Page 151 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

“I did it for them,” Katie protested, grimacing as she noticed that her reasoning—when spoken aloud—sounded less than convincing. “For their own good,” she added lamely.

“You destroyed both their reputations for their own good?” the duke repeated in a tone of cool disgust that was even more cutting than her sister’s anger.

Katie flung up her hands. “Were you not listening? I told you that nobody will ever—”

“Even if what you say is true—and I am not yet willing to believe that—they will know, Katie,” her sister said. “Can you imagine how Miss Martin will have worried these past few days? And Shelton has only just begun to be somebody I might want to claim as family.”

The duke cut his wife a startled look at her admission, but Hy wasn’t finished. “What do you think this will do to him? To both of them?”

“They both like each other—a great deal. This is the only way either of them would have acted on their attraction. I merely gave them a—a push.”

Her sister and the duke looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head.

Desperate for understanding, she turned to the duke. “Do you know why Shelton ran off with Miss Creighton and then abandoned her?”

The duke’s pale cheeks darkened with displeasure. “That is hardly—”

“Because Sarah Creighton begged him to.”

Was it satisfying to see their thunderstruck expressions? Yes, it was. And yet somehow, Katie suspected their surprise would not help when it came to digging herself out of the hole she’d made.

A few minutes later, after she had related the details surrounding Sarah’s confession, her assessment was borne out.

The duke had briefly looked delighted to hear about Shelton’s innocence, but the moment did not last. Instead, he now fixed her with a look of such cool disappointment that Katie wanted to crawl under the settee. “As relieved as I am to hear my cousin is not guilty of that particular crime, it was not your place to make decisions for them. Regardless of whether their disappearance goes unnoticed or not, you might very well have taken away their choices when it comes to marriage.”

When he put it like that…

“Er…” Katie could not think of a word in her defense.

“Now. Where are they?” the duke demanded.