“Your mother wishes to visit Egypt and has said that if you annoy me enough, I can join her.”
He came to stand close, looming over her with masculine intent. Placing his hands on her shoulders and bending down, he gave her the most searing, deep kiss that surely anyone had ever experienced before nine in the morning.
“Do I annoy you?” he whispered against her lips.
“Yes, but I rather like it.”
He smiled and backed away to return to his bacon. “I am grateful to you for the vast improvement in cuisine. It’s superb. Did you dismiss the last fellow?”
Wandering over to thatsuperbselection, Aideen debated telling him the whole story, but she could imagine her haughty duke not being best pleased with charlatan staff. “We have an Irish chef now. Very talented.”
“Well, my duchess, I am indebted.”
She loaded her plate with a piece of everything and took Meghan’s vacated seat. It felt odd taking breakfast with her husband when they were in accord. A mite…unnerving.
“What were you and Meghan discussing and why are you a numbskull?” Perhaps a light bicker would settle those nerves.
“Ah. Hmm. Yes.”
Having never heard Alex hum and haw, Aideen glanced up from a perfect fluffy egg, solid in all the right places. “Is it so bad?”
“No. Well, I didn’t think so, but Mother…” He perused the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling before straightening his serviette. “As you know, I worry greatly about your safety.”
Slathering butter onto the thick yeasty bread, Aideen nodded. Nothing wrong with that. She equally worried about his, despite knowing he was fully able to protect himself with sword, fist or boot.
“So, I have compiled a list I would like you to…observe. In order to keep safe.”
That didn’t sound too bad, but…
“Can I see it?”
A sheet of paper with an inordinate amount of script was nudged across the polished table. It was numbered from one to…twenty-three.
Oh, Saint Tuda’s relics, what was it about men and their lists of rules?
She scanned the paper. Some were eminently sensible:
Number twelve – Take two footmen on all outings.Practical, as they could carry hat boxes.
Number twenty-one – Always take the enclosed ducal carriage.Useful for inclement weather.
Number sixteen – Wear that garter knife AT ALL TIMES.Tolerable, but was that solely for her benefit?
Other rules were not:
Number five – Do not go out after dark unless accompanied by myself or Lord Winterbourne.Dusk arrived at the hour of three on a winter’s afternoon. She’d never leave the house.
Number eleven – Take one footman INTO the modiste.Madame Chevrolet would be rightly outraged.
Number eight – Learn how to swim.What?
“I…” she began and then stopped. Her temper wanted to assert its irritation. Tell her husband he was being absurd, but her reason cautioned because at the base of it all sat Alex’s anxious fears.
He worried for her. He didn’t want to lose her. He…cared for her.
But equally what he didn’t do was trust her.
Gwen had been eighteen and, by his own admission, a headstrong girl. Aideen was no schoolroom fledgling and although bold, she understood caution.
