Jackson frowned. “What’s the difference?”
“One is interested in a quick, clean slide of the knife... the other is anticipating the strike.”
Jackson froze, the implication too awful to say aloud. He did anyway through gritted teeth. “You think someone hurt my wife?”
Roberts’s nod was grim. “Would explain why the wildcat refuses to retract her claws.”
“I’ll kill them,” Jackson vowed through a haze of red.Why wouldn’t she tell me?
“Might want to tone down the aggression and up the charm, if you have any.”
Jackson frowned. “You’re suggesting I what? Tease her? Seduce her?” He’d tried that and failed miserably.
Roberts’s pitying look didn’t help Jackson’s mood.
“How about a dose of candor?” was his enigmatic reply.
Jackson scowled. “You know better than anyone how dangerous our secrets are. I can’t divulge national secrets to win over my wife. It’s bad enough she knows I work with the Home Office. Keeping my real involvement from her will be a mess.”
“Would the truth be so bad?”
“What the hell doesthatmean?”
Roberts sighed. “Means I bruised my knuckles for nothing.” He turned and walked toward the exit, giving a wave over his shoulder with a last piece of advice. “Go home to your wife, Your Grace, and stop being a pig-headed meater.”
Jackson stood outsidethe duchess’s chambers, his palms sweaty as Anna must have mistaken his knock for that of her maid.
“Enter,” she called.
He paused with his hand on the door, going over every irritating piece of advice Roberts had given him.
Candor.Honesty.
This was bound to end in tears.
Hot and cold rushing over his skin, he opened the door and waited for Anna to look up from her chair by the fire before he blurted out, “I would like you topet my snake.”
Because that didn’t make him sound like a rutting idiot.
A wrinkle formed between her brows. His idiocy had one benefit, at least; she hadn’t chucked a book at his head yet. “You’ve a pet snake?”
“No,” he said, heat creeping up his neck. “That is, I am interested in petting—er, having you—” He should have started with an apology, an explanation,thenjumped into the deterioration of his pride. “I am requesting...”To murder Roberts for his shite advice.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Whatareyou requesting, Duke?”
He took a breath. He knew how to charm a woman. Hadn’t he had her shivering against him in his chambers before? “I am interested in consummating our marriage.”
A beat of silence.
Her hand flew to her mouth, and a noise emerged, what Jackson thought might have been a sound of shocked embarrassment, only to realize a second laterhewas the one to earn the name.
His ears flamed. “I’m glad I bring you such amusement,” he grumbled.
She wiped at her eyes, the harpy tearing up at his humiliation. “After the lies, thedeceit. You think you can stroll in here and seduce me? Truly, Duke.” Her gaze went hard. “You are hilarious.”
“No, what I am is an idiot.”
Her eyes widened. She leaned back in her chair and waved a hand. “Go on.”
