May 1829
Kate stomped across the lawn, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that her husband was not following her. Fifteen years of marriage had taught her a thing or two, and she knew that he would be watching her every move.
But she was clever. And she was determined. And she knew that for a pound, Anthony’s valet could feign the most marvelous sartorial disaster. Something involving jam on the iron, or perhaps an infestation in the wardrobe—spiders, mice, it really didn’t matter which—Kate was more than happy to leave the details up to the valet as long as Anthony was suitably distracted long enough for her to make her escape.
“It is mine, all mine,” she chortled, in much the same tones she’d used during the previous month’s Bridgerton family production of Macbeth. Her eldest son had casted the roles; she had been named First Witch.
Kate had pretended not to notice when Anthony had rewarded him with a new horse.
Her husband would pay now. His shirts would be stained pink with raspberry jam, and she—
She was smiling so hard she was laughing.
“Mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiiiine,” she sang, wrenching open the door to the shed on the last syllable, which just so happened to be the deep, serious note of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
“Mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiine.”
She would have it. It was hers. She could practically taste it. She would have tasted it, even, if possible, would somehow have bonded it to her side. She had no taste for wood, of course, but this was no ordinary implement of destruction. This was…
The mallet of death.
“Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiine,” she continued, moving into the hoppy little section that followed the familiar Beethoven refrain.
She could barely contain herself as she tossed a blanket aside. The Pall Mall set would be resting in the corner, as it always was, and in just a moment—
“Looking for this?”
Kate whirled around. There was Anthony, standing in the doorway, smiling diabolically as he spun the black Pall Mall mallet in his hands.
His shirt was blindingly white.
“You…You…”
One of his brows lifted dangerously. “You never were terribly skilled at vocabulary retrieval when crossed.”
“How did you…How did you…?”
He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “I paid him five pounds.”
“You gave Milton five pounds?” Good Lord, that was practically his annual salary.
“It’s a deuced sight cheaper than replacing all of my shirts,” he said with a scowl. “Raspberry jam. Really. Have you no thought toward economies?”
Kate stared longingly at the mallet.
“Game’s in three days,” Anthony said with a pleased sigh, “and I have already won.”
Kate didn’t contradict him. The other Bridgertons might think the annual Pall Mall rematch began and ended in a day, but she and Anthony knew better.
She’d beaten him to the mallet for three years running. She was damned if he was going to get the better of her this time.
“Give up now, dear wife,” Anthony taunted. “Admit defeat, and we shall all be happier.”
Kate sighed softly, almost as if she acquiesced.
Anthony’s eyes narrowed.
Kate idly touched her fingers to the neckline of her dress.
Anthony’s eyes widened.
“It’s hot in here, don’t you think?” she asked, her voice soft, and sweet, and terribly breathless.
“You little minx,” he murmured.
She slid the fabric from her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
“No buttons?” he whispered.
She shook her head. She wasn’t stupid. Even the best laid plans could find their way awry. One always had to dress for the occasion. There was still a slight chill in the air, and she felt her nipples tighten into insulted little buds.
Kate shivered, then tried to hide it with a breathy pant, as if she were desperately aroused.
Which she might have been, had she not been single-mindedly focused on trying not to focus on the mallet in her husband’s hand.
Not to mention the chill.
“Lovely,” Anthony murmured, reaching out and stroking the side of her breast.
Kate made a mewling sound. He could never resist that.
Anthony smiled slowly, then moved his hand forward, until he could roll her nipple between his fingers.
Kate let out a gasp, and her eyes flew to his. He looked—not calculating exactly, but still, very much in control. And it occurred to her—he knew precisely what she could never resist.
“Ah, wife,” he murmured, cupping her breast from the bottom, and lifting it higher until it sat plump in his hand.
He smiled.
Kate stopped breathing.
He bent forward and took the bud in his mouth.
“Oh!” She wasn’t faking anything now.
He repeated his torture on the other side.
Then he stepped back.
Back.
Kate stood still, panting.
“Ah, to have a painting of this,” he said. “I would hang it in my office.”
Kate’s mouth fell open.
He held up the mallet in triumph. “Goodbye, dear wife.” He exited the shed, then poked his head back ’round the corner. “Try not to catch a chill. You’d hate to miss the rematch, wouldn’t you?”
He was lucky, Kate later reflected, that she hadn’t thought to grab one of the Pall Mall balls when she’d been rummaging for the set. Although on second thought, his head was probably far too hard for her to have made a dent.
The following day
There were few moments, Anthony decided, quite so delicious as the utter and complete besting of one’s wife. It depended upon the wife, of course, but as he had chosen to wed a woman of superb intellect and wit, his moments, he was sure, were more delicious than most.
