And then she took his point. Men were thesolutionto women’s problems as often as they were women’s problems.
He tapped his quill thoughtfully, pressed his lips together. She supposed he thought women were bound to learn filthy words if they hadn’t men in their lives to protect them.
“Astute of you to notice what those... men... were doing with that phrase.”
Her temper stirred. “Are you aware that when you see fit to appreciate a quality of mine, you inflect it with surprise? It’s not as flattering as you might think, Your Grace.”
His eyes widened in fleeting outrage.
A tense tick or two of silence ensued. And then his expression eased.
He gave a short nod. “Point taken, Miss Wylde.”
“Thank you,” she said graciously. Relieved.
After another moment of studying her, he gestured to the filthy little phrase he’d written. “Non parlarmi in quel modo,” he said slowly and flatly. Almost menacingly.
She thought about it. “Don’t speak to me that way,” she hazarded.
There was a little pause. “Yes.”
She was almost amused, and rather touched that he’d clearly taken pains not to sound surprised. Her confidence began to recover, along with a little of her cheer.
“It’s certainly convincing the way you say it, Your Grace. My hackles fair stood up.”
“I was a general. Everything I said was meant to be convincing. Hackle-raising was my forte.”
“I shouldn’t like to be a general,” she mused. She gestured to the sheet of foolscap with her chin. “Men being how they are.”
“The loss is the military’s, Miss Wylde,” he said dryly. “I think that will be a useful phrase for you to know should you encounter that expression in conversation again. Would you like to repeat it to me?”
She took a breath, and squared her shoulders, and lowered her voice an octave.“Non parlarmi in quel modo.”
It was a creditably menacing imitation of him, repeated with phonetic flawlessness.
Amazement and something like pure hilarity momentarily flared in his face.
“Well,” he said finally. “You certainly gave me second thoughts about speaking to you disrespectfully.”
“I think you’re humoring me, which seems unlike you.”
He snorted. “Why don’t you write that phrase now, Miss Wylde, so you won’t forget it.”
She dipped her quill and in her careful, neat hand began to copy what he’d written. And then she paused. “Should I be more polite about it when I use it? Perhaps add a ‘please’?”
“Doyouthink you ought to be polite about it, Miss Wylde?”
“If I thought I could get away with it, I would tell them in no uncertain terms where they could put their rude suggestion. And the day I’m able todo that freely will be the day they won’t dare to say it. So I suppose the issue is moot.”
He cast his eyes up to the ceiling in thought. “In that case,Ti chiedo di parlarmi con rispetto. I ask that you speak to me with respect.”
He retrieved the foolscap from her, wrote the phrase swiftly, then pushed it back to her.
“I believe ‘rispetto’—respect—will be a useful word for you to know and use. And a useful thing to demand in such circumstances... assuming, of course, ‘rispetto’iswhat you want when someone says those words to you.”
She went rigid.
A surge of temper sent heat rushing into her cheeks. She knew, and he knew, what had been written about her in the newspapers. He had a fixed notion of who she was, and the injustice of it scalded.
