Page 85 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

Roman smothered another laugh. “Only because Archibald is indefensible.”

“It is an excellent name.” Her chin came up, and she crossed her arms over her chest.

He could not resist arguing with her. “For a solicitor, perhaps.”

Charles straightened. “Hang on there, I object!”

Tamsin laughed again, and Roman watched her with a new lightness in his heart.

Do you really know anything about me?

Her words returned with uncomfortable clarity. He had resented them when spoken; not because he believed them entirely untrue. After all, he had immediately began assembling evidence against them.

He knew how she took her tea. He knew she disliked being cold. He knew well that crease appeared between her brows when worried and the way she pressed her lips together when she wanted to laugh but thought she ought not. He knew she preferred to read curled in the corner of a sofa rather than sitting properly upon it. She carried on conversations with the dogs, never seeming troubled by their failure to answer.

He knew the woman who had entered his life. Or he was beginning to. But there had been twenty-nine years before him, and in those years a multitude of experiences had occurred. She had been a little girl who rescued birds, and a sister who had apparently followed Charles into several small scrapes. She had become a young woman who learned to manage an entire household without anyone ever formally giving authority.

Charles could say half a sentence and make her laugh because there were years contained inside it Roman had never seen. He had never considered those years inaccessible to him until that moment.

Now he wanted them: not because knowing them would solve anything. Certainly not because a husband ought to know the history of his wife and he had discovered some deficiency that required correcting. Any number of men would have thought that ridiculous.

He simply wanted to know, for the sake of Tamsin’s happiness.

“What else?” Roman blurted the question without thought for the abruptness of it.

Confusion colored his wife’s tone. “What do you mean?”

“What else did you do, as a girl?” he asked, clarifying and hoping he did not sound as foolish as he felt when he repeated himself. He wanted to know everything.

Charles’s expression transformed with alarming speed into something Roman could only call a sudden rush of wicked amusement.

Tamsin saw it too, apparently, given her sudden gesture to halt her brother’s words. “No. Charles, absolutely not.”

“Oh, but Tamsin, dearest sister, I have several excellent stories to share⁠—”

“No, you do not.”

She was summarily ignored by her brother. “Tamsin once⁠—”

“Charles.” The woman stood and put both hands on her hips. “I will have you removed.”

He snorted, dismissing her with a shrug. “This is Hartwell’s house.”

At this, Roman stood, too. His smile was quite genuine as he said to his wife and brother-in-law. “It is our house.” The words came easily.

Tamsin went quiet, shoulders relaxed, but she only stayed that way a moment. Something passed across her expression before she turned back to Charles. “Our house,” she agreed. “Which means I am entirely empowered to have you removed from it forthwith if you continue telling tales that cast the reputation of the baroness in question.”

Roman nearly smiled. Though the situation was rather ridiculous, he immediately liked the authority in her tone and self-possession.

Looking from her to Roman and back again, Charles sighed with great disappointment. “Marriage appears to suit you both remarkably well.”

Neither Roman nor Tamsin answered, though the silence was not uncomfortable. It was, strangely, rather warm. Full of some feeling akin to contentment.

Henry, blessedly unaware of any of it, leaned toward Roman. “Would you like to know what she did with a frog?”

Tamsin spluttered, “Y-You do not even know that story!”

The boy grinned. “Daisy told me.”