And yet, it was embarrassing to have admitted that his favorite color wasthe color of her eyes. It was sentimental and foolish and not at all the sort of thing he would have expected to hear himself say. He felt ridiculous. She could never know what he had meant by that statement.
“What’s your favorite animal?” she asked.
“I haven’t got a favorite animal.” Was that a thing people had? He had never heard of something so silly.
“Well, if you had to choose an animal as your favorite, what would you choose?”
“A wolf, I suppose, or a bear.”
“Why?”
“They’re strong,” he said. “Able to protect their packs.” It occurred to him that she might be learning more about him than he had anticipated from this little exercise. After all, one of the most significant facts about Arthur was the way he felt about the loss of his parents—the way he had never recovered from it. He was showing his cards more than he had intended to by relating himself to pack animals.
But if she picked up on that, she didn’t say anything about it. “I like wolves,” she said mildly, “but I think I prefer dogs. They’re strong too, and they protect their packs—but they also know how to welcome new creatures into their packs. A dog can be friends with another type of animal—a horse or a sheep or even a man. That’s what I love best about them.”
“Are dogs your favorite, then?”
“Yes, I think so.”
He wondered what that said about her. He supposed it spoke to her loneliness—but that wasn’t something he had needed pointed out to him as she’d never been particularly secretiveabout it. She had been upfront about the fact that she was feeling lonely.
Perhaps I ought to get her a dog. Maybe that’s what the answer to all this is.
He opened his mouth to propose the idea, but she was on to her next question. “What was your title when you were born?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Well, I know that you weren’t the direct descendant of the last duke,” she said.
“How do you know that?”
“Oh.” She raised a hand to her mouth. “You mustn’t be angry. The staff mentioned it to me.”
“Which member of my staff mentioned that?”
She regarded him for a moment. “I’m not going to tell you.”
“What do you mean, you’re not going to tell me? You can’t refuse.”
“Yes, I can,” she said. “You don’t have any way of forcing me to give you the name, Arthur, and I’m not going to make trouble for someone. Be angry with me if you must be angry with someone.”
“If you force me to, I will,” he said. “I would rather direct my anger to the appropriate person. My staff know better than to mention this.”
“I suppose someone thought I had a right to know the history of the dukedom, given that I am the Duchess now,” she said calmly. “Certainly, you couldn’t be relied upon to tell me anything.”
Arthur was steaming. No one in his employ should have given her information like that, and he was angry that someone had. But what could he do? It was clear that she wasn’t willing to give up the name of the guilty party, and unless he conducted some sort of witch hunt, it wasn’t likely that he would discover who it had been of his own accord. He was going to have to let this go. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a sense of betrayal.
Isabella was watching him, and Arthur recalled that she had asked him a question. He had to think back for a moment to remember what it had been. Then he shook his head. “I’m not going to talk about my family,” he told her. “That’s not something I’m willing to share.”
She hesitated for a moment. He thought she was going to insist. If she did, she was going to find out what happened when Arthur was pushed too far. He wouldn’t stay at the breakfast table with her if she refused to turn away from this topic. She ought to recognize his refusal to discuss it as what it was—a non-negotiable thing.
The trauma of his parents’ deaths was something that would never leave him. He knew that. It was also something deeplypersonal and certainly not anything he cared to relive over tea and bread. It would ruin his day.
“My family is dead,” he said brusquely. “That’s all you need to know about that.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
He gave a curt nod.
