Page 26 of A Gamble on the Duke (The Gambling Dukes #4)

FOURTEEN

Catherine

Three days later, I had thankfully managed to get a hold of myself sufficiently to host the first of my little ideas: a pottery class.

It would be an easy way to earn funds—at least, that was what I thought. There had to be ladies of a certain class, with a certain amount of pin money, that would find learning how to work clay fascinating.

There had to be.

I had been tempted to write to my great aunt, but Lady Ormkirk had not returned from Bath, and I was not about to start using her name to gain myself business.

It would smack of trade, something she had been resolutely against for as long as I could remember.

An advertisement in the newspapers, then.

Gentlewoman potter seeks lady students to attend weekly classes in pottery.

I didn’t put my name down. I didn’t want—I mean, Alfred was almost certainly not interested in seeing me again. He certainly knew where to find me, if he had wanted to. My shop had not moved, and yet despite staying within it far longer than I normally did, a tall figure had not arrived there.

When I had opened up the shop this morning and readied myself for the class that I was almost certain would be empty, I tried to still my heart.

No post. No note. No letter of any kind.

Alfred, the Duke of Kineallen clearly had no interest in me any longer. I had been convenient. Now I was inconvenient.

And that was all there was to it.

I tried to look forward to giving my first pottery class.

Granted, the only people who had turned up were a lady who looked in a permanent frump, her friend who was a charming lady who spoke in a very high pitched voice, a pair of sisters who had to be older than my father would have been, and a young woman who looked like she had turned up here by accident but was too embarrassed to say anything.

Well, I couldn’t knock it. Five people was four people more than I had expected.

At least I felt a little better with my hands in the clay. There was something so earthing about working with your hands. I had missed it, while staying with my great aunt last summer. Perhaps that was why I so rarely used her connections.

I didn’t want her to think that I was merely using her. Like I now felt used.

“And here, you see?” I said in a loud, I'm a very experienced teacher don’t you know, this most definitely isn’t my first class I’ve ever taught. “Even when clay goes wrong, you can start again. You can always start again. ”

“And is that true in real life?” asked a voice that I most definitely did not expect to hear.

Kineallen

“Even when clay goes wrong, you can start again. You can always start again.”

God, just hearing her voice was enough to make my stomach lurch.

I hadn’t expected it to be so…inviting. The shop, that was. I’d only ever seen it from the outside, but the moment I stepped in, I could see why Catherine was so desperate to save it.

Every inch of the place felt warm and welcoming.

It was astonishing; there were paintings and drawings, artwork hanging from the ceiling and labels of who had created them.

Each piece of art told a story. The pottery seemed to come to life, dazzling in its individual beauty, but almost overwhelming to have them all together.

There were paint splodges on the floor, and paintbrushes just lying around, and the whole place was messy and organic and real.

And at one end were five people sitting at tables holding clay in their hands, some of them looking wary, one of them looking enthused. Opposite them was my Catherine.

Well. Just Catherine. For now.

“Even when clay goes wrong, you can start again. You can always start again.”

She had spoken softly, a warmth in her voice that I knew so well, and I couldn’t help myself.

“And is that true in real life?” I asked, leaning against the doorway and trying to keep my heart steady.

It was an impossible task. My heartrate soared the instant Catherine looked up, her bright eyes wide in astonishment as she saw me.

“Alfred?”

“Alfred?” said one of the pottery class students. “No, my name is?—”

“Your Grace, what are you doing here?” Catherine asked coldly.

Very coldly. If I had hoped for a little joy, perhaps even gratitude thanks to the banker’s note that I know had been cashed, I was disappointed. I was very disappointed.

Catherine did not look happy to see me—not at all, and now her pottery class had all turned around to look at me. To gawp. To wonder what on earth I was doing there, I guessed. Part of me didn’t even know.

“You didn’t book onto the class, I’m afraid,” she said, that same coldness in her tones but with an added hint of distance. “You’ll have to wait until next time I open for students.”

I swallowed, mouth dry. Hell, she knew that wasn’t why I was there. Why couldn’t she?—

“Oh, I don’t mind sharing,” said the lady who had spoken earlier. She was cheerful, buoyant. “I can scoot over, and?—”

“Class is over,” Catherine said curtly, standing up. “I'm sorry, everyone, but for some reason I feel intensely nauseous. We’ll continue next week.”

There were muttered thanks for her time, and concerns about her health, all of which Catherine ignored. I ignored them too, for the most part, forcing myself to hold her cold gaze. She didn’t look away from me, evidently not willing to be cowed on her own space.

