He should very likely have been alarmed by Phoebe’s presence. Wife or not, she’d snuck into his bed with him, entirely unaware.
But he hadn’t woken up feeling so relaxed in… possibly in the whole of his life. He didn’t want to waste the opportunity. It could be another three and thirty years before a waking this fine came along.
Also, she was watching him in a way that said very clearly that she was waiting for his reaction, and he was just enough of a bastard to enjoy watching her squirm as she waited and waited for something that would never come.
“Phoebe,” he asked very politely, getting a perverse surge of pleasure when she gave him an annoyed pout, “what are you doing here?”
Slowly, she looked down at his half-dressed state—most of his modesty was maintained by the pooling of the sheets, which was one of life’s greatest mercies insofar as his desire not to embarrass himself went—then back up to his face very pointedly.
Why do youthinkI’m here? that look asked.
He blinked innocently at her.
Her eyes got very narrow.
“I just want you to know,” she said, “that I will honor the agreement I made to you before we married.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” he replied. He was feeling uncharacteristically playful, too, as if this middle-of-the-night visit existed in a magical space outside the real world. “I probably could have heard it in the daylight hours, but now is good, too.”
Her exhalation wasjustthis side of a growl.
“But,” she went on sharply, “I would like it to be equally clear that I will not be threatened. I will not be bullied. I had quite enough of that from my father, thank you very much.”
Aaron felt suddenly far less playful.
He hadn’t particularly liked Lord Turner, but he had accepted that the man was a means to an end. If Turner spoke about his younger daughter like she was a cut of meat to be sold off, well, he wasn’t all that different from most men of his class, now was he?
And if he spoke about his elder daughter in a way that made his distaste for her clear—that simply hadn’t been Aaron’s problem. He couldn’t make gentlemen treat their children well. If he’d had that power, no doubt he would have applied it to his own father first.
But now Phoebe was real to him in a way she hadn’t been before. Real, with her own bruises beneath that witty exterior. Real and here andhis.
And he found that he very much disliked the idea of her living with a man who disdained her.
“I can say that I won’t bully you, wife,” he agreed. “But having a strong commander to give orders—that creates order. That’s how we make this thing—our lives together—that’s how we make it work.”
Without order, there was chaos. And with chaos, there was death.
It seemed, however, that this was the wrong thing to say.
Phoebe looked at him wryly—not quite disappointed, not quite angry, but certainly not pleased—and threw her leg over and off him with the same disregard that she might show dismounting a horse.
Good thing thatshewas so unbothered since Aaron was worried that his brain didn’t work due to all the blood attempting to rush to his groin.
“Where are you going?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound too petulant about it.
She shook her head at him. It felt like a scolding.
“You can have a soldier, or you can have a wife,” she told him. “I know which one I would rather be, but you seem determined to cast me as the one that doesnotsit on your lap.” She shrugged. “I probably would have chosen differently.”
And then, she sauntered through the door connecting their bedchambers, not even closing it behind her, which meant that he couldn’t even risk taking himself in hand, lest she overhear and get another weapon on this little battle of the wills between them.
He couldn’t resist, however, groaning quietly then palming his face when he heard the echo of a laugh come through the open door.
He did not think it likely that he would get back to sleep anytime soon.
CHAPTER 15
“Oh,” Phoebe said. “Wow.”
