She gave him a quelling glance. “I gave you an entire week to say something before I scolded you,” she reminded him.
“I noticed the changes in the dining room right away,” he countered.
“I should hope so. The walls were covered in a completely different colored fabric, and I had the colorman redo the paint for the mouldings. You would have had to be blind not to notice.”
“The Turkish rug in there is still my favorite,” he murmured.
She grinned and hummed contentedly. “You haven’t had it changed?”
He chuckled. “Nothing has changed since your last visit,” he replied. “Except for a few servants.”
“As I recall, it didn’t take long for you to pay off your father’s accounts.”
He shook his head in the pillow. “Cold winters helped. The coal mines... well, they were more profitable than I expected,” he admitted.
“Probably because you didn’t trust them to an unscrupulous man of business as your father did,” she reasoned. “Nor have you ever been much of a gambler. At least, if you were, you never mentioned it.”
“True. Besides, owning mines is enough of a gamble.” He ran a hand down the side of her arm until he could grip her hand in his. “But it did mean I had to spend an awful lot of time on the business. Away from you and the children.”
“You were never gone longer than a fortnight, and you always came back. The children still recognized you, so it wasn’t as if you were gone too long,” she teased.
He chuckled. “I suppose that was something, although there were times I didn’t recognize the children.”
“You did better than some of your fellow peers,” she whispered.
“How so?”
She tittered. “I heard Lord Pettigrew didn’t even meet his heir until the boy returned from Eton.”
Robert let out a guffaw. “I was a bit more involved with my children than most,” he agreed. “I didn’t want them growing up to be cold-hearted bastards like so many of my fellow peers. Like my father. Forgive the curse.”
She sighed. “You’re forgiven.”
“Truth be told, I didn’t want to be away from you at all,” he murmured. “I feared I would come home to discover you had some young buck... bucking you,” he stammered. “Don’t think I didn’t overhear my peers remarking on your generous bosom or your gorgeous hair and how much they wanted a chance to plow you.”
“Robert Michael John Lucius Strathford?—”
“Ah. I’m in trouble now,” he said, rolling his eyes before he scoffed softly. “You remembered all my names,” he added, as if he was impressed.
“Of course I remember all your names,” she replied. “How else am I to ensure you know when I’m annoyed with you?”
He displayed another grimace. “As I recall, you didn’t used to say anything. For sometimes an entire day,” he murmured.
She inhaled to respond but bit her lip. It was another moment before she said, “That’s because I feared I would say too much, and you would leave, go to your mistress, and never come back.”
Robert suddenly sat up in the bed, which once again had the bed linens coming off of her. He turned to stare at her in disbelief. “What mistress?”
Blinking, Ivy gripped the bed linens tighter to her chest. “Whichever one you happened to employ at the time, I suppose,” she said meekly.
He growled and rolled his eyes again. “Ivy Anne Charity Strathford, I most certainly did not employ a mistress,” heclaimed. “At least, not after we were married. How... how could you think such a thing?”
Ivy inhaled at his mention of all her names. “Well, a... a prostitute then,” she countered in a hoarse whisper, not about to give up her argument.
“Eww,” he responded, his face displaying disgust. “Never. Besides, why the... why thefuckwould I want to bed another woman when I had you as a wife?”
She recoiled at the vehemence in his query. “Well, why indeed?” she countered, sitting up to challenge him. Having used her hands to help in the process, the bed linens fell from her chest and once again left her front on display.
His gaze dropped to her breasts, the orbs still rather pert despite her age. “Why ever would I want any other woman?” he asked in a whisper.
