Page 20 of A Gamble on the Duke (The Gambling Dukes #4)

“Far too swiftly for the cohesion to—and oh, look at this!”

Alfred yelped quietly as I tugged him through a doorway and into what could only be a drawing room—though it might better be called a museum.

“Oh my,” I breathed, hardly able to take it all in.

The place was absolutely full of pottery. Shards of it in a cabinet, Egyptian, by the look of it, or certainly Near Eastern. A necklace made of pottery in a display that also included a pair of earbobs from the finest green jade. And here?—

“You do realize that you’re speaking aloud, don’t you?” Alfred said conversationally.

Heat rushed to my cheeks. “No I’m not.”

“The finest green jade,” he repeated, his smile partially teasing, partially joyful. “You are a marvel, you know.”

“Me, a marvel? You can stand here and say that?”

I looked around me, not really able to take it all in. Such a collection had to be worth tens of thousands—but it was not the value of the pieces, but the time it had taken to collect them. To find such exquisite?—

“You’re still speaking aloud, though please don’t allow my notice of that to stop you,” Alfred said cheerfully, squeezing my hand. “It’s…well. It’s enthralling, to be here with an expert.”

I flushed. “An expert?”

“Well you are, aren’t you? What I can’t understand is how a woman managed to gain such knowledge, such experience.” Alfred’s curiosity was blatant. “It was your father, I think you said, who was a potter.”

Had I?

I tried to smile, even as we meandered from the drawing room to a dining room.

At least, a room which was technically a dining room, but I wasn’t sure how anyone would ever be able to eat there, considering how many clay masks had been placed lovingly on blue velvet upon the large table.

“Yes. Yes, he was a potter,” I said, affection for my father rising up. “He raised me alone, and worked hard to provide for me. I was even able to go to school—that is why I can read and write, and I have my numbers.”

Hell, I sounded so parochial when I said that—but it was the truth, and many women of my class did not have such learning.

Thankfully Alfred did not appear too astonished at my words. “I did wonder. You could not have had a governess.”

I had to snort at that, even as I peered forward to examine the glaze finish of a particular mask. “No—my mother always hated her governess, apparently, and had made my father promise I would never have one.”

“Your mother had a governess?”

“I told you,” I said with a grin straightening up. “My great aunt is the Dowager Countess of Ormkirk. My mother was her favorite niece, her schooling was very important to the family.”

Alfred gave me a lazy grin that warmed me far too much. “Right. But your father—he was in trade.”

“He was a craftsman,” I said proudly. “He made the most incredible…oh.”

My breath was quite literally taken away .

We had just moved from the dining room into what had to be another drawing room, or something like that. What it was supposed to be used for, I wasn’t sure. What it was used for now was Mrs. Bessington’s collection.

And there, over the mantlepiece…

“That,” I said quietly, “was made by my father.”

Oh, how odd to see it there. How strange to know that his hands had touched it, his technique had shaped it.

And now it stood proudly on a rich woman’s mantlepiece amongst a collection so fine.

“This here?” Alfred released my hand and stepped forward, as though he could not approach it with me. His serious gaze flickered over it and I found to my horror that I was hoping he approved.

It didn’t matter if he approved or not. It was made by my father.

“It is impressive,” he said quietly, turning to me. “Very beautiful. Very beautiful indeed.”

Kineallen

“It is impressive,” I said, my throat dry but I couldn’t stop myself from speaking, even if I had wanted to. “Very beautiful. Very beautiful indeed.”

When had this all changed? When had the axis of the world tilted so far that Catherine was at the center?

When had my desires and dreams started to be about her, and not the Gambling Dukes, or myself?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell.

All I knew was that I could never have stomached even looking at a clay pot for more than five minutes together before this day…and now all I wanted to do wa s stay here, in Mrs. Bessington’s home, and listen to Miss Catherine Shenton tell me all about them.

“Yes they are, aren’t they?” Catherine had clearly thought I was talking about the pottery. “Such a fascinating period. The glaze especially…”

I was listening. I really was.

The trouble was, there was so much to be distracted by.

The curve of her cheek. The brightness of her smile.

The way the air around her seemed to shimmer, as though I could actually see the difference she was making to my life as she pulled me across a room to look at a bowl, or into the next room with rapturous sighs at a set of plates.

I wanted to make her sigh like that.

The thought flickered through my mind and there was very little that I could do to stop it. Catherine Shenton was only supposed to be convenient, a way to ensure the Earl of Tuxford approved of me.

