Page 72 of Caught By the Ruthless Duke
A knock at the door preceded Mrs. Agnes by approximately no time whatsoever. She entered the room, followed by a footman bearing a tray laden with dishes—a silver coffee pot, a folded linen, a small vase containing a careful spray of flowers that hadnot been in the garden yesterday—and the whole apparatus was set on the small table by the window with swift efficiency.
Cressida, watching the spectacle from the bed, noted that Mrs. Agnes was doing considerable work keeping a neutral expression.
“Breakfast, Your Grace. Your Grace.” The second address was accompanied by a deep curtsy in Cressida’s direction. “Cook has prepared a soft egg and toast for Her Grace. The kitchen was informed that Her Grace expressed a preference last Tuesday.”
“I am sure it was,” Theodore said in a lazy drawl.
The housekeeper and footman withdrew, the door closing behind them.
“She has been waiting to do that,” Cressida said.
“Oh, that I wholeheartedly agree,” Theodore replied.
He sat up and reached for the coffee pot, pouring two cups without asking how she took her coffee because he had been paying attention.
They ate in his chambers, which had never been done before, and the domesticity of it settled between them. Slightly awkward, but not uncomfortable, a garment put on for the first time that would fit better with wear.
For the first time ever, he was visibly unmoored in her company, with his hair disheveled and his jaw unshaven. The Duke of Ashmere, without any of his considerable armor. It was, she thought, a remarkable thing to witness.
She was attending to the egg when he reached across and took the small spoon from her hand. She looked up at him just as he lifted a bite to her lips.
She held his gaze and opened her mouth, and the corners of his eyes creased very slightly.
“I am perfectly capable,” she informed him, once she had swallowed.
“I am perfectly aware,” he said, and offered her another bite.
She considered refusing on principle and found she could not be bothered. She accepted it.
Then she took a piece of toast, buttered it with some deliberateness, and held it out to him. He looked at it, then looked at her. A beat passed, and then he leaned forward and bit from her hand, his eyes holding hers the entire time.
“You could simply take it,” she pointed out.
“I could,” he agreed, but did not.
They finished breakfast in this manner. Then he refilled her coffee cup. She watched his hand wrap around the silver pot, unashamedly basking in the sight of his strong arms and bare chest. She did not even look away when he caught her at it.
“Come here,” he said.
Her breath hitched, her heart pounding at the base of her throat.
She moved the tray to the side table, then paused, because her hand had found the small pot of honey. She picked it up and held it between them with the expression she wore when she had decided to do something and was curious what he would make of it.
He looked at the pot, then looked at her.
“No,” he said.
“You haven’t even heard the proposal.”
“I have inferred it. The answer is no.”
“You are very swift to refuse proposals before they have been made.” She turned the little pot in her fingers. “It is quite a character flaw.”
“I have several.” He folded his arms. “Put it down.”
“Or?”
His eyes moved from the pot to her face with the measured patience of a man who had extensive experience managing estates, difficult tenants, and hostile Parliamentary committees, and found all of them less troublesome than the woman currently sitting on his side of the bed holding a pot of honey.
