Page 82 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

“How was your meeting?” she asked.

“Long.” He took a step closer. A few times, he had ventured to kiss her cheek upon his return home, but not since their disagreement, and certainly never before company. “But promising. The petition is certainly better prepared than it was this morning.” He wanted to say more. He could have told her what Salmond had proposed, or which signatures they already counted as secured, or why the wording of one paragraph had consumed nearly half an hour.

Instead he found himself aware of Charles watching them. Not critically. Simply watching. Roman felt the urge to take Tamsin’s hand and ask her to step out of the room with him, or send her family away. He wanted, most irrationally, to have her attention all to himself, especially after receiving less of it in the preceding days.

He ignored the impulse and mentally prepared himself for the duration of his brothers-in-law’s visit. “What have I interrupted?”

“My sister was telling us about the time she climbed onto the roof,” Charles said.

Tamsin’s head snapped toward him. “I was doing no such thing.” She sounded amused rather than defensive. “You were telling tales to Henry.”

That brought Roman’s brows up as he studied his wife. “I could believe you capable of roof-climbing. Under the right circumstances.”

Shaking her head, Tamsin pointed at Charles. “He was telling a grossly inaccurate account of an incident that occurred when I was fourteen.”

“Twelve.”

Tamsin gave a look of mock shock. “I was not twelve.”

“You were twelve,” her older brother insisted.

“I was at least thirteen.”

“You were twelve because I had just gone to⁠—”

“Charles.” She sat down in her chair again, crossing her arms with apparent indignation, though her eyes sparkled.

Roman took the empty chair nearest Tamsin. “Why exactly were you on a roof?”

“I was not on the roof.” She huffed.

“She was.”

That made her narrow her eyes. “You are telling tales to my husband, Charles.”

The youngest Mayweather looked delighted. “Then you tell the story, Tamsin.”

Roman settled back and dropped his chin in his palm, watching her. “Yes, my lady wife. Tell the story yourself, and I promise to believe your version of events, as is my duty as your husband.” This was already more interesting than anything he’d done all day. “You cannot object to that, surely.”

That brought her attention squarely to him, and when her eyes widened with surprise, he allowed himself a smile. Tamsin looked from one brother to the other, plainly realizing she had been outnumbered. “Oh. Very well. I climbed out of a window.”

That had not been what he expected, and Roman had to pull back the desire to laugh. “That…is not the improvement to the tale you appear to think it is.”

“I did not climb onto the roof.” His wife looked perturbed. “There was a ledge, not the roof proper.”

That brought a wry gesture from Charles, the wave of his hand accompanying a crooked grin. “Ah, yes. The appropriate definitions have forever been part of Tamsin’s arguments. A ledge, then. Not a roof.”

Steepling his fingers together and sitting straight, Roman focused entirely on his wife. “You climbed out of a window.”

Her hands folded in her lap. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Charles answered before she could. “There was a bird.”

That made her nose wrinkle.

“A bird,” Roman repeated. Once again he had the absurd desire to laugh, but he kept his tone steady. “Indeed, I think birds are commonly found outside of windows. Famously, they enjoy rooftops and ledges both.”