The Bridgertons Happily Ever After - By Julia Quinn Page 0,16
to ten in her head, and then sure enough, Edwina happened across her, Penelope trailing three steps behind. The pair had become something of a team, with Edwina doing all the swinging and Penelope consulting on strategy.
“Oh, Kate,” Edwina said with a pitying sigh.
“Don’t say it,” Kate growled.
“You did make the puddle,” Edwina pointed out.
“Whose sister are you?” Kate demanded.
Edwina gave her an arch smile. “Sisterly devotion does not obscure my sense of fair play.”
“This is Pall Mall. There is no fair play.”
“Apparently not,” Penelope remarked.
“Ten paces,” Kate warned.
“From Colin, not from you,” Penelope returned. “Although I do believe I shall remain at least a mallet’s length away at all times.”
“Shall we go?” Edwina inquired. She turned to Kate. “We just finished with the fourth wicket.”
“And you needed to take the long way ’round?” Kate muttered.
“It seemed only sporting to pay you a visit,” Edwina demurred.
She and Penelope turned to walk away, and then Kate blurted it out. She couldn’t help herself:
“Where is Anthony?”
Edwina and Penelope turned. “Do you really want to know?” Penelope asked.
Kate forced herself to nod.
“On the last wicket, I’m afraid,” Penelope replied.
“Before or after?” Kate ground out.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Is he before the wicket or after it?” she repeated impatiently. And then, when Penelope did not answer instantly she added, “Has he gone through the bloody thing yet?”
Penelope blinked with surprise. “Er, no. He has about two more strokes, I should think. Perhaps three.”
Kate watched them depart through narrowed eyes. She wasn’t going to win—there was no chance of that now. But if she couldn’t win, then by God, neither would Anthony. He deserved no glory this day, not after tripping her and sending her tumbling into the mud puddle.
Oh, he’d claimed it was an accident, but Kate found it highly suspicious that his ball had gone spluttering out of the puddle at the exact moment she’d stepped forward to reach her own ball. She’d had to do a little hop to avoid it and was congratulating herself on her near miss when Anthony had swung around with a patently false “I say, are you all right?”
His mallet had swung with him, conveniently at ankle level. Kate had not been able to outhop that one, and she’d gone flying into the mud.
Face down.
And then Anthony had had the gall to offer her a handkerchief.
She was going to kill him.
Kill.
Kill kill kill.
But first she was going to make sure he didn’t win.
Anthony was smiling broadly—whistling, even—as he waited his turn. It was taking a ridiculously long amount of time to get back ’round to him, what with Kate so far behind that someone had to dash back to let her know when it was her turn, not to mention Edwina, who never seemed to understand the virtue of speedy play. It had been bad enough the last fourteen years, with her ambling along as if she had all day, but now she had Penelope, who would not allow her to hit the ball without her analysis and advice.
But for once, Anthony didn’t mind. He was in the lead, so far so that no one could possibly catch up. And just to make his victory all the sweeter, Kate was in last place.
So far so that she could not hope to overtake anyone.
It almost made up for the fact that Colin had snatched the mallet of death.
He turned toward the last wicket. He needed one stroke to get his ball at the ready, and one more to push it through. After that, he needed only to steer it to the final pole and end the game with a tap.
Child’s play.
He glanced back over his shoulder. He could see Daphne standing by the old oak tree. She was at the crest of a hill, and thus could see down where he could not.
“Whose turn is it?” he called out.
She craned her neck as she watched the others playing down the hill. “Colin’s, I believe,” she said, twisting back around, “which means Kate is next.”
He smiled at that.
He’d set the course up a little differently this year, in something of a circular fashion. The players had to follow a twisting pattern, which meant that as the crow flew, he was actually closer to Kate than he was to the others. In fact, he need only move about ten yards to the south, and he’d be able to watch her as she pushed on toward the fourth wicket.