Page 49 of Corrupting his Duchess (A Duke’s Undoing #1)

There were a handful of further rounds; at the end of each, a few more players dropped out, preferring refreshments to increasingly tense game play.

But she would remember how it ended—probably until the end of her days.

They were within a few strokes of one another with only two wickets left remaining. Catherine hit her ball, holding her breath as she took the difficult angle, swung, and watched as the ball?—

She let out a little hop of happiness, not even caring that it was unladylike, when her ball rolled through the hoop, then let out an actual gasp of horror when it kept rolling—and rolling—and rolling.

She could have keeled over in relief when it came to a halt just before it dropped over a little hilly outcrop that looked out over the lake, shining and blue below.

The duke came up to his ball next. His strike was far less dramatic, coursing through the hoop and coming to a stop several yards before Catherine’s.

He gave her a smug look.

“I suppose that’s our match, Lady Catherine,” he said.

Goodness, she’d known he was difficult, but she hadn’t known he was also blind .

“I still have one hoop to go,” she said. “And if I get it, I’m the victor. Or have you lost count?” She gave him her sweetest smile. “I’m sure we could ask the Duke of Wilds to confirm for us.”

He looked at her, his brow falling low.

“It’s an impossible strike, unless you intend to make it while standing on water. And I have no doubt as to your confidence, my lady, but I doubt even you would liken yourself to Christ himself.”

Catherine rolled her eyes.

“Those are the words of a person who fears himself destined to lose,” she said.

“I cannot be destined to lose when I have already won,” he countered. “You cannot make that. The direction—it’s impossible.”

“Truly, Your Grace, I implore you,” she said. “Say ‘impossible’ one more time. It shall make it all the sweeter when I manage things so beautifully that they shall put it in the papers.”

“You are being ridiculous,” he said hotly. “My lady, truly you cannot?—”

He sounded almost concerned. But Catherine wasn’t listening. She was stalking over to where her ball, and victory, awaited.

“Lady Catherine, you really shouldn’t—” She ignored that bothersome duke.

“Kitty, are you sure—” She ignored Ariadne.

She situated herself in the perfectly spacious, absolutely bountiful patch of grass between her ball and the overhang. She lined up her shot, pulled back her mallet, swung, and?—

Her foot slipped on the grass, her ladylike slippers offering no purchase. The force of her swing pulled at her balance. She saw, in the last moments, the Duke of Seaton’s wide eyes and Ariadne’s horrified gasp.

And then she plunged over the edge of the small cliff and directly into the water below.

For a horrifying moment, Percy was twelve again, watching a lake for his brother who would never surface again.

A heartbeat later, and he was moving before he’d even decided to do so. He ripped off his jacket, throwing it to the floor with his mallet. He didn’t even bother kicking off his boots. He crossed to the ledge and dove straight in.

It didn’t matter who she was. He couldn’t let someone else drown while he stood idly by.

They might have been in the last vestiges of summer, but the lake apparently had not gotten any message that it ought to get warm. The iciness nearly stole his breath as he cut through the water.

He didn’t care. He didn’t care .

All that mattered was that Catherine—Lady Catherine, that was—was beneath the surface, her heavy skirts dragging her down. Worse, though, was that she didn’t even seem to be fighting it.

He kicked forward and grabbed her around the waist, then swam with all his might toward the surface.

She gasped when they broke free into the air. He, too, gasped—and then shocked himself to his bones when he used that breath of air to bellow into her face.

“What were you doing?”

She flinched away from him even as she tried to blink the wet hair out of her eyes—which, were he in a more rational state, he might have considered fair enough, as he’d shouted directly at her ear.

“I—what? I fell,” she sputtered.

“You weren’t swimming!” He was still yelling.

“I don’t know how to swim!” Now, she was yelling, too.

He got them close enough to the shore, which was several yards down the curve of the lake from where Lady Catherine had toppled in, that he could stand. He held on to her a little while longer, until he was certain that she’d be able to stand, too, then held on a little bit longer. Just to be safe.

She had just fallen into a lake despite not being able to swim. She couldn’t be trusted on land or in the water.

