Page 21 of Cherish and the Duke
“Pointing!” Lady Yvonne shouted out with glee.
“Outdoors.” Lady Eugenia began to hop up and down. “Swimming! Trees! Kittens!”
Huh?
He tried to convey a setting sun. Apparently, none of his teammates realized the sun set in the west. He gave up and moved on to the third syllable and pretended to hold a bowl, the contents of which he was stirring. Surely they had to getstirout of Westminster. But they hadn’t gotten theWestor themin, so he was not all that surprised when their guesses were still inane.
“Spinning!” Yvonne shouted.
“Whirling! Dancing! Twirling!” Eugenia squealed.
Pershing merely snored.
“Time’s up,” Fiona said. “I’m sorry, but your team has lost your point.”
Gawain truly, oh so truly, hated to lose, but he tried not to show it. After all, no one could possibly blame him when they came in dead last. But for pity’s sake, what was so hard about guessingstir?
As the next team got up to take their turn, he sank into the vacated chair beside Cherish and moaned. “This is utter agony.”
She smiled sympathetically as she leaned toward him and whispered, “They don’t cook. They’ve probably never set foot in their kitchen or seen a mixing bowl, so they do not understand the concept of stirring. Well, Pershing might have understood stirring one’s drink. But he was off snoring and not watching your brilliant enactment. Nor have any of them been taught anything remotely scientific. They do not realize the sun sinks in the west.”
“I shall address this oversight the next time Parliament is in session,” he grumbled. “Women must be given a rudimentary education on the sciences, mathematics, and politics.”
Cherish gave a doubtful snort. “They will shoot you down so fast, you won’t know what hit you. Few men care to give ladies the power of education.”
“You are educated, are you not?”
She nodded. “Mostly self-taught, but my parents encouraged it.”
He leaned closer to continue their conversation as the noise level in the room escalated. Talking proved impossible, but he did not mind drawing closer to Cherish because he liked the scent of her, something wild and fruity that mingled perfectly with the soft warmth of her skin.
If he wasn’t careful, the desire to taste her might very well overwhelm him. That would not do at all. He was not supposed to be having these feelings for her.
Fortunately, her team was up next, so his torture at their closeness was short-lived as she left his side to join the others.
Durham, Reggie, and Cherish were smart, and Durham was chosen to give the clues. He stared at the paper a moment and then began to gesture falling asleep. Lady Margaret, the weak link in their strong chain, was hopping about like a clueless pup, shouting out inane responses to the clues Durham was giving.
Gawain immediately realized it was a quote from a Shakespeare play, Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. Every schoolboy knew the start of the passage…To be, or not to be.
Cherish and Reggie guessed it at the same time, together reciting lines from that famous passage. “To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream,” Reggie said.
Durham nodded and motioned for them to continue.
Cherish finished the verse. “Aye, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come.”
“Yes!” Durham shouted. “That’s the answer. What dreams may come.”
Margaret looked on and clapped, probably having no idea what her teammates were talking about.
Cherish, Reggie, and Durham, with Lady Margaret as their little albatross, were handily in the lead as the night progressed. Gawain’s team was dead last.
He tried to tamp down his own apish instincts to win, knowing it was an impossibility. What choice did he have but to take his loss with good sportsmanship?
Lord, Lord… Oh, how he hated to lose.
Fiona and Reggie were taking too much pleasure from his suffering. Gad, were all relatives this irritating?
But he knew he was the one behaving like an uncivilized ape because he could not even let this simple game pass without turning it into a battle. Yes, he’d been raised in the military, and the training to win was ingrained in him. He wasn’t angry so much as frustrated.
