“You seem rather close to the desk.”
He looked at her flatly. “Did you require something beyond locating the dog?”
“I did.” She approached the desk slowly, and with each step, the room seemed to lose air. “I wished to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For the note.”
His grip tightened on Biscuit to prevent him from launching himself toward her voice. “It was necessary.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Urgent business,” she said softly, stopping near the corner of the desk. “How very fortunate that it called before I woke.”
His jaw tightened. “Emmeline.”
Her eyes moved deliberately across the desk, then to his shoulders, then to the stiff way he sat with his chair nearly tucked beneath the writing surface. The heat in his blood sharpened.
Her smile deepened and she moved around the desk.
Rowan’s hand tightened. “Duchess.”
She paused with one brow lifted. “Yes?”
“There is nothing on this side of the desk that concerns you.”
“How disappointing,” she murmured. “I had begun to hope otherwise.”
The words ignited his blood.
Biscuit, sensing that all secrecy had become tiresome, lifted his head and sneezed.
Emmeline looked down.
For one moment, silence held.
Then her lips parted in triumph. “Rowan.”
The puppy exploded from his lap, little paws skidding over his waistcoat, then leapt to the floor and ran in wild circles around Emmeline’s skirts as if she had returned from war.
“There you are,” she said, laughing as she bent to gather him. “Have you been corrupting His Grace?”
“I was working,” Rowan said.
“With Biscuit in your lap?” Emmeline asked, one brow lifting as the corner of her mouth curved.
“He climbed there.” Rowan gave a slight, grudging lift of one shoulder, though the puppy’s betrayal had made it dangerously difficult to keep his own mouth stern.
“And you were powerless?”
“He is persistent.”
“He is a puppy.”
“An unusually strategic one.”
