Page 55 of The Duchess Games

She had no time for games.

And yet.

She was distracted from her inner turmoil by Lady Wandsworth. Just as well. Callum was looking at her out of the corner of his eye, as if he could read the worry and the need boiling in her belly. When they passed the drawing room, several murmurs rose at the sight of Percival, trotting at her side like a gangly pony.

Lady Wandsworth, who was very fine and had not spoken one word to her, came to the hall and sat right down on the floor in her beaded dress, opening her arms for an excited wolfhound who did not smell like rosewater perfume. He licked her face and she only laughed. “What a handsome prince you are.”

Percival’s tail whipped across Cat’s legs in a frenzy of joy. Lady Wandsworth would not release him for a good ten minutes. Cat glanced at Callum. He glanced back at her, down his nose, cold and yet somehow searing. And there. Just there. That tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth again. Not quite a smile.

“Tremaine, what is the meaning of this?” His mother’s voice was like broken glass, just waiting to cut. Cat saw the exact moment the almost-smile died, and she felt like baring her own teeth, and not in a friendly manner. The dowager did not even call her son by his given name, only his title.

“What is that…thing doing in my house?”

Callum turned his head. “And here I thought it was my house.”

The dowager bristled.

“I’ve invited Miss Sparrow to bring her dog,” he said coldly.

Cat smiled awkwardly. “Don’t worry, Lady Tremaine. I won’t allow him in the drawing rooms.”

“I should hope not.”

Really, it was like talking to an icicle. Where she could see how Callum’s properness hid something else, how he appeared cold because she thought he was very much the opposite, it was impossible to read his mother. She could well be cold all the way through.

“I’ll just take him upstairs,” Cat said before she could say something else that would have the butler toss her out on her backside. She kept a firm grip on Percival just in case he thought to investigate Lady Tremaine to see if she might sneak him a custard tart the way Lady Wandsworth absolutely had. They bounded up the stairs, rattling the chandelier.

“Honestly, that girl,” Lady Tremaine snapped. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Mother.”

Cat did not hear the rest of the conversation. She wasn’t bothered by Lady Tremaine’s opinion, and she certainly wasn’t surprised by it. She didn’t even disagree with it, really. She had no business in a duke’s house. But Callum’s response, his tone which would brook no argument, made a curl of warmth kindle inside her. And she could not afford that.

How many times did she have to remind herself of that?

Honestly, she was beginning to think she was becoming addled. Clearly rich food and champagne were not good for the mind.

Percival followed her into the sitting room she shared with her sister and then promptly proceeded to lose any ounce of dignity he’d gathered by his opulent surroundings. “Percival!” Viola cried out. Percival whipped his head around, spotted her on the settee and leapt, tongue lolling.

“Don’t you dare climb on this furniture,” Cat caught him by the collar. “This chair alone probably costs more than our entire cottage.”

Viola bent down to hug him instead and he snuffled happily. Cat tilted her head. “You look better.”

Viola grinned up at her. “I was better yesterday.”

Cat frowned. “You were? You sneak! Why didn’t you say?”

“I wanted you to have more time with the duke,” she replied archly. “But now I’m back in the game.”

Cat smiled weakly. She would not compete with her own sister for Callum. It was probably for the best. She had work to do yet. And Viola deserved every opportunity.

Viola rolled her eyes. “Not for the duke.”

Cat tried not to wilt with relief. It wasn’t as if there was a happily ever after waiting for her after she betrayed Callum.

“I know how he looks at you,” Viola added. “And how you look at him.”

She froze. “What?”