“Perhaps you’d come get a punch with me?” she said. “I’m parched.”
Katherine squeezed her aunt’s arm before she stepped out with the duchess toward the refreshment table across the room. They walked in silence for a moment, comfortable until Katherine heard her name whispered on the wind. A snap of the syllables, an accusation with just the word.
To her surprise, Adelaide huffed out her breath and took her arm, squeezing it gently before they continued their way across the room. “You are holding up beautifully, my dear,” she said as they reached the table at last.
Katherine glanced at her from the corner of her eye, uncertain again as to the woman’s motives. “Is that why you approached us? To see firsthand how a woman of my…situation…was faring?”
Adelaide faced her, and her expression was one of horror. “Oh no, of course not. I was asked to look out for you by a friend.”
“A friend?” she repeated.
Adelaide nodded. “Yes. Charlotte could not be here tonight, but she knew of your intention to return to Society and asked that I offer you a bit of friendship.”
Katherine’s lips parted. She and Charlotte were friends of a passing nature, but she’d always liked the other woman. She was a duchess, too, now. She’d almost forgotten that. Married to the famous Silent Duke of Donburrow a year and a half before.
She worried her lip. “I suppose Charlotte and her husband would know a great deal about whispers.”
Adelaide’s blue gaze snapped with protectiveness. “Indeed. And even if I wasn’t sent by one of my closest friends, I would still have approached you. I like your aunt—she gives generously to a charitable society I dabble in. And I abhor bullies. There are those aplenty in this little room.”
Katherine looked at her more closely. She wanted so much to like the duchess, to believe that she was a champion. Certainly, Katherine needed one of those now. Becoming friends with a powerful group of duchesses would help her.
And having friends of any kind sounded wonderful after the past few years of pain, isolation and confusion.
She shrugged. “They see blood in the water, I’m afraid. At least the Season will be over soon and I can have a few additional months for them to forget my…” She blushed, as she always did when this topic came up. “…to forget my particular scandal.”
The moment she said the words, Katherine longed to pull them back. She didn’t like letting her guard down. She’d been punished for such foolish action many times in the past. No matter how kind or friendly Adelaide appeared, Katherine didn’t fully trust her. And now her face felt hot and her hands shook a little at her sides.
Adelaide looked as though she would say something, and Katherine took a step back and held up a hand. “I find I’m a bit overheated in the crowd. Will you tell my aunt I took a moment of air and to excuse me?”
Adelaide held her stare for a moment and then nodded. “Of course.”
Katherine forced a smile and pivoted, abandoning her companion rudely, she knew. The duchess would likely lament her offer of friendship. Katherine regretted that as she burst from the ballroom onto the terrace and raced to the edge of the wall to draw a few long breaths.
It was dark out. The night was cloudy, obscuring the moon and the stars. She flashed briefly to another night on another terrace. When she had sought darkness and found it. A night that had destroyed her life. Brought her to this particularly unpleasant future.
“Lady Gainsworth.”
She stiffened. A male voice said her name. Slowly she turned to find one of her husband’s acquaintances stepping on to the terrace and shutting the door behind him. Mr. Adam Morley, who was of an age with Gainsworth. Another old man who let his eyes roll over her like she was a prize.
“Mr. Morley,” she said, forcing herself to be polite when what she really wanted was to be alone. “How nice to see you.”
“And you,” he practically purred. “As soon as I saw you enter the ballroom tonight, I knew I would have to find a moment with you.”
Katherine set her jaw. He meant a moment alone. Not on the dancefloor where others might see. No, she was too damaged for an open approach.
“Well, here I am.” She folded her arms. “Though if this is about something between you and Gainsworth, I’m afraid I am not the one to speak to. His nephew has taken the title. I would reach out to him or to Gregory’s solicitor.”
Morley tilted his head. “It isn’t about my dear old friend, rest his soul. I wanted to speak to you,Katherine.”
She caught her breath. The way he said her given name, emphasized it, there was no denying his interest. It lit up in his cloudy green eyes. It hung on the air between them. And to pursue that kind of interest here, on the terrace, hidden in the dark, that meant it wasn’t a genuine one. It was about desire.
“I would prefer to be called by my title, sir. And now I have left my aunt for too long. It was a pleasure to see you. Good night.”
She strode past him, feeling his gaze on her with every step. Feeling stripped and vulnerable from it. Disgusted. As she reached the door, he said, “I will call on you again, my lady.”
Her hand shook as she ignored the parting words, pretended she didn’t hear them as she re-entered the ballroom. She had scarcely a second to gather herself when she caught two gentlemen watching her. One leaned into the other, whispering something that made them both laugh. Then the first tilted his drink to her, as if in salute.
She spun away, staggering across the room. It was one thing to hear the hisses and the judgment. This was something else. Everywhere she turned she caught another man looking at her. Smiling in that lewd, suggestive way. She knew want. She had been taught that concept, if nothing else, in her marriage. It was on all their faces. Stark and lecherous.
