“Then perhaps you should have put up a sign,” Anastasia replied, tearing into the toast and leaving a trail of crumbs across the cloth. She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Oh, forgive me for the mess. Shall I arrange the crumbs in neat little rows for you?”
Benedict’s knuckles whitened around his knife. “You test me, Miss Dawson.”
“And you scowl at me, Mr. Straton. Surely that makes us even.”
Before he could respond, the dowager’s voice drifted across the room, rich with amusement. “Good heavens, the tension between you two could curdle the cream. Must every morningbegin as a duel?”
Anastasia turned, startled to see her aunt slowly sitting to sip her tea, clearly having observed the entire exchange.
“I am merely attempting to preserve civility,” he had said evenly.
“And I,” Anastasia had countered, buttering another piece of toast with deliberate care, “am merely attempting to provide some liveliness. It is far too early in the day for silence and brooding.”
“Liveliness?” Benedict’s tone dropped a degree colder. “If this is your version of liveliness, I dread to imagine chaos.”
The dowager set down her cup with a decisive clink. “Oh, I find it delightful. A household without spirited conversation is a dull one indeed. Quarrels before breakfast are vastly more entertaining than polite chatter about the weather.” She fixed Benedict with a glinting look. “Do stop glowering, Your Grace. You will frighten away your appetite, and mine.”
The worst part was not Anastasia’s insolence—it was the knowledge that the sight of her lips closing around the toast left him uncomfortably… agitated. He turned his attention firmly back to his plate, though his appetite had fled.
It had been like that every morning since the will—needling remarks over tea, her defiance served alongside toast. She invaded his quiet with the flick of her tongue and the tilt of her chin, and somehow always left him unsettled.
A flicker of movement beyond the window drew his eye. Benedict froze, scandalized.
“For the love of—” His jaw tightened. “She is doing it again.”
Anastasia was out on the lawn, her unbound hair blowing about her face in the morning breeze. As she turned, he caught the flash of her bare feet and ankles, and there was no sign of any sensible bonnet. She was laughing, and the dowager’s ridiculous Pomeranians were bouncing around her feet and playfully nipping at her skirts. Even without hearing her, he could feel her laugh—a bright, unrestrained laugh that carried straight through the glass.
Benedict gripped the windowsill until his knuckles whitened.
Improper. Unruly. Infuriating.
And yet, he could not look away.
He told himself it was irritation. That was safer. But irritation did not pool heat low in his body, nor did it make his mind conjure images of Anastasia bent over his desk, crying out his name as he taught her obedience.
Watching her was an indulgence. When he saw her lying on the grass, or dancing through the gardens of Frostmore, he could not help thinking of… other things.
Anastasia had such a fiery temperament. Still, he was certain he had seen desire underneath the defiance in her eyes. And there was a part of him that wished to see more, no matter how hard he tried to deny it.
She haunted his days as much as his nights. Later that afternoon, Benedict rounded a corner at speed, papers in hand, and nearly collided with her. She steadied herself against his chest, her palm pressed flat over his heart.
“Good heavens, must you stalk the corridors like a general inspecting troops?” she demanded.
His hand shot to her wrist, steadying her before she could pull away. “And must you wander them like a ghost in search of mischief?”
Her lips curved, infuriatingly unafraid. “Perhaps I haunt you, Mr. Straton. You do look rather haunted these days.”
The heat of her wrist beneath his palm seared through him. He should have let her go. Instead, his grip lingered a fraction too long, his gaze dropping—traitorously—to her mouth.
With an effort that cost him dearly, Benedict released her. “If haunting me is your aim, Miss Dawson, I suggest you take more care. Ghosts are easily banished.”
She tilted her head, that wicked smile deepening. “Banished, perhaps. Forgotten? Never.”
The echo of her words clung to him long after she vanished down the hall. Forgotten? God help him, she was right—he could not banish her from his mind if he tried.
That night, alone in his study, Benedict closed his eyes and allowed himself the rare luxury of contemplating the fantasy. What would taming a wild lady like Anastasia be like?
He could picture it: Anastasia, in his bed—perhaps bound to the bedposts for added control—her eyes dark with need while he tested the limits of her control.