He savored this over tea in his office, sighing with pleasure as he gazed upon the black mallet, which lay across his desk like a prized trophy. It looked gorgeous, gleaming in the morning light—or at least gleaming where it wasn’t scuffed and battered from decades of rough play.
No matter. Anthony loved every last dent and scratch. Perhaps it was childish, infantile even, but he adored it.
Mostly he adored that he had it in his possession, but he was still rather fond of it. When he was able to forget that he had brilliantly snatched it from under Kate’s nose, he actually recalled that it marked something else—
The day he’d fallen in love.
Not that he’d realized it at the time. Nor had Kate, he imagined, but he was certain that that was the day they had been fated to be together—the day of the infamous Pall Mall match.
She had left him with the pink mallet. She had sent his ball into the lake.
God, what a woman.
It had been a most excellent fifteen years.
He smiled contentedly, then let his gaze drop to the black mallet again. Every year they replayed the match. All of the original players—Anthony, Kate, his brother Colin, his sister Daphne and her husband Simon, and Kate’s sister Edwina—they all trooped dutifully to Aubrey Hall each spring and took up their places on the ever-shifting course. Some agreed to attend with zeal and some with mere amusement, but they were all there, every year.
And this year—
Anthony chortled with glee. He had the mallet and Kate did not.
Life was good. Life was very, very good.
The day after that
“Kaaaaaaaaaaate!”
Kate looked up from her book.
“Kaaaaaaaaaaate!”
She tried to gauge his distance. After fifteen years of hearing her name bellowed in much the same fashion, she’d become quite proficient at calculating the time between the first roar and her husband’s appearance.
It was not as straightforward a calculation as it might seem. There was her location to consider—was she upstairs or down, visible from the doorway, et cetera, et cetera.
Then one had to add in the children. Were they at home? Possibly in his way? They would slow him down, certainly, perhaps even by a full minute, and—
“You!”
Kate blinked with surprise. Anthony was in the doorway, panting with exertion and glaring at her with a surprising degree of venom.
“Where is it?” he demanded.
Well, perhaps not so surprising.
She blinked impassively. “Would you like to sit down?” she inquired. “You look somewhat overexerted.”
“Kate…”
“You’re not as young as you used to be,” she said with a sigh.
“Kate…” The volume was rising.
“I can ring for tea,” she said sweetly.
“It was locked,” he growled. “My office was locked.”
“Was it?” she murmured.
“I have the only key.”
“Do you?”
His eyes widened. “What have you done?”
She flipped a page, even though she wasn’t looking at the print. “When?”
“What do you mean, when?”
“I mean—” She paused, because this was not a moment to let pass without proper internal celebration. “When. This morning? Or last month?”
It took him a moment. No more than a second or two, but it was just long enough for Kate to watch his expression slide from confusion to suspicion to outrage.
It was glorious. Enchanting. Delicious. She’d have cackled with it, but that would only encourage another month of “Double, double toil and trouble” jokes, and she’d only just got him to cease.
“You made a key to my office?”
“I am your wife,” she said, glancing at her fingernails. “There should be no secrets between us, don’t you think?”
“You made a key?”
“You wouldn’t wish for me to keep secrets, would you?”
His fingers gripped the doorframe until his knuckles turned white. “Stop looking like you’re enjoying this,” he ground out.
“Ah, but that would be a lie, and it’s a sin to lie to one’s husband.”
Strange choking sounds began to emanate from his throat.
Kate smiled. “Didn’t I pledge honesty at some point?”
“That was obedience,” he growled.
“Obedience? Surely not.”
“Where is it?”
She shrugged. “Not telling.”
“Kate!”
She slid into a singsong. “Not tellllllllling.”
“Woman…” He moved forward. Dangerously.
Kate swallowed. There was a small, rather tiny, actually, but nonetheless very real chance that she might have gone just a wee bit too far.
“I will tie you to the bed,” he warned.
“Yeeeessss,” she said, acknowledging his point as she gauged the distance to the door. “But I might not mind it precisely.”
His eyes flared, not quite with desire—he was still too focused on the Pall Mall mallet for that—but she rather thought she saw a flash of…interest there.
“Tie you up, you say,” he murmured, moving forward, “and you’d like it, eh?”
Kate caught his meaning and gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
“Oh, I would.”
He was aiming for a repeat performance. He was going to tie her up and leave her there while he searched for the mallet.
Not if she had anything to say about it.
Kate scrambled over the arm of her chair and then scooted behind it. Always good to have a physical barrier in situations like these.
“Oh, Kaaaaate,” he taunted, moving toward her.
“It’s mine,” she declared. “It was mine fifteen years ago, and it’s still mine.”
“It was mine before it was yours.”
“But you married me!”
“And this makes it yours?”
She said nothing, just locked her eyes with his. She was breathless, panting, caught up in the rush of the moment.
