3:15 p.m. Luncheon is always served. Usually, Luncheon consisted of two courses, with roast meat or fish, soups, and sweet platters served at the same time.
At 5:00 pm, following dinner, take tea, finish any documents left from earlier, and read.
The rest of the day is yours, no obsequious loud noise, and if you must speak to me, refer to Mr. Hunt first.
She folded the paper, “Very well.”
He looked taken aback. “Only very well?”
“Yes,” Ariadne stood. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” he said.
She dipped out a curtsy to him. “Good evening then.”
As she left the room, Ariadne could feel his eyes flitting over the back of her neck as she knew she had left him discombobulated.
“Good,” she said to herself. “Someone needs to shake him up, and if that role lands on me, I’ll take it.”
Chapter Fifteen
Is that the same witling wallflower girl from two days ago?
Blinking, Cedric shook his head and gravitated back to the shelf and poured out another glass of brandy.
She has a point. Why did I shout at her?
Scowling at himself, he applied himself to a new speech for Parliament. He was positively going to skewer the other side of the aisle because his irritation with himself—and Ariadne—was inspiring a great deal of it.
Something was niggling at the back of his head.
She was too calm.
His grip tightened around the pen, and with his free hand, he rubbed his temple where a headache started blooming.
A part of him wished they had been standing nearly toe to toe like that ill-fated night she wanted to share his bed. Her defiance, her clean, feminine scent, maddened him. His fingers flexed.
He didn’t know what he wanted, which was a first for him for a very long time.
He wanted her defiance.
He wanted her subservience.
He wanted to shake her for merely existing; for drawing out old emotions he’d once thought were dead.
“Pardon me, Your Grace.” Hunt’s calm voice pierced through his haze of confusion and unexpected lust. “There is a missive for you.”
He looked up to see his butler hold a silver platter with the letter, and in his other hand he held a cup of coffee.
Suddenly, he needed one.
“Thank you, Hunt,” he took the cup with relief. “I needed this. Who is the letter from?”
“Lord Stromwell, Your Grace,” Hunt replied.
Rolling his eyes, he opened the letter and read that he was shifting their usual day at the stables, inspecting the horses and negotiating with buyers, to instead have a day for the children at the orphanage to interact with the ponies, tomorrow. On a Friday.
The disturbance settled under his skin like an itch.
