Page 7 of A Gamble on the Duke (The Gambling Dukes #4)

FOUR

Catherine

I took a deep breath and almost tripped over in the ridiculous shoes he had me wearing.

Like a doll, I couldn’t help but think as I stepped into the gorgeous building that had its own footman in impressive livery. Dressed up in someone else’s clothes, chosen by some gentleman I met literally yesterday…

Besides, who wore such a luxurious silk gown to luncheon?

Apparently, I did. I was holding—clutching, really—onto the Duke of Kineallen’s arm and trying not to think about just how tight and revealing this gown is.

I wouldn’t have worn something like this for an evening event! Not that I was invited to many evening events, now that my parents were gone.

And yet here I was, middle of the day, about to meet the Duke of Kineallen’s closest friends and pretend to be the woman he was courting so that the Earl of Tuxford I would be dining with wouldn’t notice that I didn’t know them.

Oh, goodness .

“Just relax,” the Duke of Kineallen murmured.

Relax? Relax! Was the man utterly demented? Here I was, walking down a corridor lined with art that looked as though it would be more at home in a gallery, trying not to think about all the facts the Duke of Kineallen had tried to make me memorize in the carriage.

Georgiana, Lilah, Markham, their spouses, their ages, their positions in the Gambling Dukes…

And even if that had been entirely calming, which it wasn’t, it was even more disconcerting to have the Duke of Kineallen speak to me like that.

Like…like he knew me. Like he cared.

I cleared my throat as we stepped into a large luxurious drawing room resplendent with a harp in the corner.

Seriously, a harp?

Focus, Catherine!

The Duke of Kineallen did not care for me. This was all a set up for the Earl of Tuxford, and his friends had to be just as believable in case they let the truth slip. That was it. That was all.

“Ah, there he is!” A dazzlingly beautiful woman stepped forward, arms wide. “I thought you’d never arrive!”

“And he brought a friend,” a tall gentleman with similar eyes to the Duke of Kineallen said as he wandered over from a drinks cabinet. “Hello there…”

“Stay away, Markham,” the Duke of Kineallen warned from the embrace of the woman who had approached him. “She’s mine.”

She’s mine.

A shiver should absolutely not have crept up my spine. I absolutely should not have reveled in the possessive way he had spoken.

No. Not a good idea .

“Welcome to the chaos,” a woman said grinning as she pulled me into a surprising hug. “I'm Briar.”

“Wife of my friend here, the Duke of Markham,” Kineallen murmured under his breath.

Like I didn’t remember. I beamed as Lady Markham released me. “Lady Markham! I have heard so much about you. It sounds like a whirlwind romance to me.”

“Yes, for my sins,” she said with a laugh. “Come, let me get you a drink. A glass of wine?”

Wasn’t it a little early for that?

But from what I could see, the whole gathering had glasses of one sort or another. I suppose they didn’t have much work to do other than wining and dining, I reminded myself. Why not have a luncheon glass?

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to pay attention to just how nervous I felt. “It’s so lovely to meet you.”

“We were starting to think Kineallen had invented you,” said a man with a laughing grin. “You just seemed to pop out of the ground!”

“I'm sure he’s mentioned a woman before,” chided a woman who had to be another founding member of the Gambling Dukes.

It was strange, the similarities. I couldn’t put my finger on it especially, but there was something there. Something in the eyes, perhaps, or the jaw.

Something that shouted that these people had been born to nobility in a way I could never imagine.

“All I'm saying is, I'm glad that you are real and not just a clever idea of my friend’s,” the friend who had embraced Kineallen said as she nudged his shoulder. “I'm Lilah.”

“Lovely to meet you, Lady…well. Lilah,” I said as a glass was pressed into my hand.

Oh my goodness, this was all too much. There was something about being around the very rich; I’d never had the chance to experience before now, but now that I was here, it was quite clear how refined they were.

Rather different from me.

I swallowed, trying not to think about my feet crammed into these heels and the way this corset makes it almost impossible to breathe.

“You’ll need to dress well. I’ll sort that out.”

It wasn’t as though I had much of a choice. I’d agreed to the rules, and this was a part of the rules.

“No kissing.”

“Fine, but some small displays of affection will be necessary.”

“Hand holding, hand on my waist—maybe kisses on the cheek?”