And then, fast as lightning, he jumped forward, reaching over the chair, catching hold of her shoulder for a brief moment before she squirmed away.
“You will never find it,” she practically shrieked, scooting behind the sofa.
“Don’t think you’ll escape now,” he warned, doing a sideways sort of maneuver that put him between her and the door.
She eyed the window.
“The fall would kill you,” he said.
“Oh, for the love of God,” came a voice from the doorway.
Kate and Anthony turned. Anthony’s brother Colin was standing there, regarding them both with an air of disgust.
“Colin,” Anthony said tightly. “How nice to see you.”
Colin merely quirked a brow. “I suppose you’re looking for this.”
Kate gasped. He was holding the black mallet. “How did you—”
Colin stroked the blunt, cylindrical end almost lovingly. “I can only speak for myself, of course,” he said with a happy sigh, “but as far as I’m concerned, I’ve already won.”
Game day
“I fail to comprehend,” Anthony’s sister Daphne remarked, “why you get to set up the course.”
“Because I bloody well own the lawn,” he bit off. He held his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun as he inspected his work. He’d done a brilliant job this time, if he did say so himself. It was diabolical.
Pure genius.
“Any chance you might be capable of refraining from profanity in the company of ladies?” This, from Daphne’s husband Simon, the Duke of Hastings.
“She’s no lady,” Anthony grumbled. “She’s my sister.”
“She’s my wife.”
Anthony smirked. “She was my sister first.”
Simon turned to Kate, who was tapping her mallet—green, which she’d declared herself happy with, but Anthony knew better—against the grass.
“How,” he asked, “do you tolerate him?”
She shrugged. “It’s a talent few possess.”
Colin stepped up, clutching the black mallet like the Holy Grail. “Shall we begin?” he asked grandly.
Simon’s lips parted with surprise. “The mallet of death?”
“I’m very clever,” Colin confirmed.
“He bribed the housemaid,” Kate grumbled.
“You bribed my valet,” Anthony pointed out.
“So did you!”
“I bribed no one,” Simon said, to no one in particular. Daphne patted his arm condescendingly. “You were not born to this family.”
“Neither was she,” he returned, motioning to Kate.
Daphne pondered that. “She is an aberration,” she finally concluded.
“An aberration?” Kate demanded.
“It’s the highest of compliments,” Daphne informed her. She paused, then added, “In this context.” She then turned to Colin. “How much?”
“How much what?”
“How much did you give the housemaid?”
He shrugged. “Ten pounds.”
“Ten pounds?” Daphne nearly shrieked.
“Are you mad?” Anthony demanded.
“You gave the valet five,” Kate reminded him.
“I hope it wasn’t one of the good housemaids,” Anthony grumbled, “for she’ll surely quit by the day’s end with that sort
of money in her pocket.”
“All of the housemaids are good,” Kate said, with some irritation.
“Ten pounds,” Daphne repeated, shaking her head. “I’m going to tell your wife.”
“Go ahead,” Colin said indifferently as he nodded toward the hill sloping down to the Pall Mall course. “She’s right there.”
Daphne looked up. “Penelope’s here?”
“Penelope’s here?” Anthony barked. “Why?”
“She’s my wife,” Colin returned.
“She’s never attended before.”
“She wanted to see me win,” Colin shot back, rewarding his brother with a sickly stretch of a smile.
Anthony resisted the urge to throttle him. Barely. “And how do you know you’re going to win?”
Colin waved the black mallet before him. “I already have.”
“Good day, all,” Penelope said, ambling down to the gathering.
“No cheering,” Anthony warned her.
Penelope blinked in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“And under no circumstances,” he continued, because really, someone had to make sure the game retained some integrity, “may you come within ten paces of your husband.”
Penelope looked at Colin, bobbed her head nine times as she estimated the steps between them, and took a step back.
“There will be no cheating,” Anthony warned.
“At least no new types of cheating,” Simon added. “Previously established cheating techniques are permissible.”
“May I speak with my husband during the course of play?” Penelope inquired mildly.
“No!” A resounding chorus, three voices strong.
“You’ll notice,” Simon said to her, “that I made no objection.”
“As I said,” Daphne said, brushing by him on her way to inspect a wicket, “you were not born of this family.”
“Where is Edwina?” Colin asked briskly, squinting up toward the house.
“She’ll be down shortly,” Kate replied. “She was finishing breakfast.”
“She is delaying the play.”
Kate turned to Daphne. “My sister does not share our devotion to the game.”
“She thinks we’re all mad?” Daphne asked.
“Quite.”
“Well, she is sweet to come down every year,” Daphne said.
“It’s tradition,” Anthony barked. He’d managed to get hold of the orange mallet and was swinging it against an imaginary ball, narrowing his eyes as he rehearsed his aim.