Page 18 of The Duchess Games

“I was invited.”

She sniffed.

“What is going on out there?” Summer might be immune, but he was as fashionable as ever, with tousled hair and a smile that generally made women sigh, age three to a hundred and three. Callum had never learned the trick of it. There was always too much riding on every minute detail of his smile, his frown. The way his left eyelid twitched when he was tired. “It’s brutal down there. Like being thrown into bloody waters for the shark’s pleasure.”

“Mother.” Callum tossed back the rest of his champagne. It was too dry, too sharp. Too obvious. He set the glass on the windowsill.

“Ah. Of course.” He raised his eyebrows. “Am I to be your loyal squire then?”

Callum snorted. “You can be the damn knight in shining armor.”

“I usually am, old man.”

A fact that Callum never resented. He appreciated it deeply. Eliot caught attention and held it effortlessly. He enjoyed the nuances, the words behind the words in a way Callum never could. He was fairly certain he had survived school relatively unscathed solely because of Eliot. He softened everyone around him. There were few people Callum could trust at the end of the day.

“Oh, please,” Summer muttered. He also never failed to get a rise out of her.

“So what’s the occasion? I know I’ve just arrived from the wilds of Wales but that was an awful lot of curtsying, even for your illustrious Maman.”

Callum mumbled.

“What’s that?” Eliot pressed.

Callum sighed. He may as well get it over with. “Mother has decided to hold a competition.”

“For what?”

“To find me a wife.”

“Not only that,” Summer added. “She made it public knowledge in London.” She waved a folded gossip newspaper in her hand. He hadn’t noticed it before. Brooding took concentration. “They are calling it The Duchess Games.”

It took a full three minutes for Blackpool to stop laughing.

Friend or not, it wasn’t to say that the man wasn’t also an ass.

Chapter Seven

Sneaking out of a fancy house in the middle of the night proved more difficult than Cat would have guessed.

For one thing, she nearly ran into several ladies and two gentlemen, all furtively darting towards bedrooms not their own. None of them had headed towards the family wing. Towards Callum’s bedroom. A matter which was none of her business and about which she should not care. Did not care.

Absolutely cared.

Blast.

Get your head in the game, Cat. Smugglers whose minds wandered were not smugglers for long.

She dodged clandestine lovers, a footman posted by the front door overnight, and the light from several lamps left burning for the comfort of guests in a palatial house that was not their own. She climbed out a window in a music room tucked in the back corner which deposited her conveniently between two juniper hedges. She made her way through the gardens by the moon, not daring to light a lantern until she was safely out of sight.

She was not far from home and stopped to fetch one of the dogs. Percival, one of the wolfhound puppies, nearly knocked her down in his haste to show his joy that she had returned from her long travels abroad. His enormous paws slammed onto her shoulders so he could lick the side of her face in case she had any doubts to his faithfulness. She may as well have been away for a month, not a single day. She laughed, momentarily robbed of her worries. But in the end, she took King Arthur along with her. He might not be as large as the wolfhounds, but his black fur easily faded into the shadows, and he was old enough to know what he was about.

Her brother was not in his bed, and she would not ask where he was or with whom. They had decided long ago that the cottage was a safe haven. A place to be entirely oneself. No judgment, no pretenses.

She had also decided, long ago, that he would never be part of the village smuggling operation. Matthew was bright and kind but a terrible liar. And young. Viola was so pretty that while other villages were told to “watch the wall” when smugglers went by with their haul, Viola was called out to flirt. Revenue men watched Viola. But it was dangerous, imperfect work. Viola deserved so much better.

But Cat—Cat was a strong sturdy woman who could wrestle the waves and haul a crate. She could read and write and keep accounts. She could walk anywhere at any time with her collection of dogs with no one the wiser.

And she lived in a cottage with perfect access.