Page 58 of The Duchess Games

Blackpool pushed away from the tree that he leaned against handsomely. A flutter of ladies in petal-hued dresses moved around him. He turned slowly, caught Summer’s eye, and bowed mockingly. He really was an astonishingly beautiful man.

And he clearly had some experience with archery. He released three arrows in quick succession, hitting the target each time, all clustered at the edge of the main circle. He was good. Very good.

Viola was better.

“Well done!” Summer shouted, clapping enthusiastically. “Show him up, Miss Viola!”

Viola smiled, pretending that her skill was not entirely a thing of happenstance. Blackpool bowed again with a gracious smile. Viola blushed. Mr. Armstrong took the bow from Viola, hand lingering. Lady Ruby moved closer, eyes sharp.

“I want to set that man’s smalls on fire,” Summer muttered. “While he’s still in them.”

“Lord Blackpool?”

“Him too, a little,” she admitted. “But I meant Mr. Armstrong. Parading about insulting the Cornish people while in Cornwall. Insufferable.”

Cat drank to that. Deeply.

The dowager glared at her daughter, clearly displeased with her behavior. Summer sent her a saucy wave. “She only notices me when I’m being a nuisance,” she confessed, reaching for a small cake decorated with candied orange slices. “But it’s my revenge, you see.”

“For what?” Cat asked. She was liking Summer more and more, and the dowager less and less.

“She named me Summer.”

“Summer is a lovely name.”

“I am Summer Winter,” she pointed out. “Honestly, it was a call to battle from the start.”

Cat snorted, clapped a hand over her mouth, and then snorted again. Summer, quite simply, howled.

And then Callum was there, emerging from the shadows of the house. “Are you foxed?” he asked, smiling that brief, gentle smile. The one that made her want to climb him like a ship’s mast. She almost said so.

Oh dear. She was definitely foxed. Just a tiny bit.

“Certainly not,” Summer sniffed. She listed slightly to the side. “Mostly not.”

Callum pushed her back up with one fingertip. “All hands on deck,” he said to his sister. “Have another teacake.” His signet ring gleamed. Feelings she did not wish to acknowledge stirred under the whisky. The games were back on. The proper ones. The ones where she would lose everything by winning.

He raised an eyebrow at Cat. “And you, Miss Sparrow?”

“I’m fine,” Cat replied. She tried not to giggle. Failed. She lowered her voice. “You’re pretty.”

He wasn’t really, not like Blackpool. Instead, he was rugged and large, with that very unfashionable beard she longed to feel tickling the inside of her thighs. She lifted her cup and blinked. It was definitely empty.

“He looks like a fisherman when he comes to Cornwall and lets his facial hair grow in. Most unfashionable, you see,” Summer said fondly, propping her chin on her hand. “It drives our mother to distraction. She firmly believes dukes ought to be carved from marble and be able to sweat gold.”

Cat suddenly wanted to do battle against the dowager on behalf of both twins. She crammed a biscuit into her mouth. She was in no position to take on a duchess in her own house. Not while half foxed on whisky.

She stood up, hoping not to teeter and only half succeeding. She accidentally nudged Callum. “I beg your pardon.”

“I look forward to it,” he said, so softly she barely heard him.

“To what?” she breathed.

He ducked his head closer to hers. “You begging.”

She went hot all over. All over.

The dowager snapped her fingers imperiously at her son.