And it had worked.

But so much more had happened. I felt so much more, needed so much more of her in my life than I had ever predicted.

And now…now I didn’t know what to do about it.

“Alfred?”

I blinked. Somehow we had moved to a corridor, God knows where—oh yes. Mrs. Bessington’s.

Hell, I needed to pay better attention.

“Alfred, you haven’t been listening to me for a while, have you?” asked Catherine, lifting an eyebrow with a quizzical smile.

I tried not to smile back, but it was difficult. “Not really, no.”

Exactly why I didn’t want to smile at her, I didn’t know. It felt like a weakness, this giddy feeling that crept over me whenever I was with her. As though I was no longer in control.

And I had to be in control.

So much had happened in my life that had gone completely behind me. Olivia, the child, Markham when he had stolen—or so we thought—from the Gambling Dukes.

I hadn’t been able to change any of that.

But I could change this, surely? Surely I could control my own damned emotions?

Snap!

I blinked hastily. “What the?—”

“I knew you still weren’t paying attention,” said Catherine with a wry smile. She must have clicked her fingers beneath my nose. “I am sorry. Should we go—I don’t want to bore?—”

“No. No, that’s not it. That’s not it at all,” I said quickly, guilt searing through me.

Well, damn.

Catherine was examining me curiously. “Then what is it?”

What was it?

How the hell was I supposed to explain this—this weakness that I had developed for her? No woman wanted a weak man. I was a duke, I was responsible for hundreds of people. Their livelihoods. Their futures.

And I couldn’t stop looking at Catherine and wondering…

“We should go,” Catherine said firmly, turning on her heels and starting down the corridor.

“Wait.”

She halted. She had to; I had a grasp of her wrist, and my skin burned as it touched hers. Did she know? Did she feel this, the same heat that I did, the same urges, the same longing?

Had she any idea what she was doing to me?

“Why?” Catherine murmured, her eyes fixed on mine. “You don’t seem to be interested.”

She could not be more wrong.

“You do not seem to be enjoying yourself.”

Wrong again.

“And the pottery?—”

Oh, blast, the pottery. Right.

“Catherine,” I interrupted, letting go of her most reluctantly. “Have you thought much about…about this arrangement.”

There was no one else in the corridor—we had seen no one else in Mrs. Bessington’s home—and yet Catherine still flushed, glancing about her as if there were a host of housemaids about to take the news to the papers.

“No,” she said quietly, stepping closing to me and lowering her voice. “No, I…I haven’t.”

Well, damn. Was that good, or bad? I wasn’t sure.

“Have you…” I swallowed. “Have you spoken of it to anyone.”

Now there was concern in her expression. “No, no one—there is no one for me to tell. Why, is something wrong?”

So wrong, and so right. I breathed her in, that scent that was purely Catherine absolutely intoxicating. I could barely think when I was around her, my senses overpowered by the temptation that she presented.

I had to get her out of my system.

“I just wondered,” I said quietly, painfully aware that this was not the place to be having this conversation, and yet I was having it nonetheless, “what you thought of it. ”

Catherine’s gaze flickered to my mouth, then back to my eyes.

A spurt of triumph roared through my chest.

“Thought of it?” she repeated lightly. “Well, I think your friends are lovely. I like them.”

Ah. Well, that wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. “Right. Anything else?”

“And the Earl of Tuxford. He is a very pleasant gentleman,” Catherine said quietly, a lilting smile teasing her lips.

What was that—what did that mean? Was she remembering a nice conversation with the man—or was she teasing me?

Hell’s bells, but it was horrendous to feel this keenly, to feel so vulnerable. How on earth did anyone manage it? Was this what love was, this unpleasant sense that at any moment, one could be injured?

“And you.”

My head had dropped, but it lurched upwards at Catherine’s words.

She was smiling, but it was a nervous smile. “You are…the way I feel about you…”

My breath caught in my throat as I stepped toward her, closing the distance between us, forcing her to look upward at me.

I had thought I would be better able to speak, the closer I was, but only now did I realize that being this close meant that I could smell her all the more. And dear God, I wanted to bury my face in her neck and breathe her in.

Breathe in Miss Catherine Shenton.

“You have feelings for me,” I said quietly.

My voice had been only a murmur and yet once again Catherine glanced about, her cheeks now pink.

“I did not say that,” she said defensively .

“You said the way I feel about you,” I pointed out, trying not to sound too triumphant. “That would suggest?—”