Page 66 of Tamed By her Duke

“Welcome home, little sister,” he said, taking his own turn to wrap her in her arms. “We’re glad to have you back here with us. Is that husband of yours with you?”

“Aye. He is.”

Caleb’s voice came from the doorway, cold and stern. As the group turned as one to face him, Grace had the oddest flicker of an experience where she could both see the Caleb has her friends could see him—as an aloof giant of a man whose glower bordered on terrifying—and the Caleb that Grace now knew him to be—the man who had traveled to London, a place he very vocally despised, in order to track down some vague, unknown danger to Grace’s safety.

Evan, only subject to the first version of the Duke of Montgomery, tightened his arms around his sister like he meant to protect her.

Grace rolled her eyes at both of them.

“Caleb,” she said, shrugging out of her brother’s hold and crossing to her husband. “You’ll remember my brother, Evan, the Marquess of Oackley, and his wife, Frances. Then there’s Diana, the Duchess of Hawkins, and Emily, the Countess of Moore.” She pointed to each of them in turn, then gave her husband a very pointed smile.

Caleb, who had a talent, Grace was learning, for being utterly dense when it suited him, ignored her.

“Aye,” he said shortly. He looked down at Grace. “I’ll leave you to it.”

And then he did, leaving Grace’s company gaping after him and Grace herself once again rolling her eyes.

“I’m afraid that I, too, must go,” Evan said, his crisp English formality a stark contrast to Caleb’s brevity. “I merely wanted to welcome you back to London, Grace, dear. I know the four of you shall have much to catch up on.” He shot Frances a meaningful look, albeit one that Grace couldn’t parse. Frances also communicated something with her eyes.

How nice for them, Grace thought with an errant wisp of irritation with her husband,to notentirely disregardone another’s glances.

Evan kissed Frances’ hand affectionately, making her blush, then dropped a kiss on Grace’s head far more perfunctorily. And then he was gone.

Now Grace’s friends were gaping ather.

“Tea?” she asked politely. “We’ve a short staff, but I have no doubt that we can rustle up something. Our housekeeper is something of a marvel, as it happens.”

This was a very simple concept, and yet Grace’s friends only responded by looking more confused.

“Grace,” Emily said carefully, in that cautious voice she used when dealing with the most challenging of her hellion sister’s antics. “Are you sure that everything is…quite all right?”

“Of course,” said Grace.

The three exchanged speaking glances. Diana heaved a determined breath.

“Your husband is terrifying,” she said directly.

“Oh,” said Grace, understanding. “Yes, that’s just Caleb’s way. I’d say he doesn’t mean to be rude, but it’s probably more accurate to say that he simply doesn’t care if he’s rude or not. He’s also not fond of London,” she added as an afterthought.

This was, Grace felt, an insightful assessment of her husband’s character. And yet her friends did not seem reassured.

“And you are fine with that?” Frances ventured.

In truth, Grace was starting to get the slightest bit annoyed. She knew her friends had all fallen grotesquely in love with their husbands, but that didn’t need to act like she was the oddest object in the curio cabinet merely because she and Caleb had an arrangement.

She crossed her arms.

“Yourhusband,” she said to Diana, “is also terrifying. He makes being terrifying a sport. And your husband—” She turned to Emily. “—would frown at a puppy. And foryou—” This was for Frances. “—rumor claims that you and my brother fought like cats in a bag until you decided to instead do things together that I’d rather not think about. So I daresay that not a one of you has any room to discuss whethermyhusband is terse or rude or terrifying.”

“Oh,” murmured Diana. “So it’s like that, then.”

But Grace had not yet spent her head of steam. “And what’s more,” she went on hotly, “Caleb has come here, to a city he despises, at great personal inconvenience, not for his own interests or needs, but because he is looking out forme. Because when I told him that there was likely another villain in the plot against me, heimmediatelyinsisted that we come to London and find the person out once and for all.”

Now her friends looked horrified—though for a different reason.

“What, what do you. mean there’s another villain?” Emily demanded.

“No,” Frances said, shaking her head like she simply couldn’t comprehend this. “It was Dowling, Dowling and the dowager countess…wasn’t it?”

---