Page 226 of Dukes for Dessert

“Corner pocket.” Father positioned his cue and sent his ivory ball flying toward hers, which knocked it into the bright red object ball. “Cannon. Watch out, daughter. Now we’re tied.”

“Twelve to twelve.”

Carole bit her lip as her father took his next shot. She longed to fill the final pages of her sketchbook. If she had it, she would not draw him eager to win, but rather a scoreboard showing fantastical numbers high in the hundreds. After all, before each match, players agreed on how many points each type of shot was worth, and how many were necessary to win. If Carole ruled the world, games wouldn’t end at twenty-one, but last for as long as the players pleased.

As she watched, her father scored two more cannons and a hazard, before losing his turn with a foul.

He grinned at her. “Seventeen to twelve. Can you catch me?”

Of course she could catch him. Carole could have won this game on her first turn.

She stalled by taking a long moment to chalk her cue’s leather tip. It wasn’t necessary. She’d already chalked it after every turn. But it gave her a few more moments with her father. This morning, she’d even let Judith smarten her up for the occasion. A French twist in her hair, a braided gold bracelet on her wrist, the fancy day gown she hated because the puffed sleeves’ lacy trim scratched.

Father’s gaze was toward the table. “What’s your play?”

With a sigh, Carole eyed the green baize. Her ivory cue ball was marked with a black dot. From this angle, she could shoot… pretty much anything.

So could Father, to be honest. Part of her yearned to believe he was stretching the game out as long as possible, too. He’d never allowed her to play until after her mother died. Then he’d stopped inviting friends over. Stopped smiling altogether.

Teaching her to play had been their common ground. A way to escape the crushing loneliness of a too-quiet, too-empty house. At first, eight-year-old Carole had agreed to play because she worshipped her father—which was the same reason she borrowed his tomes on accounting and mathematics, determined to learn everything he knew.

Before long, however, the game itself was in her blood. She’d played every spare moment she could. Geometry, as it turned out, was a competitive advantage. The ability to calculate spin and angles at a glance let her make shot after shot, time after time. Billiards and mathematics had given her life purpose.

Billiards had rules the players agreed upon. There were no sudden surprises. No permanent disappearances. If one’s ball fell into a pocket, one simply returned it into play on one’s next turn.

Mathematics was just as lovely. Physics made sense. Geometry made sense. They had logic. They didn’t change. They could be counted upon to always be there to help her no matter what day of the week it might be.

“Eighteen to seventeen,” she said after she made a cannon and two winning hazards—and a foul to temper her lead.

“Let’s see if I can fix that.”

But Father missed his next shot. Carole frowned. His hands were steady as ever, but he’d squinted oddly before taking his turn.

She made a mental note to have his vision tested. Perhaps he spent all day in his study not because work overwhelmed him, but because his eyes weren’t sharp enough to see it properly. Maybe all he needed was a pair of spectacles, and things would return to how they used to be.

Well, almost like old times. It had been her mother’s time to go, and Carole’s time to grow up and do her part. She had thrown herself into being the best caretaker for her father with the same zeal she’d given billiards and geometry.

Carole knew what that meant. She had performed the calculations. Life was like mathematics: there was a single true, perfect solution to every problem. She’d analyzed their situation a dozen ways and the answer was always to stay home. Stay a spinster. Take care of her father for as long as she still had him.

He was the only family she had left.

“Twenty to seventeen,” she said after two cannons and a foul.

Father scored a cannon and a hazard before losing his turn. “Twenty to twenty. You’re getting pretty good at this, love.”

“Thanks for noticing,” she murmured.

Before she could take her shot, a footman strode into the billiard room with a folded missive on a tray.

Carole stepped out of the way so that her father could accept his letter.

The footman held the tray to her instead.

“Whose seal is that?” Father squinted. “Wait, I know… Is that Azureford?”

It was, indeed. She lifted the square of paper from the tray with a slight tremble.

Yesterday, the duke had sent her away as soon as he saw the condition of his library, which meant he had not been the one to order the books rearranged. This was good news: He hadn’t found her sketchbook. It was also bad news: Perhaps someone else had.