Page 3 of The Duchess Games

A rustle went through the crowd. Lady Tremaine may as well have handed out swords and sabers to go with the pearls and the cravats. Parents calculated debts owed, possible dowries. Unmarried ladies went sharp with interest or disgust—and some panic—quickly hidden behind polite smiles. All in a single moment.

“Do you suppose she really means him to marry the winner?” Viola asked, her competitive streak rising to the surface. She might not have given a fig about being a duchess before now, but it had also never been an option. “I’m tired of the smell of fish.”

Viola, with her kind smile and her freckles, went to extraordinary lengths to win a game, regardless of if she even wanted the prize. She was the reason they stopped playing parlor games as a family. And why their chess set, which their younger brother Matthew had carved from driftwood, was missing a queen. Viola had hurled it into the fire in a fit of pique, quickly followed by a fit of self-aware giggles. She made a new queen from the end of a rutabaga. One of the dogs proceeded to eat it.

Lady Tremaine had not come right out and said she was choosing her son’s bride, but it was a fair assumption.

And if nothing else, the winner would have her blessing and his attention. And the honor of opening the ball with the first dance where if they did not catch the duke’s eye—they might catch someone else’s eye.

But what he thought about this whole situation was anyone’s guess. The man was unreadable, beyond appearing generally annoyed with the world at large. A stern and unyielding enigma. And that was when he was in the room. God only knew where he was right now. If he had a brain in his head, he’d be already on his way to Ireland.

The thought of Viola marrying Callum made her even queasier. She inched closer to the French doors. Could this day get any worse?

Of course, it could.

It could always get worse.

Enter Callum Winter, the eleventh Duke of Tremaine.

Unfairly, the man had grown more handsome. He was wider in the shoulders than she remembered. His dark hair swept back perfectly, as if it wouldn’t dare disobey. He wore a black coat and a dark gray waistcoat, his features strong and serious. He had the air of a man who always seemed to be thinking, working problems over in his head, collecting knowledge. Utterly in control.

He surveyed the glittering crowd that stood arrested at his arrival. There was a rolled newspaper in his hand, much like the one his mother had brandished triumphantly.

“Hell no.”

It was all he said before stalking right back out the door.

There was a moment of shocked silence. The duke was proper to the point of coldness, according to the whispers swirling around Cat. This was most unseemly. Unexpected. Intriguing.

As if his behavior was the problem here.

His mother looked as though her very expensive, very formal wig might catch fire at any moment.

“But these are no ordinary games,” Lady Summer added, rising from her seat to smooth over the gossip stirring like waves under the moon. Her brown curls were caught back with sapphire pins. Lady Tremaine frowned majestically at her daughter. Were Cat Lady Summer, she might have faltered. She’d rather face ten revenue men. “The ladies in this room can no doubt embroider and dance like princesses. But I want to know what else they can do.”

A held breath, more glances exchanged. Summer grinned, exactly like a twin sister and not very much like the sister of a duke. Especially once such as Callum.

“Three games shall be added,” she said, clearly thinking on her feet. Cat liked her instantly. “Archery, swimming, and …” She paused, clearly trying to think of something else. “And… lawn bowling.”

“Lawn bowling!” the dowager duchess exclaimed. “Preposterous. And swimming? Barbaric.”

“I’m afraid the duke insisted, Maman,” Summer said, still smiling. There was a sharpness to it that Cat understood on a visceral level. Eldest sisters recognized each other, despite titles or breeding. “We cannot have a Cornish duchess who cannot swim. Think of the talk.”

As it seemed highly unlikely that the dowager duchess knew how to swim, no one quite knew what to do with their faces. Smile? Nod? Disappearing into the wallpaper with wide eyes seemed to be the current popular choice.

The dowager waved her daughter away, no longer interested.

Viola bounced once on her toes, very, very interested. “At least I know I can outswim these fine London ladies.”

“As a fisherman’s daughter, I should hope so,” Cat said. Their father had gone out in weather fair and foul. Until a storm had finally claimed his boat. At seventeen, Matthew barely remembered him. Cat remembered sun-crinkled eyes, hands rough from ropes, and a loud booming laugh.

He’d have hated what Cat had to do to feed their families. Her mother would have applauded her. With the war with France and the inflation of taxes on salt and tea and the half-empty fishing nets, needs must. And it was her mother’s connection to a handsome sea captain which allowed it at all. Cat would not squander it.

The dowager let her gaze travel between the debutantes, snaking between duke’s granddaughters and earl’s sisters, all the finest the Marriage Mart had to offer. Her face was beautiful, but cold. There would be no quarter given.

“Impress me, ladies.”

Cat took a deep breath to calm her roiling stomach. She was thirty years old, for God’s sake. She’d faced worse than the ton, who would not know her from a hunk of cheese. Which was comforting, actually. Her mother had once brought home three abandoned fox kits who had screamed all night and gave everyone fleas. She’d loved them even when one of them bit her hard enough to require stitches. She still had the scar on her leg. This was nothing.