Page 53 of A Scandal for the Beastly Earl

"Excellent. Exceptional. Extraordinary."

"Better."

They lay in comfortable silence for a while, listening to the house settle around them. Then Arabella remembered something.

"We should probably do something about the rose suite."

"Why?"

"Well, if I'm not going to use it..."

"You're not."

"That was decisive."

"I'm a decisive man. And I've decided I like you here."

"In your bed?"

"In my bed, in my life, in my world. Wherever you'll stay."

"Careful, Lord Blackthorn. That sounds dangerously close to a romantic declaration."

"Heaven forbid. My reputation would be ruined."

"Your reputation is already ruined. You married a woman who swims with dogs."

"Dived. You dived with dogs."

"I'm never going to win this argument, am I?"

"Never."

"Good thing I like you."

"Just like?"

"What would you prefer?"

He was quiet for a moment, and she could feel him choosing his words carefully. "I prefer honesty. And honestly, I don't know what this feeling is yet. It's too new, too unexpected. But it's... significant."

"Significant," she repeated. "I can work with significant."

"Can you?"

"Yes. Because I feel it too. This significant thing that doesn't have a name yet."

"Maybe it doesn't need one."

"Maybe not."

A scratching at the door interrupted them. Lucien groaned.

"If that's Morrison with another crisis..."

But it was Thistle, who had apparently decided that wherever his humans were, he should be too. He padded into the room, took one look at them in the bed, and promptly claimed the hearth rug as his own.

"Your dog has no sense of propriety," Lucien observed.