“Don’t know how to swim,” he muttered as he guided her through the sludgy bottom of the lake until her waist, hips, and shins were all above the surface. “Playing wretched Pall Mall on a cliffside and she doesn’t know how to swim.”

First shouting, now swearing. He was swearing in front of a lady.

“Stop shouting at me!” Lady Catherine shouted.

Well. At least they were a good pair.

He pushed that thought aside as soon as he’d had it. It was doubtless a mere aftereffect of being nearly drowned.

By the time they were fully out of the water—which was the moment that Percy decided it was acceptable to let Catherine go, and not a moment sooner, now that he knew that the little pest could not swim —a small crowd had rushed over to join them, headed by David and Lady Catherine’s little sister, who looked pale and alarmed.

He saw the moment Lady Catherine registered this, for she immediately squared her shoulders, pushed the last of her wet hair out of her face, and crossed to her sister.

“I’m fine, Ari,” she soothed. “I’m really just fine. Embarrassed, but unharmed.”

Lady Ariadne patted her sister’s cheeks, shoulders, and arms as if searching for any injury that might gainsay this claim. When she found nothing, her expression went from terrified to sardonic.

“No more Pall Mall, Kitty,” she said. “Please.”

Lady Catherine looked chagrined. “What do they say about pride that goeth before the fall?” She gestured back at the little overhang.

From this angle, it didn’t look very high.

Strange, given that it had felt like the most towering clifftop when Percy had been watching Lady Catherine slip over the edge. “Well, that was the fall.”

With the kind of huffed little chuckle that came from extraordinary relief, Lady Ariadne wrapped her arms around her sister, entirely heedless of how this got her gown wet, too.

Percy tried to see this as the excesses of the wealthy, of those who always knew a new gown was a snap of the fingers away, but all he could see in it was sisterly love.

“And you, Seaton?” David’s quiet query startled Percy and—damn it all—he realized he’d been staring again. “Are you well?”

“Completely fine,” he confirmed—and then, “Ow!” when David cuffed him mercilessly on the head.

“That’s for diving headfirst into water when you don’t know how deep it is,” his friend chided. “Consider it a reminder of what would have happened to your skull at much greater force if you’d been just a bit off in your descent. The water isn’t so deep here.”

“It was deep enough that it was over Ca—Lady Catherine’s head,” he pointed out, hoping David didn’t notice his slip.

Maybe it was the common blood that the Lightholders so derided in him, but Percy felt that once you rescued someone from a near-drowning, it seemed foolish to use their titles.

But politeness was what it was. “And she’s not a short woman. ”

“Yes, you would have noticed that,” David grumbled, clearly still a bit shaken with worry. “Next time, just jump feet first, would you? It will ruin my reputation as a host if a duke dies at my party.”

The joke was a bit half-hearted, a cover for genuine concern.

“Aye, I’ll do that,” Percy promised. Despite himself, he was touched that David cared. “Though perhaps we’re better off just hoping it doesn’t happen again?”

David looked up at the sky. “You heard him, Lord. He’s a wise man. Let’s go with his suggestion.”

Percy chuckled a bit, then squared his shoulders as Lady Catherine turned to face him. It did not escape him that this was the same thing she’d done for her sister. They’d both tried to make themselves seem as strong and unflappable as possible.

She offered him a sheepish smile.

“I must thank you, Your Grace,” she said, bobbing a curtsey. He hated it. He found her politeness to be the most hideous thing in the world. He wished she was shouting at him again. “Without your swift aid, I shudder to think what might have befallen me.”

“Of course,” he said stiffly. She was talking to him like he was some fop she’d met on the dance floor at one of her silly parties. He loathed it.

Her expression flickered, her smile becoming a little brittle, and Percy felt a surge of triumph. That brittleness was real.

“I daresay I offer you especial gratitude,” she said more quietly, sounding not at all grateful, “considering that matters have been somewhat…fractious between us.”

It was, maybe, an olive branch.

Percy threw it to the ground and stomped on it. Even he couldn’t have told himself precisely why.

Instead, he let his tone grow caustic. “It has. But do not think this constitutes a truce, my lady.”

He held her gaze. He needed this last part to be true.

“Nothing has changed between us.”