They returned to the ballroom, where they were instantly drawn back into the machinery of society. But something had shifted between them. She felt it in the way he kept her close, the way his hand found her elbow or the small of her back—guiding, not directing. In the private smiles he gave her—small, dangerous, meant for her alone—whenever she murmured a particularly surgical observation about someone’s unfortunate turban or Lord Charles’s hair-piece, which appeared to be migrating steadily southward over the course of the evening.
“You’re enjoying yourself,” she observed during a brief moment alone.
“I’m enjoying your company,” he corrected. “That is rather different.”
“I thought you despised these events.”
“I despise the performance of them. The false smiles. The empty pleasantries. The delicate choreography of ambition.” He accepted two glasses of wine from a footman, handing her one. “But observing you dismantle the room with such precise viciousness? That, I find rather diverting.”
“Precise viciousness?” She tried to look affronted, but amusement betrayed her. “You make me sound like a weapon.”
“Aren’t you?” His head tilted, assessing her with infuriating thoroughness. “Beautiful, sharp, and dangerous when provoked. I chose better than I knew.”
“You didn’t choose me. You won me in a card game.”
“I won the opportunity,” he corrected. “You chose to take it.”
Before she could muster a retort, Lady Ashford materialised—glittering, perfumed, and hungry for gossip.
“Your Grace, you simply must not monopolise your bride! Everyone is dying to speak with her.”
“Everyone is dying to interrogate her, you mean,” he said.
“Oh, you protective creature!” Lady Ashford’s laugh tinkled like breaking glass. “One might almost think you were actually in love.”
“One might,” he agreed blandly.
“But surely Lady Rothwest can spare a few moments for us? We’re gathering in the blue salon for a comfortable coze.”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a summons.
“Of course,” Celine said smoothly, before the Duke could refuse. “I’d be delighted.”
She saw his jaw tighten, but he merely nodded. “Don’t let them exhaust you with their curiosity, wife.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, husband.”
