Katharine Ashe by I Married the Duke

Author:I Married the Duke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

La Comtesse

Luc watched the color flood back into her cheeks, which had gone pale as parchment, and he nearly marched over to his cousin and strangled him. When Cam last sent word to the Victory, he said that she now knew his true identity. Unwisely, Luc had believed him.

A girl with the tall, dark appearance of Reiner rushed to her. “Arabella!”

Arabella.

“Bella, are you ill?”

“No,” he barely heard her say. “No, I am well.” Her chin ticked up as she met his gaze, but the cornflowers swam with confusion.

“Ah, Luc!” Reiner clasped his hand. “Bedwyr promised you were to come, but I never believe a thing he says.”

“I would be well advised to follow your example.” He looked over Reiner’s shoulder to her.

“My friend,” Reiner said, turning to the others. “Allow me to make you acquainted with your guests, my sister and her ladies-in-waiting.”

The women came forward. He was trapped, acting the gallant host to the party while the single person who most deserved his attention stole away down the terrace steps to the garden. No one seemed to notice. She still wore the plain governess’s gown. It seemed that neither Cam nor she had told Reiner or anybody else of the events at Saint-Nazaire.

He would remedy that swiftly. But not before he spoke with her alone.

“Your lordship,” one of the ladies said, “will you take tea?”

“I should think he might wish something a bit stronger. Don’t you, Rallis?” Cam said with a lifted brow.

“Wine it is, then,” Reiner said.

Luc bowed to the ladies, sent his cousin a silent command, and followed the prince inside. With a wave he dismissed the footman and turned to his cousin.

“Damn you, Cam.”

Bedwyr leaned against the sideboard negligently. “I don’t suppose you recall damning me when you were shedding your life’s force in the sand. Really, Lucien, you are repeating yourself tiresomely.”

“You deserve every moment of damnation you are wished.”

“Probably, but that is hardly to the point. When did it become my responsibility to negotiate your tortured love affairs for you?”

“Goddammit, Cam. Have you no conscience?”

Reiner poured a glass of burgundy. “The two of you still argue like you did when you were eighteen.”

“Then, he was merely a careless hedonist. Now he is a liar and a manipulator. Why did you lead me to believe you had told her?”

“Tell me, Lucien,” Cam said as though Luc had not spoken, “during your convalescence did you by chance flirt with trading in the old blindness for the new? Or are you simply doubly blind now?” Cam gestured with his glass to the terrace doors. “But I think I have my answer already.”

Reiner pushed a glass of wine into Luc’s hand. “Drink this, my friend. It seems you need it.”

Luc set down the glass. “Did he tell you?”

“That I was to ensure the safety of the stunning governess but not step within ten yards of her? Yes. He failed to mention it had anything to do with you, though.”

“It was not my news to share, of course.” Cam flicked an imaginary speck of lint off his coat sleeve.

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