Page 116 of The Dueling Duchess

As if she’d been kissed.

Lord but the woman was bloody gorgeous!

Still, Guy had to admit she looked a bit . . . deranged.

Helena cleared her throat. “Mr. Darlington,” she said in an urgent tone.

“Ah, yes.” Guy pushed past Cecile into the room, firmly shutting the door once he’d ushered Helen inside. “Before you build up anything in your fertile imagination, let me explain.”

“It is none of my business.” Cecile crossed her arms, which only made her heaving chest more noticeable.

Good God; she was jealous.

Guy perked up. That meant she must at least like him a little?

True, jealousy was no true sign of love. But people weren’t jealous of what they didn’t want. Were they?

Guy’s first impulse was to leap and yell huzzah.

Fortunately, his second impulse was to conceal his enjoyment of her current predicament.

“Did you see Helen going into or coming out of my room last night?” he asked.

Her mouth tightened and it seemed that actual flames licked from her eyes.

Again, it was a challenge not to grin like a fool.

Instead, he said, “Cecile Tremblay, let me introduce you to Helena Carter.”

For a moment Guy thought he might need to repeat himself because she was so furious that she didn’t appear to hear him.

Helen took a step toward the other woman. “I am so terribly sorry for lying to you, Miss Tremblay.”

Cecile turned slowly and unwillingly toward the other woman as if her head were being pulled by a winch.

Once she was no longer scorching Guy with her fiery gaze, he, too, turned to Helen, who was getting her first taste of Cecile’s Glare of Death.

Well, everyone got it eventually, some more than others, as Guy could attest.

Cecile inhaled until it looked as if she’d burst the bodice of her plain work gown.

“Sit and explain,” she finally snapped.

They quickly took the two chairs she kept in her office—both uncomfortable to dissuade lingerers—and Guy gestured that Helen should speak first.

“Guy didn’t know anything about this, Miss Tremblay. I came here because, well, because he always spoke so highly of you.”

Cecile cut him a quick, cold glare.

“Now wait a minute,” Guy said. “Why are you looking at—”

“It is not your turn to speak now.” Her voice was as soft as a snake’s hiss and about as menacing. She turned back to Helen. “Go on.”

“I believe Guy told you that I was in l-love—or at least I fancied myself in love—with a clerk at my father’s London factory?”

Cecile nodded.

“I foolishly hoped that I might bring my father around to my way of thinking about marriage.” She scowled suddenly. “Although my inconstant suitor has, in fact, made me wonder if my own judgment could be any worse than his.”