Foxglove (Belladonna, #2)(54)
Everett straightened a little, glancing toward Charlotte. “I don’t think that—”
“Oh, come now, Everett.” Fate laughed. “It’s only a kiss.”
The refusal was upon the tip of Signa’s tongue, and yet Blythe jumped in.
“We can have anything?” she asked.
The trap had been sprung, and Signa wasn’t convinced that Fate could look any more gloating than he did then. “Anything that’s in my power to give.”
Blythe didn’t pause to consider her request, though she at least had the sense to lower her voice when she said, “If we win, then the prince must put in a good word for my father.” Before either man could say anything more, she added, “And I want to see him. Immediately.”
Everett lowered his mallet, his face severe. “Miss Hawthorne, that’s not possible—”
“Consider it done.” Fate’s lack of hesitation gave Everett pause. He blinked, seeming to question in that moment just how much power a prince might have. “I accept those terms.”
Signa’s mind worked through the request, threading through his choice of words for any hidden meanings. But before she could get her thoughts together, Blythe swung her mallet over her shoulder and started toward the field.
“Wonderful.” She batted away a blond curl that had escaped her wide-brimmed ivory hat. “You’d best prepare yourself, princeling. I’ve no intention of letting you kiss me.”
“Letting me?” Fate’s laugh was far too genuine. “You’re not to my taste, love.”
“So it seems there is a God.” Blythe clapped her hands together and looked to the sky as if praying. “It only took looking at your art for me to understand how terrible your taste is.”
Fate’s grip tightened on his mallet, and Everett and Signa shared a look. At least there were two people here behaving appropriately, though both Fate and Blythe reeked so thoroughly of determination that convincing them to play without stakes wasn’t an option, even if there was a second when Signa considered wringing Blythe’s neck.
How did one beat Fate in his own game? Couldn’t he change the outcome? Twist everything to his favor? She wanted to win as much as Blythe, yet it wasn’t until a chill tore through the air around her shoulders that Signa believed they might have a chance.
Signa gripped the handle of her mallet and tried to capture her fleeing breath. At once she turned to Fate, who had given himself away by looking directly at the spot next to Signa—where, she now realized, Death stood. Though she could neither see nor hear him, the mallet pressed harder into her palms, as if to say that he was there with her. That he would help.
“Ladies first,” Fate offered with an edge of annoyance. It was the only thing that revealed just how he felt about Death’s arrival.
Blythe positioned herself as though she’d played a thousand times before, squaring herself to the ball and striking it straight on. The ball hurtled through the first wicket, and Fate’s smile twitched downward. He stole a look at Blythe, then at Death, but as far as Signa had been able to tell, that hit was all her own.
Blythe flashed Fate a wicked grin as she strode up to the ball, earning a second turn from scoring a point. Her next strike had the ball across the field, more than halfway toward the next wicket. She inspected her work with a satisfied little nod before strolling back to them. “I suppose that will do.”
It was Everett’s turn next, and Signa felt the chill wash toward him. Fate, too, took a subtle step closer to Everett. Golden threads glistened, drawing the mallet back, but it seemed that something got hold of the ball the moment the mallet struck—Death. He at least had the decency to scoot the ball forward a few inches for Everett’s sake, though it was a crooked shot away from the first wicket that left Everett scratching his head.
“I’m usually not such a horrendous shot.” He glanced above him, as if checking whether the wind itself was his offender.
“You’ll get it next time.” Blythe’s voice was automatic, as though she’d had to tell players that too many times before. “Perhaps the prince will make up for it on his turn.”
“I intend to,” Fate bit back, glowering when Blythe never dropped her smile.
“It sounds like someone underestimated us.” She stretched her gloved hand before her, inspecting it for any sign of dirt. “I used to make my brother play with me every Sunday.”
Signa could have sworn that there was the tiniest hitch in Blythe’s voice, and that her icy blue eyes were suddenly much sharper as she shared a look with Charlotte. There was little time to think about it though, for as Blythe reminded her, “It’s your turn, Signa.”
Everything Signa knew about croquet she had learned from watching Blythe approximately two minutes prior. She approached the ball just as her cousin had, squaring herself to it and doing her best to appear as though this were second nature, and that she’d swung a mallet a thousand times before. Really, though, she was pleading with Death under her breath.
Fortunately, he seemed to know exactly what to do. She couldn’t say whether her mallet had even struck before the ball was rocketing through the next wicket. Everett whistled low behind them, but when Signa glanced back toward her cousin with a victorious grin, she was surprised to find that Blythe’s smug expression had been wiped clean, her pale brows creased.