Kathryn (The Bellamy Sisters #6)

Chapter One

London

“I refuse to do this!” Miss Letitia Grayson snapped. “It is immoral. It is wrong. And—and it is disgraceful.”

Lady Kathryn Bellamy stifled a yawn. “Then don’t do it, Letty. Nobody is forcing you.”

Letty’s smooth brow furrowed. “But if I do not play then will you—”

“If you do not participate, then do not expect an invitation to the Duchess of Chatham’s house party,” Katie lied.

In truth, she had no say whatsoever in who her sister Hyacinth invited to her annual summer house party.

Katie doubted that Hy—who delegated everything pertaining to entertainment to one of the duke’s secretaries—even knew who was coming.

Hy despised house parties and usually hid in Chatham Park’s dower house, which the duke had renovated for his wife’s private use.

But the young women surrounding Katie did not know any of that, and they all desperately yearned for one of the most coveted invitations of the year.

Katie knew she should be ashamed of lying and manipulating them, but—as was so often the case—she could not bring herself to care.

“Katie, I—” Letty stopped, chewing her lower lip so roughly it turned a dark red. “I do not know if I can do this.”

Miss Julia Tremont and Miss Caroline Shelby snickered at Letty’s unease.

The sound of their tittering grated on Katie’s nerves, making it difficult to recall why she associated with the two ninnies.

Because nobody else wants to spend any time around you.

Katie knew that was true. It should have hurt, but it didn’t. Nothing really hurt or mattered to her, and that was the way she liked it.

Letty leaned close to Katie and whispered. “Please, don’t make me do this.”

“I am not making you do anything,” Katie said, not bothering to lower her voice.

Letty glared at Katie; her anger mixed with something that looked like desperation.

Although this was Letty’s third Season, Katie had not spent much time with her until this year.

Aside from huge, lovely hazel eyes with lush brown eyelashes and thick chestnut hair, Letty was a rather plain girl.

She was almost as tall as Katie’s five-feet-nine inches, but—unlike Katie—she did not possess much of a figure.

Letty was also poor and had worn the same two ballgowns all year.

Until Katie brought her into her circle of intimates, Letty’s less than spectacular appearance and tiny dowry had made her an outlier at ton functions.

Although she was reserved, she was also funny and sharp-witted when she relaxed.

Katie liked her a great deal more than anyone else she had met in several years and hoped the girl would stick to her principles and refuse to play her stupid kissing game.

For a moment, as Letty glared twin holes into Katie’s head, it seemed as if principle might win over peer pressure.

But then Letty’s shoulders sagged. “Fine. I will do it.”

Katie’s throat became unpleasantly thick at the other girl’s words, and she had to swallow several times to clear it. What a disappointment people were. All of them.

She turned her back on Letty’s flaming face and eyed Lady Michelle Beaumont and Miss Elinor Fisher. “What about you two?”

“We are both in,” Elinor said, speaking for both of them as she usually did. In fact, Katie wasn’t sure that she’d ever heard Michelle speak.

“I want to play,” Caroline said.

“Me, too,” Julia hastily added.

Katie reached into her reticule to bring out a folded piece of paper. “Here is the list.”

Elinor snatched the paper, and Michelle leaned close as she unfolded it, Julia and Caroline craning their necks to see. Only Letty did not try to get a look.

“Read it out loud, Elinor,” Julia ordered.

“For one point there is Lord Chambers, Mr. Andrew Morecombe—”

“But Mr. Morecombe is married!” Letty hissed.

Katie rolled her eyes. “It is only a kiss, Letty. I am not asking you to give birth to the man’s child.”

All five women goggled at her.

“Have you no shame?” Letty managed, the only one who appeared capable of speech.

“Not much,” Katie admitted.

Letty crossed her arms. “I know Elizabeth Morecombe, and she is a lovely person. I would never kiss her husband.”

Katie shrugged. “I already told you that you don’t have to—”

“I don’t care if he is married; I will kiss Morecombe,” Elinor said.

Katie lifted an eyebrow at the other girl’s brazen claim, and Elinor’s cheeks blazed with color, but she did not lower her eyes. Katie was impressed. Who would have guessed that Elinor had so much grit?

“Who else is on there?” Caroline demanded, her blue eyes sparkling.

Elinor continued, “Viscount Telford, Baron Fowler”—she cut Katie an exasperated look. “That is hardly fair!”

“Why not?”

“You are friends with Fowler. He will kiss you just to help you win.”

Katie gave a genuine laugh. Angus Fowler, the Duke of Chatham’s best friend, treated Katie the same way he did a woodlouse—a harmless nuisance to be tolerated but never encouraged. “If you believe Fowler would help me do anything you clearly don’t know as much as you think you do.”

Caroline frowned. “I still don’t—”

Elinor’s squeal made the rest of them wince. “Dulverton!”

Katie gave the little blonde a withering glance. “Perhaps you might screech that a bit louder, Elinor. There are probably a few people at the far end of Berkeley Square who didn’t hear you.”

Elinor’s mouth clamped shut and she glanced around nervously at a cluster of wallflowers not too far away. Several of them were staring at Katie’s group with yearning, but she doubted the other women could hear their conversation over the din of the ballroom.

“The Duke of Dulverton?” Letty repeated, taking the list from Elinor’s unresisting fingers, as if she needed to confirm the name with her own eyes.

“He is worth ten points, while everyone else is worth only one. Just think, Letty, you could win with only one kiss,” Katie said, amused by their dismayed faces.

Letty snorted. “He should be worth a hundred because he never comes to London during—”

“He is here tonight,” Julia contradicted smugly, looking to Katie for approval.

Katie nodded. “For once, Julia is right.” She ignored Julia’s huff of outrage and added, “Dulverton arrived just a few minutes before you did.”

“A fat lot of good that will do us,” Caroline groused. “He hasn’t danced a single set. All he’s been doing is talking to some old man.”

Six pairs of eyes slid toward where the massive, tow-headed duke loomed over a much shorter, rotund, gray-haired man.

Katie could not help noticing how the people around the duke were all stealing furtive glances at him, as if Dulverton was a rare mythical beast that had wandered into their midst. Katie supposed an unmarried duke who was not an octogenarian was about as common as a unicorn.

“How will we ever kiss the man if he doesn’t dance or talk to any of us?” Julia demanded.

“That is your problem,” Katie said. She already had several ideas but had no intention of sharing them because she was going to win this contest.

“But he is so very ugly,” Caroline whined. “I cannot imagine kissing him, even if I could get near enough.”

Even from this distance it was clear that Caroline’s words, however unkind, were true.

Not only did the duke have the hulking body of a common laborer rather than a gentleman of leisure but his nose was a veritable beak, and his jaw, while chiseled and square, jutted far too aggressively to be handsome.

He had deeply set eyes and shadows lurked in the harsh angles of his face and beneath his heavy brow.

It was a face that would have been more at home on a gothic carving than a peer of the realm.

His golden-brown skin contrasted bizarrely with his hair, which was a pale cornsilk color usually only seen on very young children. The unusual shade might have been appealing had it not been shorn as short as a sheep in June.

Caroline shivered. “He frightens me. Ten points is not enough for kissing him,” she said, her words causing nervous laughter.

“You needn’t kiss Dulverton nor anyone else in the room,” Katie snapped, for some reason annoyed by their girlish twittering. She swept the group with a contemptuous look. “You needn’t play at all.”

None of them said a word.

But Katie knew they would play. All of them.

And she would win. Not because she was smarter or more desirable, but because winning, no matter how inconsequential the prize, was the only thing that made her feel anything.