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“No, I mean, I thought you found profanity shocking on a woman’s lips, not—well—stimulating.”

He laughed softly. “I know what you meant, Dora.”

“Well, I didn’t,” she admitted forthrightly. “Not at all!” She tipped her head to one side consideringly. “It must be vastly inconvenient for you,” she said with a frown.

“How so?”

“Well … some ladies do swear, just as a matter of routine I mean,” she admitted. “Mrs. Cherwell says ‘bleedin’ Nora’ quite often under her breath.”

Clem gave a short laugh. “I would not find that remotely—er—stimulating,”he assured her, though she was not sure that had been the word he had been going to use. “So, you need not worry about my getting hot under the collar if she drops the potatoes.”

“It seems an odd thing to get—um—disordered about,” Theo persisted, one hand straying absently to Clem’s hairy chest.

Clem glanced down at her fingers toying with his hair and slipped his other hand behind his head on the pillow. “Does it?” he asked lightly. “It’s quite common, I assure you.”

She drew back her head to regard him with astonishment. “It is?” He nodded, looking down at her with a slightly wary look in his eye. “Oh.” She digested this a moment then tucked a hand under her chin. “Why do you suppose that is?” she asked quickly before he could change the subject, for she could see that was what he was about to do.

It was a strange thing, for she did not believe her husband was remotely shy, but he did seem oddly reticent to discuss certain topics with her at times. Could this be part of the conventionality he had mentioned suffering from? He cleared his throat. “I don’t really know.” He shrugged. “I’ve never really given much thought to it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me, Clem Dabney. Why does my saying naughty words excite you so much?”

He laughed, but she saw him redden all the same. “I don’t know, Dora,” he admitted with a strangled groan, “but even you saying the word ‘naughty’ in bed with me gets me going and that’s the truth.”

“Even Shakespeare uses that particular word,” Theo pointed out. “Mercutio says ‘the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.’”

“That does sound rather rude,” Clem conceded.

“Shakespeare was rather rude on occasion,” Theo agreed. “Uncle said he had to appeal to the cheap seats as well as his noble patrons.”

Clem’s eyes had drifted shut despite slightly stirring against her thigh. He was likely tired. She had no idea where he had spent last night after leaving her. She ought to let the poor man sleep. “Clem?” she asked.

“Yes?” he replied without opening his eyes.

“Where did you sleep last night?”

“At my office,” he answered promptly.

“I thought you said the sofa there was uncomfortable.”

“It is.”

“Oh. Maybe you should get a new one.”

He opened his eyes to frown at her. “Is that your way of informing me we will be fighting a lot from now on?” he asked.

“Not unless you have any more dark secrets hidden from me,” she answered lightly, and to her dismay saw something flicker momentarily in his eyes. “Clem?”

“Yes?” He sounded wary.

“Do you have any more secrets you are hiding from me?”

“No,” he answered. Then before she could follow this up, he asked in an odd-sounding voice, “Do you really hate me calling you ‘my love’?”

“No,” she admitted with a whisper. “I don’t hate it at all.”

THIRTY-THREE

Theodora woke the next morning as Clem was dressing, but instead of asking if she could accompany him to the concert rooms like she might have done in the past, she remained silent and still. She wasn’t precisely sure why, only that she did not want to hear him tell her to come along later under her own steam.