“I think you’re being a bit dramatic,” I whispered, sounding uncertain of my own words because his presence was overpowering, and it was that not only because he was a pretty big and definitely powerful guy.
“Do you?” he asked with an almost sneer. “Is that what you think?”
I wasn’t a fan of the sneer.
“Actually, right now I think you need to step back.”
“My mother was seeing to some villagers. She did that when people were ill and needed assistance, or were recovering and needed company. She was in a phaeton. The weather turned when she was on her way back. She got caught in the rain. She caught a chill. A week later, she was dead,” he shared.
I blinked up at him.
“My sister had a puppy who fell into the creek. The one right out there.” He jabbed a finger toward the window, but he didn’t look that way, he kept his eyes locked to me. “She went in after it. It was late fall. Warm in the morning, chilly by the afternoon. But the creek was freezing. The puppy lived. She went down with a cough that turned into a wracking fever that eventually burned her little body away. She was eight.”
“Oh my God.”
His head twitched.
Damn.
Dad-not-Dad told me they had more than one god here.
“My…my gods,” I covered.
“Am I being dramatic, Lady Maxine?” he asked.
“I didn’t know about your mother and sister.”
“Everybody knows about my mother and sister.”
Although I knew how to wear a hat and how to address a duke, this very important fact about my husband-to-be had not been covered in my tutelage, thank you so much (not), Dad-not-Dad.
“I’ve been away in Fleuridia at school, your grace, until very recently. Father wanted me to stay down there, especially during the troubles, and I became enamored of my studies. He isn’t much of a correspondent, and I didn’t get a great deal of news from home. I’m sorry, but I really did not know,” I told him.
“You’ve been away in Fleuridia,” he stated.
And he did this dubiously.
Oh boy.
Why would he be dubious?
I mean, of course he should. I not only wasn’t his fiancée, I wasn’t even of his world, and I intended to play him and then disappear.
But why would he be?
“Yes, I extended my studies there.” God, how to rattle this off without sounding like I was rattling it off? “Art history and—”
“It matters not whether you know art. What matters is if you have a fertile womb and know how to host a party.”
Record scratch and repeat.
Oh no he…did…not.
But he did.
And he kept going.
“And you have the sense not to run out into the rain. And you know your place in a household, or perhaps more importantly, a servant’s place. But you have enough of a hold on your place never to speak to me in the manner you address your sire.”
“I would certainly not speak to you that way,” I said softly.
“I should hope not,” he replied.
“Unless you were acting like an utter ass, as you are now. On those occasions, I make no promises.”
His eyes flared.
“Now, sir, step away from me.”
“Considering we’re set to spend the rest of our lives together, there are things we should discuss.”
“And we shall do that,” I retorted. “When I’m not sopping wet and…” I got up on my toes, “insanely angry at you.”
His brows flew up.
“Angry at me?”
“Allow me to make one thing clear, your grace.”
He didn’t move away even if he gave a sense of settling in.
“And that would be?” he prompted.
“I have been living on my own, in charge of myself, for some time. I am more than likely not what you’re accustomed to in this world.”
“This world?”
Shit.
“Country. Hawkvale. Whatever,” I snapped. “I am independent. I know my own mind. If I feel the need to speak it, I…um…shall. Now, allow me to assure you, I kill at hosting a party.”
“Kill?”
“I murder a party, as in, I’m bloody good at throwing one.”
“Excellent,” he muttered, his gaze beginning to drift over my face.
“And I have a variety of things to say about servants, and the bourgeoisie, but I suggest we save those for another time as there is not only a variety, but also a great deal to be said.”
“Mm,” he hummed. Then asked, “Bourgeoisie?”
“That would be you,” I stated.
“And you, dear heart,” he retorted. “And I’ll add, very Fleuridian of you.”
I had figured out, in some of Dad-not-Dad’s teaching, that in Fleuridia, the country south of Hawkvale where I was supposed to have spent the last twenty years of my life, they spoke French.
Though they didn’t call it French, of course.
Sadly, I did not speak French, which I worried would eventually be awkward to explain.
But that wasn’t for now.
“We’re getting off topic,” I warned.
“Are we?”
“I’m enumerating all the fabulous things you’ll get when you get me, regardless of my fear that you won’t think they’re fabulous.”