Not that I was trying to.

When the door swung shut behind the last of her students, her nimble hands locking it behind her, it was only her and me in the shop. My stomach was churning, and if I’d managed to eat anything today I might have been concerned about bringing it all up.

As it was, I had been so nervous about the conversation I knew I had to have with her, I hadn’t been able to stomach anything.

The silence was awkward. Tension crept into the air around us and I knew I had to say something, anything, to get this moving.

But where could I start? That I loved her? That what had started off in the strangest way possible now meant something truly important to me? That if I didn’t have her in my life then I was going to go mad?

I cleared my throat.

Catherine frowned. “Go away.”

“Catherine, I?—”

“I don’t want to see you, and I didn’t ask you to come here,” she said curtly. “Your lawyer sent me that letter. Our arrangement, whatever it was, is at an end.”

For a moment I couldn’t think what she was talking about. Then I remembered. Of course, he must have taken care of the practicalities.

Oh, God, I was an idiot. I hadn’t even bothered to send her the money myself.

“I don’t want to see you,” Catherine said, evidently bored of waiting for me to reply. “Honestly, Alfred, I-I don’t even know why you?—”

“I had to see you,” I said quietly, stepping forward.

Catherine immediately stepped back. Her back hit the counter, the small till shaking a little. But there was nowhere else for her to go now, and I had so much to say.

If only I could find the words to say it.

Say it. Say something. Say anything!

“You can’t order me about, we’re not under contract anymore,” Catherine said softly.

Her eyes were wide, and a part of me wanted to wish that they were wide in eagerness, in adoration. Was there a flush there that might mean she cared about me? Was it possible that she felt something for me after my rudeness? After I refused to define whatever this was between us?

What it had been?

“I don’t want to order you about,” I said quietly. “I want to tell you something.”

Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “I'm not giving the money back.”

“Damn the money,” I said simply.

“And the Earl of Tuxford?—”

“Damn the Earl,” I said with a dry laugh. “He signed up, by the way. He became a member of the Gambling Dukes two days ago. Him and his wife, and the Viscount Kirekwall and his wife—all of them. You charmed them all.”

There it was—a flicker of triumph in her eyes. I knew it would be there; knew that Miss Catherine Shenton would be proud of what she had done.

She was a woman who had managed a great number of achievements, the least of which was capturing my heart.

“I love you.”

Now that, she had not expected. In fairness, neither had I. It had just slipped out, the admission of the feelings that I had tried to hide from myself because it was easier to do that than admit the truth.

That I had fallen completely in love with a woman who I couldn’t have.

“Wh…what?” Catherine breathed.

I laughed dryly as I shrugged. “I don’t know, I didn’t have a speech prepared and I didn’t even know if I was going to have the guts to admit it.

I love you, Catherine, and I want to—at least, I wanted to know what a world in which we loved each other could look like.

What we could make, together. God, I know I'm awful to be around.

I'm contrary and I'm easily distracted sometimes and I'm rude as?—”

“Alfred—”

“—and there is absolutely no expectation on you to do anything, or say anything, or hell, be anything,” I continued doggedly.

Now I’d started, I had to get it all out.

That, or regret it for the rest of my life.

“I just—I wanted you to know. I love you. I took a gamble on you, but now I can see that really you were the one gambling on me. And you lost. And I’m sorry—I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you wanted. That you needed. That you deserved.”

She just stared at me. Catherine didn’t attempt to say anything but just…looked at me.

Part of me wished she would yell. Just do something, anything to break this silence.

But if she loved me, she would have said something. So I had to take that as my answer. A man wouldn’t push a woman, anyone, to feel something they didn’t.

I sighed heavily and nodded. “Right. So that was what I had to say. Sorry to disrupt your class, I’ll…I’ll see myself out.”

I turned and forced myself to leave. Every step was painful, knowing that I was never going to see her again, never going to?—

A hand, a warm hand, slipped into mine.

“Alfred?”

I turned. Catherine was there, and she was smiling.

“I love you, you idiot,” she said softly. “What do you think you’re doing, walking away from me? I didn’t just gamble on you. I won.”

The kiss was frantic and desperate and eager, on both sides. We needed each other in a way I couldn’t comprehend and it was ridiculously foolish, and I didn’t care. Kissing Catherine with abandon meant everything. Having her in my arms meant the world.

And when I finally stopped kissing her and dropped to my knees, all the better to worship her, she was already lifting her skirts and grinning at me.

“Don’t stop,” she said with a ragged breath.

I groaned aloud at the welcoming warmth between her thighs. “Never.”