“I am perfectly well.”
“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
Anne reached calmly for an apple. “You seem unusually determined to invent problems this morning, Duke.”
“I am trying to understand why my wife suddenly looks at me as though I have disappointed her.”
That almost made her laugh, not because it was amusing but because it struck far too close to home. And yet he did not seem inclined to search too deeply.
“You assume a great deal,” she said.
“You are avoiding my eyes.”
“I am eating breakfast.”
“You have called meDuketwice.”
“It remains your title, does it not? If it has changed, then we ought to speak about it.”
“Of course it is my title,” he said patiently, “but you usually speak to me as though I am an overconfident stable boy who happened to inherit land. You have never seemed troubled by titles before.”
Her irritation flared. “Sometimes it might be best that we remember our places.”
“There.” He leaned forward slightly. “That sounds more familiar.”
Anne looked down again. She could not allow familiar. That had led to the library and the near-kiss and a foolish hope she had no right to entertain.
Dorian remained quiet for a moment before trying again, his voice gentler, as if that would help. “Anne, if I have done something, I would prefer to know.”
Something in his tone almost weakened her resolve. Almost.
But then she remembered Lady Vivian leaning too close to him, remembered the effortless smile he had given her, only to then follow her out of the ballroom. She remembered how quickly she had begun imagining that she mattered.
She would not embarrass herself further.
“You have done nothing,” she said calmly. “I am simply tired.”
He did not look convinced. Still, after a moment, he looked away with a soft sigh. “Well, if my company is intolerable this morning, perhaps your horse will prove more agreeable.”
“What do you mean?”
A faint flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. “He trained exceptionally well yesterday. I have been told that he cleared nearly the entire eastern course without terrifying the stablehands for once.”
She hesitated. “Truly?”
“Yes,” he said. “Though I suspect he only behaves properly because he fears disappointing you.”
“That sounds unlikely.”
“He is remarkably devoted to you.”
Anne’s composure slipped, only slightly. She would have liked Dorian to be the same, but that was no fault of his.
“I should like to see him.”
“Good,” he said quickly. “Come with me after breakfast.”
Anne hesitated. The stables had become dangerous territory in ways she had not anticipated. There had been too many easy conversations, too many moments that had begun to feel dangerously close to something real, but Tempest belonged to her in ways no one else did, and she refused to surrender that.
