Cecily nodded, feeling a bit cautious about this invitation to closeness given their shallow acquaintance. What was this woman really after?
“I am glad to meet you, Lady Mountingdon,” she returned politely, watching the woman’s face and seeing her blue eyes turn toward where Nathaniel was deep in conversation with his friend.
“Your marriage was so sudden, Your Grace. So very unexpected,” Lady Mountingdon commented. “The Duke of Greyhaven was a widower for so long that no one expected him to marry again.”
“You know my husband?” Cecily inquired with an unease that seemed to spring out of nowhere.
“We all know your husband,” Lady Mountingdon replied with a low laugh. “Yet you were the only one to catch him. How did you do that, I wonder?”
Cecily heard the note of insolence in the woman’s voice. Lady Mountingdon was asserting a claim of some kind to Nathaniel, and Cecily did not like it at all.
“I do not think Nathaniel is a man who can be caught,” she retorted sharply. “If you know him, you know that much.”
That seemed to goad Lady Mountingdon for some reason. Her smile became almost a sneer.
“Oh, your Duke burns hot at first, doesn’t he? But keeping his interest is the real challenge. Do you think you are up for it, Your Grace?”
It took all of Cecily’s self-control not to throw the contents of her champagne flute into Lady Mountingdon’s disrespectful face.
“Excuse me,” she said icily. “I… I must go.”
Discarding her glass, she walked away toward the doors of the ballroom, hoping that the music would soothe her spirit.
How dare that woman speak as she did about Nathaniel! What right did she think she had to take such liberties? He was Cecily’s husband, not hers.
Again, Cecily remembered that they still had not consummated their marriage, now with a growing sense of uncertainty. Were they really even married?
Then, an even more unsettling thought struck her, like a bolt out of the blue. That horrible woman knew Nathaniel better than Cecily did. She probably had done everything with him that Cecily had, and more besides. Maybe they were still intimate with each other?
Cecily’s stomach lurched at the thought. It could not be, could it? Not so soon after their wedding. Yet it made so much sense. Why else was Nathaniel still so distant from her most of the time? Why had he not taken her to his bed, as was his right? Why had he remained unmarried for so long?
Images of Lady Mountingdon and Nathaniel flooded her mind. Had he been writing to that woman? Meeting her? Bedding her?
Remembering how neatly dressed he had been for his club, and how vague his answers had been about his time in London the day she and Mary met their grandmother, it was all too plausible. Cecily had known he was hiding something, but had not pursued it.
“Leaving you and going off to his club so early in your marriage…”
Her grandmother’s pitying words echoed in her mind, turning her upset into outrage.
If even her grandmother knew that her husband was dallying with another woman, then Cecily might be the laughing stock of the whole ton. Would Nathaniel do this to her?
“I see you tapping your foot to the music, My Lady. I would be no gentleman if I did not ask you to dance.”
Cecily spun around and found a tall blond-haired man of amiable countenance standing before her. He bowed respectfully as she regarded him, having no idea of the tumult of emotions inside her.
“May I have the honor?” he asked and held out a gloved hand.
“Yes, you may,” she told him, placing her hand in his.
Should she ask Nathaniel before accepting this dance?
If they were ordinary newlyweds, he might have wanted her first dance. As things were, however, she was too angry to care about what he might want. If he was going to dally publicly with big-breasted and brazen women like Lady Mountingdon, then she could dance with a charming stranger.
She fought the urge to look around and see whether he was watching. The worst thing of all was that he likely wouldn’t even care.
CHAPTER 27
“Who the hell is that?” Nathaniel interrupted his friend, looking over Leo’s shoulder with angry deep-blue eyes.
