Page 77 of Dukes Are Forever
Adele arched a brow. He seemed a different man around his Company of Rogues, and though the banter clearly drove him crazy, it also seemed to anchor him somehow. "If he does ask, I'll lie."
"You'd do that? For me?" The barest of smiles touched his mouth.
"You did just apologize."
"Truce?" Malloryn murmured.
Adele gave a careless shrug, but he stopped it with the faintest brush of his fingers against your cheek. "There is one last thing I wanted to talk to you about. I saw your expression when I introduced Mrs. Herbert."
"Well, yes. I wasn't expecting my maid to be spying on me."
"If it's any consolation, I put her into place to protect you," he pointed out.
"And you haven't used her services to keep an eye on me in the last week, when you thought me working for the enemy?"
He didn't bother to reply.
She knew the answer, and his face said it all.
Adele breathed out a laugh. "Look at the pair of us. How are we going to make this marriage work?"
"I don't know, Adele. I don't know. I cannot even promise you complete honesty," he admitted. "I know too many dangerous things—things that could get you killed if someone thought you knew them too."
"I don't expect you to blather in my ear about council secrets and the state of the realm," she said crossly. "I understand you cannot. But… I would appreciate it if you would not outright lie to me. If you cannot tell me something, then simply say that. And warn me the next time you intend to produce some spy in my household. Please."
"My apologies. I'm not used to this."
"This?"
"Being married," he admitted, "in anything other than name. Or sharing my thoughts with others."
Adele looked him directly in the eye. "Your Rogues all jump to attention when you bark at them, but I am not a Rogue, Malloryn. I expect—"
"Technically…." He trailed off.
"Technically, what?"
"They voted you in yesterday."
Oh.The idea took her aback, and she felt a flush of what could possibly be described as joy. "But you…. I thought you didn't want me involved?"
"Did you thinkIhad any sort of say on things around here?"
"I think you're trying to distract me," she pointed out.
"Adele." Malloryn straightened, looking decidedly deadly tonight in black leather. There was no sign of the icily controlled duke she'd thought she'd married. "I'm sorry for the way this played out. I'm sorry I deceived you. If I hadn't thought you were working for my enemy I would never have—"
"Touched me," she whispered.
Something flickered through the depths of his gray eyes, though she'd always had trouble deciphering which precise emotion he felt.
If he felt anything at all.
"That's not entirely certain," he finally said. "I wasn't lying the other night when I said you were beautiful. Or when I said sometimes I think about kissing you. And you vex me constantly. Especially of late. One of us would have broken sooner or later, and exploded. And then I think we'd have ended up in bed either way."
An apology—and a compliment—was the last thing she'd expected. Adele wet her lips. "I'm sorry I began our marriage the way I did. I lied to you and the Echelon, and I forced you to marry me. It wasn't.... I didn't do it deliberately. Or it was, but not... premeditated."
"I know." His eyes hooded. "You've hinted in the past that someone hurt you and you saw me as your way out."
