Instantly, he was concerned.
“That bounder!” She puffed out. “The gall of him!”
His brows shot up; this was the first time he had ever seen her incensed. She plucked at the buttons of her coat— which she had not taken off downstairs— and she almost strangled herself with the unopened top button when she tried to shuck the coat off.
“Ariadne—”
She finally got the button open and flung the coat on the nearest flat surface and began to pace while tugging off her gloves. “He said thefemale constitution is not suited for these matters!”
Cedric frowned as he could not follow her train of thought. “Ariadne, what are you talking about?”
She spun to him. “Mr. Baur.”
He shook his head and stood, “You are telling me the middle of the story, sweetheart. Start from the beginning.”
Her pretty lips parted, then shut. “Did you…. did you just call me sweetheart?”
“I did,” he said, while suppressing his own shock at the word that had left his mouth. “Now, tell me what is causing you to be in such a froth.”
He padded over to a set of seats around his coffee table, he sat, and when she followed, the deluge came. She told him about journeying to her father’s old steward and trying to get records of her uncle's spending, but the steward, now beholden to her uncle, refused.
“It’s clear that he is not only legally tied to my uncle, but I think my uncle has something on him that he is afraid of getting out, or he and Thaddeus are robbing the estate blind,” she said.
He said, “We will get to the bottom of this.”
Ariadne’s lips tightened. “I know this is only a taste of the derision women feel in society, but even for a duchess? I am incensed.”
A sardonic snort left his throat, “Your best bet, Ariadne, is to be as beastly as I am, so they know you are not one to be trifled with.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I can be like you, unless being beastly is a contagion, I will have to prove my worth another way.” She scowled, “I am so upset, I want to punch something.”
“You?” he asked as she got up and began to pace. “Hit someone? You?”
“What, pray tell, do you find so amusing?” His wife’s icy tones cut through his humor.
Her cheeks were stained with crimson, and her tightly pressed lips wobbled ever so slightly. She tilted her head up and glared at him. Grunting, he stood and crossed over to her in three long strides. As he reached out for her, she lightly pushed him away with a smack to his chest.
“This is not funny, Cedric.”
He seized both her wrists in his enormous hands and jerked her against his iron-hard chest. He kissed her so hard that her head jerked back.
With a growl, he deftly transferred both her wrists to one of his great paws and placed the other hand supportively behind her head. The ravaging kiss went on for long enough that he could feel when the blasts of anger petered out of her rigid body.
“What do you plan to do?”
He challenged her, easily brushing off the soft, glaring stare still aimed at him. “I—” she paused. “I do not know yet.”
She drifted back to the seats, leaned over to brace her elbows on her knees and stared vacantly at the whorls on the coffee table.
“Think it through,” he advised her. “What is the next logical step? Push your emotions away and follow the breadcrumbs the steward dropped for you.”
Her eyes shifted. “He said that he could not share any details without my uncle’s approval. That it is a legal matter… which in any sense tells me there is something foul afoot,” she sat up. “I should get the courts involved. And I need to speak with Mother. In hindsight, I should have done that first.”
“You can always do that,” he said. “As for now, you know what to do and where to go. I will help you to maneuver through the many traps in the legal system.”
“Meaning?” she blinked at him.
“Corrupt judges, incompetent clerks who coincidentally lose records, elitist magistrates, lawmen who say they are on your side but work for the other half of the coin,” he rubbed his face. “Not to mention the convoluted legalese of property law and the rights of ownership.”