“So, tell us about yourself, Miss Shenton,” said Lilah—bother, Lady Rotherwick. Wait, was she differently addressed now that she had married a man without a title? She had a broad smile, drawing me to sit down on a sofa that was just as plush as those in my new home. “How did you meet Kineallen?”

I glanced over her shoulder at the man in question. He was laughing about something with his friends, one of them a little red faced. I smiled. Kineallen looked over and my smile broadened, and I found my cheeks were flushing.

Great, Catherine, make yourself look like an idiot.

I suppose that made it more authentic, right?

“Oh, we met at a dinner,” I said vaguely.

The Duke of Kineallen had decided that was the best way to play it. A dinner was imprecise enough to be believable, and boring enough not to require follow up questions, that was what he’d said.

And he was right .

“Some of those are so dull, aren’t they?” said Lilah sympathetically.

“Oh, I don’t know, sometimes they have their own rewards,” said a man with a grin, brushing a kiss against her forehead. “Another drink?”

“Please,” Lilah said, sharing a smile with the man and quite openly appreciating his behind as he wandered off. “So you’re in town for the Season?”

“Yes,” I said carefully. Still not a lie, excellent. “I actually had intended to stay with a distant great aunt, the Dowager Countess of Ormkirk, though she has gone to Bath for her health and so I am staying as a guest of the Duke of Kineallen.”

“Oh, I know your great aunt, a most pleasant woman,” Lilah said sympathetically. “Such a shame we are robbed of her presence. And what will you do if she does not return for the rest of the Season?”

I smiled weakly. Robbed…yes, perhaps. Lady Ormkirk was never one to encourage me in my pursuit of my art shop; she had considered it scandalous that my father had worked for a living, and had attempted to convince me to marry one of her innumerable nephews…

but I had declined. That was not the life for me.

“I'm thinking about my future right now, not making any swift decisions,” I said aloud, as it was evidently my turn to say something.

“But having a great aunt who is a dowager countess is only going to help you, I would suppose,” Lilah said, taking her glass from the gentleman I had to assume was her husband. “Thanks, love.”

“Having a dowager countess in the family does help, yes,” I said quietly.

It was difficult to say much else because I was being distracted by the Duke of Kineallen. Standing behind Lilah, he caught my eye and gave me a thumbs up.

“Dowager countess?” he mouthed with a grin. “Great idea!”

I tried to smile, though it was a little weak.

To be sure. A great idea. Whether this whole charade, lying to his friends, pretending to be a woman he was courting and deceiving the Earl of Tuxford was a good idea?

That remained to be seen.

Kineallen

“Having a dowager countess in the family does help, yes.”

It was impressive. The lie was so clever, so vague. Striking enough to immediately look at her in a different light, but undetailed enough that follow up questions were hard to navigate.

Now why didn’t I think of that?

I gave Miss Shenton a thumbs up, but I wasn’t entirely sure whether she spotted me. When her brilliant eyes caught mine, something jerked in my naval.

She had to know how clever she was. I had to tell her.

“Dowager countess?” I mouthed, trying not to grin. “Great idea!”

By the vague smile playing on Miss Shenton’s lips, I'm not sure whether she caught the intended meaning of my words, but I hoped my smile was enough to give her a sense of my pride.

Pride?

I dampened down the emotion at once. I couldn’t allow myself to feel something as intimate as pride, not when it was a clever lie that I should have thought of .

Perhaps I wasn’t as prepared for this as I had thought. Maybe a little more consideration should have been given for?—

“So. Miss Shenton.”

I blinked. Lilah was grinning at me from the sofa, her smile a little too knowing.

Georgiana was smirking. “And you have been courting Miss Shenton for how long?”

I didn’t know. “Long enough.”

It was a good enough answer. I didn’t exactly need to know much about Miss Shenton, though now I came to think about it, maybe I should. If the Earl of Tuxford was to ask, even in passing?—

“She’s good for you.”

I blinked. “What?”

Georgiana rolled her eyes. “Try and at least pretend that you’re able to focus on what I'm saying, Kineallen. You’re supposed to be the one in charge here, we can’t have you falling about after your lady friend.”

Lady friend. Miss Shenton.

It all felt too real—frighteningly real. More real than I had expected it to, considering that I was the one who came up with the fake courting idea in the first place.

But there she stood, amongst my friends, holding her own. Laughing, joking—was that a prod in the arm from Markham? Almost like…almost like this was real.

I tried to smile, though it was a little weak. “Good for me. Of course.”

