Page 76 of The Duchess Games

“We agreed tonight was the night.”

He took a swig of ale, smirking. “Did we?”

“The ship is waiting,” she ground out. “What game are you playing?”

“See, we have the numbers and the muscle. This operation should be ours.”

“It was my idea, arsewit.”

“But you need us.”

“And you need my beach, my code, my connections.” She pulled one of the letters from inside her bodice, flashing the red wax seal with the crest of the Duke of Tremaine. She only felt slightly sick doing it.

Juro narrowed his eyes. There was a murmur around us. “Hand it all over and we’ll make sure it runs smoothly.”

She laughed. It was sharp, a bullet of a sound.

“Then unload it without us.” He flourished his hand. “Go on.”

They had her over a barrel. And they knew it.

They would wait until the ship dumped the barrels and casks and they would steal it from her. She wouldn’t be able to stop them. Anyone could walk into the sea and claim a bounty. Wrecker’s law.

She wanted to scream.

She spun on her heel and left, their laughter snaking behind her, pinching at her. Muttering, she stopped on the stoop, searching for a suitable weapon.

Do it without us.

She couldn’t do this alone. It was utterly impossible.

She thought of the women forming lines in the cold water to bring in the pilchards. Of the maids in the duke’s kitchen working together to feed hundreds of people. Chopping, boiling, peeling. Serving, cleaning, scrubbing.

Together.

Cat rammed the pole into the handle of the pub’s door, locking it tightly against the frame.

She turned on her heel.

“Granny, I need your help.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Penhallow might be full of aristocrats.

But Little Crumpet was full of fishermen and miners and farmers.

Better yet, it was full of wives and daughters and mothers and spinsters. Full of women.

When Cat made it back to her beach, she wasn’t alone. Margie, the baker’s wife with arms twice the size of his was with her. Lowenna, Morgen’s mother, Demelza with her sisters. Granny and her crows. And countless others with their baskets and sacks and wheelbarrows.

It was unorthodox, just this side of mad. It would never work.

It was perfect.

And that’s why it worked so well.

When she first saw the faint outline of the ship against the sky, sailing away, dismay and disappointment filled her. She might have wilted with it were it not for the other women.