Page 27 of The Duchess Games

Callum stopped. Dozens of pairs of calculating eyes bored into her back. Because she wanted to scrunch up her shoulders, she squared them instead.

“That is an…interesting interpretation,” Callum said. She couldn’t read his tone. It was very, very bland. If he’d been anyone else she might have thought he was teasing. There was no sign of the man who had sucked her finger into his mouth as if she was a delicacy.

“That’s one way to put it.” She wasn’t too bothered about her abysmal painting. And she did not need to be told that she did not belong, that much was obvious. They would delight in telling her though. Callum’s mother had turned this into a glittering, courteous battlefield. There would be blood. And not just on her canvas.

She might have returned to her paints with the kind of stubbornness that did not always do her any favors except for the rustle in the juniper bush. And a tiny sound.

She knew that sound.

She darted around her easel; Callum and the realization that she hadn’t curtsied to him like she ought to, forgotten. Well, she might have forgotten him if he hadn’t insisted on pacing behind her like a mildly threatening storm cloud. She crouched in the grass, her voice a gentle murmur. “Come along, you little troublemakers.”

A rustle. A tiny mew.

“It’s no use,” she said, pushing aside the branches. “I know you’re there.”

“Have you found another turtle?” Callum asked.

“Afraid not,” she said, emerging from the leaves with handfuls of kittens. “I found these instead.”

“Kittens,” he said, nonplussed. She may as well have told him she had found three clowns. “In the junipers.”

They were gray and white, squirming tiny drunken gentlemen, like all kittens. “They are far too young,” she said, as a small very sharp fang sank into her arm. “Ouch. Don’t be rude.”

There was a chorus of meowing, more squirming. Cat stood up, grinning.

“You look well pleased,” Callum remarked.

“I don’t think they would have survived for long out here if we hadn’t found them. Who knows what’s happened to their mother?” Her smile faltered at the thought. Callum stepped closer. “But now they’ll survive, at least.”

“I had no idea this estate had turned into a zoological garden,” he said drily, still watching her carefully. As if she might fall and he might need to catch her.

“Wouldn’t that be lovely?” She was momentarily distracted at the thought. What a fine use for so much land. She shook her head, returning to the moment when one of the kittens swiped at the other.

“What is that noise they are making?” Callum asked.

“We call that screaming.”

“It’s…most unpleasant.”

“Not everyone has the manners of a duke.”

“Pity.”

“They are hungry, poor devils. This one is far too tiny to be alone. And these two do not care for each other at all.” She shoved a hissing animal at Callum. He took it out of instinct and the kitten immediately attacked his cravat. If kittens could cackle gleefully, this one would have done so.

“If you give me fleas, I’ll make you into stew,” Callum said. Cat glanced up, remembering that one did not shove dirty angry kittens at dukes. Callum’s hand was gentle under the kitten and there was a smile lurking under his disapproving tone.

“Well, come along,” Cat said briskly, turning on her heel. She marched away without waiting to see if he would join her. The smaller of the kittens tucked his head awkwardly into the neckline of her dress and promptly went limp with sleep. The other one stared at her suspiciously, still mewling.

“Dare I ask where you are taking me?” Callum asked. “In my own home?”

“To the kitchens,” she tossed over her shoulder. She paused to flutter her eyelashes at him. “Unless you’d prefer I bring them to your chambers? We could set up a basket on your bed. They will sing you to sleep and bite your toes.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “No, thank you.”

She smothered a laugh. “Very well, the kitchens it is.”

“I was joking about the stew, you know.”