“You have every right to be angry. It is not as if any of these people have groveled nearly enough.”
“I ought to make them crawl on their bellies,” Catherine said with a smirk.
“Can you just picture it?” Richard played along, turning a shrewd eye out over the table. “Can you imagine a single one of these people doinganythingof the sort?”
Catherine swallowed a laugh as she fought to keep from drawing too much attention to herself. “Skirts all in a bluster as they fight against satin and slippers to be the first—as they must all always be first in everything.”
“Precisely.”
“I hope that our child does not grow up to be as vapid as any of these fools.” Catherine laughed and caught her slip a moment too late.
Richard, for better or for worse, did not seem to be too phased by it. Perhaps he assumed that she merely spoke in the hypothetical. “Absolutely not. Our child would be raised very far away from the duke and have only those that love them surrounding them.”
He eased back into his chair casually and sipped at his wine as one course of the meal faded into the other. Not that Catherine could eat a thing. “I just cannot stop imagining them scrambling around like worms in the dirt.”
Catherine turned her focus to their lady host seated at the other end of the table as if she were holding court. Lady Harrington turned her focus to Catherine, her gaze cold and unfeeling as her perfectly painted lips upturned into a knowing smirk.
Dread curled in Catherine’s gut. It was only day one, and already she was being bested in this game of smiles and politics. It felt like all of the eyes of thetonwere on her every movement. The longer that Lady Harrington held her gaze, the more the walls felt as if they were closing in on her, growing smaller and smaller by the second. She could not breathe.
Richard’s hand came to rest on her knee, squeezing softly as she fought to level out her breathing. Bile rose into her throat. She needed out. The scraping of her chair against the polished floors seemed almost riotous to her ears as her blood pulsed in her head louder and louder.
“Pardon me,” she mumbled softly, watching as Lady Harrington’s smile seemed to widen into something almost sinister. Catherine felt like a fool as her face flamed. She was not one prone to fits of nerves, and yet here she was, fleeing the dining hall as quickly as her feet would carry her.
She had made it all of the way to their bedroom before she realized that Richard had followed her.
Chosen her.
He could have stayed there and finished his meal. She knew how it was going to look to all of those in the room that she had just fled. They would be whispering about her. He could have spared himself from being included in their harsh words, and yet…there he was, closing and latching the door to their room.
“What are you doing? I wish to be alone! Leave at once!” Catherine almost sobbed.
“I just wanted to see if you were all right…what happened?” Richard’s face was a mask of concern as he moved closer to her as if he might embrace her.
She flinched away. “I cannot do this, Richard…I do not…that woman has evil in her heart. It is hard enough to navigate your father but to add another viper in the mix? The fear of what she might or might not do and in my condition, I cannot…”
She stopped again. Now was as good of a time as any to confide in her husband that she was with child. She knew that they might never have such a perfect opportunity again but she did not think that she could handle his rejection. She needed him at her side for this week to be survivable, and if he turned on her…if he was disappointed…
But he had spoken so casually about having children together earlier…perhaps it would be all right. She knew that she had bargained for only a year of marriage, and children would negate that deal. Would it not?
She turned from him, wrapping her arms around herself in an embrace. “Leave, please.”
It would break her heart. That was what would happen should he not accept the news well.
She was not ready to admit such a thing to him.
“Forgive me, but I will not go. I cannot leave you like this when I do not even know what has happened? If I have said something to offend you…one moment we were teasing and then the next…”
Catherine shook her head. “It is not you that offends. It isher.’ She gestured to the floor as if she could locate Lady Harrington’s exact position. “She is the one who offends! With her condescending comments and grasping hands. She looks at me like a villain to be defeated and that you are a prize to be won! I cannot..”
Richard smirked. A bubble of laughter that he quickly swallowed only served to enrage her further.
“This amuses you?!” Catherine spun to face him, her eyes brimmed with angry, frustrated tears.
“You amuse me.”
“How?! How is this amusing?!”
“You are jealous,” Richard said plainly. He clasped his hands in front of his person, his head tilting slightly to the side as his smirk shifted into a full smile. “You are jealous, or perhaps you are merely feeling possessive and wish to lay claim to what is yours?”
