Page 13 of A Gamble on the Duke (The Gambling Dukes #4)

I tried not to meet her gaze. I could see the trap I had set for myself.

When I finally looked up, there it was. The knowing smile.

Damn it, I knew full well I hated being helped.

But that was the trouble with inheritance, I suppose. It wasn’t al pounds and pence.

“When my grandfather died, my father had been dead two years,” I said briefly, my nape prickling at the sensation of sharing so much personal information. “The duchy came to me. Mortgaged, penniless, and with bailiffs circling. ”

“I had never pictured bailiffs as being able to circle an entire duchy.”

My gaze snapped up as my temper flared…but it was to see Catherine grinning, mischief dancing in her eyes.

“Sorry,” she said bluntly. “But you know what I mean. So you had to find money.”

“I could not, would not sell the land,” I said gruffly. “Olivia had died only a week before and I went to stay with her sister. Georgiana. The Dowager Duchess of Cartice, as was. We got to talking with two of her other house guests.”

For some reason, Catherine was leaning forward on her chair now, as though she was genuinely interested in what I was saying. “The Duke of Markham.”

“And the Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick,” I said, nodding. “The four of us were clever, though I say so myself. We liked gambling, and we all needed a little more money.”

Catherine gazed around herself. “And by God, you’ve earned it.”

I followed her gaze, trying to see what she could see.

Well, it was a perfectly pleasant room. The gold edging of the brilliant painting on the ceiling was perhaps impressive, as were the Gainsboroughs. I had never liked the large globe which sat just to the right of my desk, but I suppose it was striking.

But it was the books that I liked. Walls lined with books. Books leatherbound and gold leafed.

“And it fulfills you? The Gambling Dukes?”

What an odd question. “What an odd question,” I could not help but say, frowning slightly at the impertinence.

Catherine Shenton did not appear to notice her own impertinence. “You do not wish for more?”

“More?” I repeated .

What the hell could I want? We were close to securing a competency through the Gambling Dukes, incomes for life for the four of us founders, and the chance to earn more.

“What more could I want?” I asked aloud. “I have almost paid off the debts to the estate?—”

“But money…I mean, it is not the only thing in life,” said the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, with a gentle pout. “You do not wish for more as…as your friends have?”

More.

She meant marriage.

Heat flared through my chest and I fought the instinct to leave the room. No one had ever asked me this—no one had ever spoken to me of such a thing.

Not since Olivia.

But she was gone, wasn’t she? Oh, I had mourned her and grieved her, her and the babe we’d lost…but how long had it been since I had truly missed her?

Dear God, I could hardly think.

Was this what happened, then, to the others? To Markham, and Lilah, and Georgiana…had their spouses slowly faded until all they could see was the new partner before them?

But no, I reminded myself. It was different for them.

They had been married for convenience, for arrangement, for the happiness of their parents.

I had married for love. It was different.

“My friends may make their own choices,” I said quietly. “I will make my own.”

“And yours are always the right ones, are they?”

My gaze flashed back to Catherine, who looked entirely unabashed.

“There’s no need to look like that,” she said quietly. “I am not being courted by you, and so any conversation of matrimony does not have to frighten you or make promises to me. I am curious. That is all.”

That is all.

I would have to try to believe that. There were few women in the world, I well knew, who would be happy to speak of matrimony with a duke and not expect professions of love afterwards…

But Miss Catherine Shenton was not like most women. She was…not unique.

Unusual.

“The decisions I make are made with care. Consideration. Attention,” I said quietly. “I wish to be as perfect as I can.”

“Perfect?”

Blast. I should never have used that particular word. “Yes.”

“Because of your grandfather, I suppose,” Catherine said, far too much intelligence flickering in her eyes. “He made all the mistakes that you have put right.”

“Something like that.”

“I think it’s very much like that. I think,” said the irritating and delectable woman sitting mere feet from me, “that you work hard to be perfect and you deplore mistakes in others?—”

“Catherine!”

“—even if they are mistakes,” she continued doggedly, fixing me with a stare which was not allowing me to move from my seat.

Which was a shame. Because I would dearly love to pin the woman down and kiss her senseless.

“I do not demand perfection from others,” I ground out.

“Just yourself.”

Did the wanton thing have to be so direct ?

Catherine’s smile was a little shameful. “Sorry. It’s just…you are so very interesting, Kineallen.”

Do not become distracted by the delicious way she says your name. “Is that so.”

“It is so. You are interesting, because you have all these rules for yourself and yet you gamble for a living. For your competency,” Catherine said, her smile warm. “I find you a most strange individual, most strange indeed.”

I did not like the sound of that. “Strange.”

“There is such passion in you. Such fire,” said the woman who was fast becoming the only one I wanted to see each day. “And yet you quell it.”

“I control it.”

“I think it controls you.”

Damn. I rose from my seat, no longer able to stay in a room that contained the woman who was tormenting me.

“Kineallen!”

And yet my traitorous footsteps halted in the doorway. I turned, slowly, unable to help myself, to look at Miss Catherine Shenton.

The woman I cared for. The woman I admired. The woman I wanted to touch and stroke to ecstasy as she cried my name.

Hell’s bells.

A small smile crept across Catherine’s face. “I hope I have not offended.”

“Offended?”

No. Not offended. Challenged me. Brought me to face myself, and discover I did not entirely like what I saw.

“I am grateful for this opportunity. The gamble you’ve taken on me,” Catherine said, her hands twisting together. “I know it is all for the Gambling Dukes and…and nothing else. ”

She did not break the connection between our gazes.

I swallowed. Yes, that was all this was. For the Gambling Dukes, and nothing else.

I nodded curtly. “I hope you have enjoyed your time here so far.”

“Yes, I?—”

“I will return you to your…your pottery shop once the Earl of Tuxford has agreed to become a member,” I continued, forcing myself to ignore the feelings of affection that were soaring for this bold, brilliant woman. “And then you can return to your life. Your real life.”

All the warmth in Catherine’s face flickered, then faded. “Yes. Of course. My real life.”

I turned and strode away before she could say anything else—before I could do something I almost certainly would regret.

There was, of course, the smallest chance that I would not regret it.

And I would never take that bet.