Page 66 of The Duchess Games

She dropped her fingers to his chest, tangling her fingers in his hair. There was something more, a story gnawing at him behind his stern eyebrows, his rare smiles. “Tell me.”

“I was young,” he said. “And stupid. For one, I left you behind here and didn’t come back for years.”

“I didn’t expect any differently.”

“That hardly makes it better. I wanted to marry you, Cat. I would have in an instant.”

Warmth filled her, prickled with unease. She pushed it aside. Plenty of time for reality when she left this room. “I’m not duchess material, Callum. I’m the daughter of a fisherman.”

“You’re perfect.”

She snorted a laugh. “Hardly.”

“Perfect for me. And I fucked it up. All I can say is that grief does strange things to you, even stranger when the whole world gathers to treat you like a prince. I didn’t realize how poisonous it all was until it was much too late. I’m glad I saved you from that, at the very least.”

She frowned. “What happened?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing that hasn’t happened to powerful men for centuries. I’m hardly special. But I didn’t understand how much people wanted my power and my title. I wasn’t a person anymore. Just a tool to be wielded.”

She stifled a wince.

“Summer and Blackpool were the only people in my life who cared, who demanded more from me. And you, of course. But I didn’t deserve you.”

“Now you’re just talking rot.”

“I didn’t. I still don’t. More to the point, you don’t deserve what my world would do to you.”

“I guarantee it would not be worse than pickling pilchard on a hot summer day.”

He smiled again, a ghost of a smile. “My first year in London, I was feted and flattered until my head swelled. I made friends who I didn’t realize were not friends at all. Some of them used my name as collateral in a gaming hell.”

“That’s remarkably rude.” She was going to hell. Clearly.

“They would have lost their inheritances if I didn’t pay their debts. And quite possibly the use of their legs. Gaming hells have enforcers.”

“And you thought they were your friends.”

“I told you, twenty-year-old boys are not smart at the best of times.”

“That’s hardly your fault.”

“But I let it get to my head. I knew if I frowned at someone, they would get the cut direct. If I refused to dance with a debutante, she was done for, for the rest of the Season. If I left the theatre during an intermission, the rest of the Ton followed. It became a game.”

“Ah.”

“If I mentioned I liked someone’s coat, their tailor doubled their business overnight. I once complained about someone’s tea shop, just for the sake of being a little shit and the family lost their business within the week.” He rubbed his beard. “Summer took me to their empty shop, and then by their tiny flat, where the father lived with his six children, all while delivering a blistering lecture.”

“I can just imagine.”

“She’s always seen clearer than me. My mother was proud of me and Summer was furious.”

“Your mother wants you to be a statue.”

“The perfect duke.”

“Same thing. So what did you do afterwards?”

“What do you mean? I vowed not to use my title for games, and I became utterly proficient in the proper disdainful distance, just as my mother had been drilling into me since I was a baby. More lessons, more speeches in Parliament.”