“There are worse words to be referred as.” Like strumpet. Or harridan. Or fishwife. “They are just speculating. Speculation is good.”
“And how is that, my little heathen wife?”
Willow sighed, her eyes lifting to meet the hard onyx crystals of the duke’s.
“Speculation can be controlled. It can be spun in any way you choose, so you can stop glaring at me and attempt to salvage your mother’s antics. Had she not sobbed like a child and fainted, most of these rumors might have been avoided.”
“I’ve taken steps to resolve this mess.”
He had? “What steps?”
He shrugged. “Dashwood and I are collaborating stories that the name of my bride got mixed up with her sister’s.”
“But you courted Holly, not me.”
“I say, and Dashwood says, I courted you.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Are you going to punish me for slipping out?”
“I am not a beast. But I do have boundaries and you have crossed them all.” He paused, his eyes meeting hers. “However, since we do not know one another all that well, a certain leeway is to be allowed.”
Willow blinked up at him in shock. He did not wait for a reply but pivoted on his heel and strode from the room.
“Read the damn rules,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Because if you ever put yourself in danger again, I will lock you in your damn chamber for a year.”
She did not doubt that he would do it, too.
Willow fell back on the bed with a sigh. This was not how she expected her morning to begin. Neither had she expected such a relatively mild response from her husband. He must have been furious in discovering her gone. And then there was the headline of today’s paper. She’d fully expected some form of punishment from him. As a matter of fact, she had rather thought he’d transform into an ogre.
But he hadn’t.
This was not the character of a man everyone believed to be a tyrant.
If you ever put yourself in danger again…
In danger. Interesting choice of words. Not if Willow ever defied his rules, but if she ever put herself in danger again. Indeed, perhaps something else was at hand here. She’d have to give the matter some lengthy thought.
She was still not reading those damn rules.