I was more impressed that she had managed to think so quickly on her feet. The last thing I wanted was for the lie to come crashing down before it really began. My friends would understand—at least, eventually .

When the Earl of Tuxford was secured as a member of the Gambling Dukes, all thanks to this little trick.

The next two hours passed in a blur. Somehow, no matter what I tried to do, Miss Shenton was always on the opposite side of the room to me.

Sometimes she was listening with a quizzical brow to something one of my good for nothing friends was saying, then she was laughing with Lilah about something I hadn’t quite caught, their expressive eyes flickering to me before they collapsed into giggles again.

I tried to smile back, but it was a challenge.

Perhaps it was a good thing. Perhaps if I had spent the whole day by her side, our connection—our false connection—would not have been believed. Wasn’t it more believable that we were so in love that we didn’t need to be by each other’s sides all the time?

I swallowed hard as Briar started to say her goodbyes, inadvertently breaking up the party.

“—and you must let me know when you’re next in Mayfair, there’s this perfect restaurant I’ve just bought?—”

I watched, a flicker of warmth unbidden rising in my best. Miss Shenton fitted in well. She was the perfect choice for this fake courtship plan.

And more.

I pushed the thought away. There was no more. There never could be: a shop owner who could barely pay her bills? I was a duke, earning my living through gambling and wagers, a cutthroat world that would eat her for breakfast.

Still. She thought well on her feet. There were plenty of noble born ladies who struggled their way through a luncheon with dukes and duchesses who could learn a thing or two from her.

Unable to stay away from her any longer, trying to ignore the need to be close to her but covering it with the excuse of getting her pelisse, I stepped forward. “Miss Shenton.”

She turned, eyes sparkling, a smile across her face that for a moment I thought was all for me.

And then she spoke. “What lovely friends you have, Your Grace.”

Oh, God, she really was turning on the charm. Markham grinned behind her and I tried not to roll my eyes. She didn’t have to lay it on this thick.

“They’re well enough,” I said, placing her pelisse around her shoulders and not thinking about?—

I couldn’t help it. The softness of her skin, the delicacy of the way her two loose curls cascaded down her shoulders. The slight caress my fingertips somehow managed to make all of their own.

Miss Shenton looked up at me, cheeks flushed, and I knew she felt it too. The sudden heat, the frisson that?—

“Look at you two lovebirds,” Fynn said with a grin. “Be off with you, it’s sickening to be in your presence!”

I cleared my throat. “Right. Yes. Your carriage awaits you, Miss Shenton.”

Turning without waiting to see if she was with me, I strode forward to the door. Her footsteps matched mine, and when I reached out for the handle, I hesitated.

I had intended…well, to bow over her hand goodbye. This was only a business relationship, as I had started to need to tell myself over and over again.

Far too often.

A business relationship. An agreement, a contract. Payment in exchange for services?—

Not that, you dolt .

But still. There weren’t any emotions involved here. Nothing that was allowed, anyway.

I glanced over my shoulder, saw my friends watching us, and knew that a simple bow wasn’t going to be enough. They would expect to see something more, something far more.

And if I wanted to make this whole fake courtship nonsense believable, I had to do something more.

Miss Shenton gasped as my lips pressed against hers but she melted into me, her hands splayed against my chest, within a heartbeat. A quick heartbeat, if hers was anything like mine. My pulse raced as I tasted her, felt her, suddenly realized how damn delicious she was.

And then the kiss ended.

Perhaps it had only lasted a second, perhaps a lifetime. Her cheeks were pink and Miss Shenton herself reached for the door handle as Lilah called out something after us that I did not hear.

The door slammed shut and Miss Shenton spoke as she walked at a quick pace. “I…I…”

My feet moved of their own accord, bringing me alongside her in the cool evening air. Those damned rules—kissing had not been allowed. “I’ll pay extra for?—”

“Don’t you dare,” Miss Shenton said darkly. She flashed me a look. “I'm not—you don’t pay for extras.”

Like hell I didn’t, that wasn’t part of the arrangement. “I'm sorry, I just?—”

“I know why you did it, and I let you,” she said curtly, halting at the hansom cab I had arranged.

I considered paying the man a couple of quid to just go away, but Miss Shenton had already grasped the handle.

“I’ll see you back at the house,” she said quietly. “Goodnight, Your Grace. ”

And the carriage pulled away with her in it. The woman who was pretending to be mine.