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Laughter had weaved its way into Christopher’s tightly coiled lust, and he gasped to regain his breath. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed so hard. His sides hurt from the strain of it. “That may be a record-breaking number of times the word ‘orgasm’ has been used or implied in a conversation with me. Come along, my radical hellcat, before you start printing seditionist pamphlets.”

She grinned up at him, sweet and slightly sloppy.

Leaning down, he kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re welcome to wear my breeches any time it pleases you. The duchess has a pair as well. You can ride astride through the fields distributing your pamphlets to the local fishmongers and stonemasons. I would recommend skipping the milliner though as she’s a stuffy old prune.”

He pulled her tightly to his side as they made their way to her room.

“If you are to take up life as a rakehell, we’ll have to work on your moniker,” Sofia said. “Boot-Blackening Blackguard is a terrible name for the scandal sheets. How about Cravat-Coordinating Casanova? Oh! Or Wrinkle-Removing Rapscallion!”

He threw his head back, laughter bursting up from his chest.

“The Shaving Scallywag!” she added with an uncoordinated leap.

Amidst her excitement, she stumbled over her own feet, leaving Christopher to haul her up again. “Careful there, sweetheart. Alternate the left foot with the right.”

She glared, then giggled. “The Stickpin Scoundrel … Or Miscreant Manservant!”

Christopher could only shake his head as he settled her into her room and bid her goodnight.

Fourteen

At an ungodly hour the next morning, two blackbirds were competing to see which would be the first victim of Christopher’s catapulted boot. If he thought he could find his boots, open the window, commit avian homicide, and still remain groggy enough to sleep again, feathers would fly. Unfortunately, he’d spent most of the night trying—and failing—to sleep, and the birds had put the final nail in that coffin.

The sensible parts of him had been meticulously dissecting his interactions with Oliver. His mind reached towards the peculiar details he had observed, anomalies that didn’t quite fit, but every time he felt he might grasp something solid, it melted away again like a snowflake in his hand. Sofia’s fear that her brother would cause trouble for the Ansons felt oddly specific, as did the seething hatred in Oliver’s eyes when they’d fixed on Gabriel. But memories of Sofia further addled his mind, wafting over him like dense fog, obscuring everything around him until all he could see and smell and taste was her.

“All right, you win. I’m up,” he groused in the direction of his window, where the three-act musical was still underway. It was just as well. Gabriel would be awake soon, and while the duke seldom required assistance in the evenings since he’d married, Christopher’s mornings remained busy.

An earlier riser than both Christopher and Gabriel, Violet was rarely still abed when Christopher arrived. As such, he seldom offered more than a cursory knock before cracking the door to the ducal suite.

“Shhh!” Just as Christopher stepped through the door, Gabriel’s tense warning emerged from his dressing room where he stood in his shirt sleeves, three-quarters of his face lathered and a razor blade in his hands.

“Give me that before you hurt yourself.” Christopher plucked the blade from between Gabriel’s fingers and nudged him into a chair.

“I was hoping to be dressed and out the door before you stomped through and woke Vi,” Gabriel hissed, his brow furrowing as he glanced at the door. “She fell asleep reading yesterday afternoon, actually napped. And now …” Gabriel’s expression contorted into one of abject pain.

“Perhaps she is coming down with a summer cold,” Christopher offered. Gabriel looked up, the terror of a man who had already lost a wife and baby to childbirth starkly visible on his face. His lips pressed together.

“Gabriel, you’ve scarcely been married six weeks … well, married in the way that leads to duchesses sleeping unusually late. And if she is⁠—”

“Stop. Do not say it.”

“Me saying it isn’t going to affect the state of her womb, Gabriel.”

“Speak the word and I will pack you off to work for the dowager.”

“That’s cruel.”

“Yes, well, I am feeling just that unhinged at the moment,” Gabriel mumbled.

“All right.” Christopher squeezed Gabriel’s shoulder, then began methodically swiping away what remained of his friend’s morning stubble. “Are you going to talk to her about … your suspicions?”

“No. Then I’d be certain to never sleep, think, or bloody breathe again for the next seven months. If I don’t know for certain, I am just a traumatised husband who spends an excessive amount of time worrying. And if I bury myself in work, I might manage to not think about the possibility of my wife dying for … oh, four or so consecutive seconds. So no, Christopher, I have no plans to speak to Violet.”

Christopher gave a stiff nod. “How can I help? Shall I distract you with the salacious details of my evening?”

Gabriel tripped over his breeches as he stepped into them, catching his arm on the back of the chair and pinning Christopher with a look of wide-eyed bemusement. “Sofia’s wounded, intoxicated, and likely sinister sibling was snoring in the opposite wing, and you managed to create ‘salacious details’ during the course of your evening? My God, I’m not sure if I’m meant to congratulate you or kick you in the bollocks.”

Christopher shrugged, knowing his face was doing a poor job of hiding his memories of the previous evening.