Roderick leaned forward, delighted at once by whatever he saw cross James’s face. “Have I met her yet?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly. Too clean.
Roderick’s brows rose. “No.”
James’s mind caught up a heartbeat later, he caught the sound of his own voice, the certainty of it.
He cleared his throat. “Not yet.”
Roderick’s smile widened like a blade being drawn. “Notyet,” he repeated. “That is new.”
James’s jaw tightened. “It is not.”
“It is,” Roderick insisted, leaning back with satisfaction. “Because if you meant ‘no,’ you would have stopped there.”
James’s fingers curled against the arm of the chair. “You are imagining meaning where there is none.”
Roderick’s eyes glittered. “And you are denying it too hard.”
James stood abruptly, crossing to the window. Cold light spilled across the floor. He stared out at a winter field, empty and indifferent.
Roderick’s tone softened, just slightly. “James.”
“I have no intention of parading my wife before you like a prize,” James said.
“A prize,” Roderick echoed, amused. “Is that what she is?”
James didn’t answer.
Roderick continued, gentler now. “I asked because she is part of this now. Whether you like it or not.”
James’s jaw clenched.
“She is a duchess,” Roderick said. “Which means she will stand in rooms with men who smile while they calculate. Men who will use her to get to you.”
James’s hand tightened against the window frame.
“And if you bring her into the Season,” Roderick pressed, “you’d better decide whether you want allies around her.”
James' memory raced again, not of the ball, not of Harrowby or the investigation, but of Eleanor.
Eleanor’s mouth against his skin as she tried not to make a sound.
His name, half-breath, half-prayer, breaking from her anyway when he had brought her to the edge and held her there until she shook.
James’s chest tightened violently.
He had spent the ride forcing his mind toward ledgers and suspects.
It had returned to her regardless.
“I will introduce you,” he said harshly, as though the words were punishment.
Roderick’s smile turned almost tender. “At the ball.”
James stared at the window as though it might offer absolution.
