“What? It seems rather perilous to me to give your husband such benefit of faith. His actions have argued otherwise.” She licked her lamb chop ice. “Then again, rumor has it the Duke of St. Ives is doting on his wife.”
“You shouldn’t be listening to rumors, Poppy. And Ambrose is not a beast. Not much of one, certainly.” Willow paused, feeling a small smile spreading across her face involuntarily. “Except if you count kissing, we have been doing that a lot.”
“Youaredoting on your husband.”
“Am not! But I shall admit I enjoy kissing. It’s all about exploring limits.”
“There are limits to kissing?” Poppy gave her an arched look. “Well, you know what they say about men and limits.”
“I assure you,” Willow answered bemused. “I do not.”
“Insanity lay at the end of a man’s limits.”
“That’s absurd.”
“What do you imagine lay at the end then?”
“Progress?”
Although, in Ambrose’s tightly wound world, just perhaps, his barking at her to wear a coatdidcount as progress. He’d yielded, hadn’t he?
Poppy made a snorting sound. “And here I planned on persuading you to return home if you weren’t happy, but alas, we’d then be harboring a criminal, wouldn’t we?”
“It was accidental,” Willow said with a roll of the eye. “And I am not leaving my husband.”
“For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t leave my husband if he looked like that.”
“Honestly, Poppy!”
Poppy smirked. “Come now, the duke is astoundingly handsome. What woman wouldn’t want to stare at his face all day long?”
“You are impossible.”
“I’m envious.”
“You’ve never clamored for a husband before,” Willow said, tilting her head curiously. That had always been Holly’s dream.
“True, but I do fantasize about muscled men with impossibly arrogant swaggers.”
“Then go find yourself a muscled husband with an impossibly arrogant swagger.”
Poppy waived Willow’s retort away. “I have other pursuits I first wish to see fulfilled before I marry.”
“Such as?”
“For one, I wish to partake in a play,” Poppy said thoughtfully. “Perhaps write or direct one, as well.”
“Acting?” Willow suppressed a laugh. “I shall wish to seethat.”
“Wouldn’t that be grand? Oh, and I plan to commission a portrait of myself. To capture me while I’m still young and spirited.”
“You make it sound as if you are approaching death.”
“We are all approaching our death.”
“That sounds rather macabre.”
“I was going for dramatic, but macabre will do.” She dabbed her tongue over the tip of her ice. “Can you imagine the backstage of a theatre? Surrounded by actors and dancers, the loveliness of that?”
