“Then you should have walked,” he said, already taking the slope.
“Everyone islooking,” she said into his shoulder.
“Good,” he said. “Perhaps they will take the lesson, and not let you freeze out like this for so long without an intervention.”
She was blushing now, profusely. “What lesson…excuse me….what lesson is that?”
He declined to answer, and she could almost hear a rumble of a laugh in her throat. It was infuriating to her how easy it was for him to pick her up, as though she weighed nothing at all.
“Door.”
CHAPTER 12
Stephen pushed the door with a knuckle, and it opened on the first try. He had carried in the Duchess with ease, despite her futile resistance on the way inside.
“Sit,” he said, and pointed at the leather couch angled toward the grate.
“I can sit without orders,” she said, and sat exactly where he’d indicated. “In fact, I would very much prefer it if you could stop ordering me around now.”
Stephen shrugged out of his coat. He looked for a second like he might think better of it; then he crossed the room and swung the coat around her shoulders.
“I have a cloak,” she said.
“You also have sense,” he said. “Use both.”
His voice didn’t match his face. His voice was firm and practical; his face betrayed annoyance at himself for caring.
He moved back to the table and braced his hands on the edge.
“Say it,” she said.
“What?”
“Whatever lecture you carried me here to deliver. If I sit through it, do I earn the right to speak?” she frowned.
“There was no lecture,” he replied in a simple voice.
“You could have left me to learn,” she said. “You have been leaving me to learn all week.”
“That’s different,” he said. “You were not freezing to death on my lawn all week.”
“I was not freezing to death now.”
“You were practicing,” he said dryly.
“You make rudeness sound like concern,” she said.
“It is concern,” he said.
He wasn’t angry because she defied him. He was angry because her fingers were the wrong color, and the cold had gotten past her coat.
She folded the coat tighter around herself and looked into the fire for a beat to decide whether to be moved by that.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be careful with my hands and my lungs and my head. Now answer me.”
“About what?”
“About this marriage,” she said. “Why you married me when you were so opposed to the idea of marrying anyone.”