“Never. I have more than learned my lesson there.” Richard grinned and pulled her in just a touch closer than the dance strictly needed. If he was not mistaken, Catherine’s breath hitched just a fraction as he pulled her close. “Perhaps if we had managed to cross paths properly before all of this happened, this would be a wholly different experience. No toe stepping required.”
Something like pain flickered across Catherine’s blue eyes. So fleeting that if he had not been so wholly enraptured by her, he might have missed it. “How can you make light of something like this? How can you abide your father to be the way that he is, knowing the things that he does? What is this to you?”
“I have told you, we both have different debts to settle with my father, not wholly dissimilar to one another in nature,” Richard offered as they moved effortlessly through the steps that had been drilled into him since his youth.
“And yet you do nothing about it? You undermine him by inviting my mother and I, certainly. But if you are not complicit in his actions, how do you stand by while he takes such pleasure in ruining people? You might feel remorse for his actions, but you still live here, living like this with his wealth and titles. How are you anything but the embodiment of grief for what has been done to my family?”
Catherine slipped up and fumbled slightly through a move that Richard easily compensated for, pulling her closer as he corrected their path. The mask of rage that he had seen Catherine wear since he had first met her started to slip as tears of pain and loss welled in her eyes before she tore her gaze from him and blinked them away.
“I thought…well, I suppose that it does not matter what I thought. It is not always…easy to go against one’s parents. I am certain that you know that.”
“So this is about money? About your own personal comfort? To assuage your own guilt for standing by?” Catherine’s brow furrowed as her anger came back with a vengeance.
“No!” Richard protested, feeling slightly flustered by her accusations. “Well, yes, but not in that way. I thought that perhaps I could use my influence, my titles for some benefit…a way to ease your family back into society to where you could find an eligible bachelor to help bridge the gap between your misfortunes and…present circumstances…”
As he said his intentions out loud, a strange feeling settled over him. It was not coming out the way that he had intended. While he had felt that his intentions were purely motivated, he could see from her face that she disagreed with his sentiments.
“So you mean to mock me further?” Catherine’s lips pursed. “Despite what you think, I am more than capable of managing my current circumstances! I do not want and certainly have never needed your help!”
Richard did his very best to keep from wincing as her slippered foot did indeed find the arch of his own—hard. Her gaze ripped from his as she looked anywhere but at him for the remainder of their dance. Her grip on his hand tightened uncomfortably as she allowed him to move her through the steps and absolutely nothing more.
“I apologize, my lady.”
“Spare me your words, I beg you,” Catherine muttered harshly through her teeth as the song came to an end.
The moment that it was acceptable to do so, she dropped his hand as if his touch burned her. She brushed her gloved hands down the sides of her gown either to steady herself or to rid herself of the sensation of his hands on hers before she cast him one last withering look. He wished to apologize to her.
He wanted to say something,anythingthat would correct the mistake that he had made. He truly did wish to help her—to be the reason to see her smile once again but before he had time to speak a single word, she had turned heel and was off.
Catherine wove through the crowd of people so quickly that he blinked and lost sight of her. He took a step off of the dance floor after her, but it was to no use.
All he knew was that he needed to fix this—and quickly.
***
“Well, well, well, if that was not a disgusting display, I do not know how else to describe that travesty that I just witnessed.” The duke grinned behind his thick mustache as he moved to stand beside his son.
“Not now, Your Grace,” Richard bit out angrily.
“Oh, such a temper. Is your foolish attempt at…whatever that was not going the way that you wished for it to? I suppose that this is truly just the beginning of what you deserve for attempting to go behind my back and undermine my desires in the first place.
Honestly, boy, you ought to have known that you were never going to be intelligent enough to pull that off,” the duke taunted him, taking pleasure in Richard’s discomfort and the rigid way that he held himself.
“I was merely doing what you asked of me,” Richard replied snarkily, not making eye contact. For all of the other guests in the ballroom, the two men were just standing there having a normal discussion about the ball being hosted inside of their home.
No one would be able to guess the pure vitriol that they spewed at one another. There were very few outside of their household staff who understood how little they liked one another.
“What wasaskedof you was to entertain Lady Elmsworth!” the duke spat.
“And I chose to help Lady Catherine seek out a husband of her own instead.”
“You had no right to invite them. I am moderately impressed with your capacity for scheming, boy, but you’re certainly not clever enough to get away with whatever you think that you are going to pull off.” The duke finished his glass of wine and thrust it onto his son to handle instead of any of the servants lingering around the house for that specific purpose.
“If you had bothered to consult me, I would have been able to spare you this embarrassment.” The duke clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in admonishment. “Now you have caused them only further embarrassment. Something I could never have done myself to bring them out and mock them so publicly. Perhaps you will turn out to be my son after all.”
The duke gave him a condescending once-over and shook his head.
“Now, be a good boy and go do as you are told while I try to salvage the rest of this ball from descending into madness and gossip. Lady Elmsworth is waiting for you over there.”
