Page 89 of Romancing Daphne

She had no patience for jests.“You forced Lord Tilburn to have dinner with us last night.”

“The poor boy was starving to death.” Adam flipped over a page in the stack of papers he was reading.“Hartley hasn’t been feeding him.”

Why could he not simply give her a direct answer?“Lord Tilburn is not starving to death. The duchess would never allow such a thing.”

“That shows how little you know of the matter, Miss Daphne.” Adamonly ever called her“Miss Daphne” when he meant to tease her, something thetonlikely thought him incapable of.“The recently impoverished Lord Tilburn has accepted employment but is just stubborn enough not to accept a single morsel more than he feels he has earned. Some of those morsels go to feed a tiny mongrel who is overly fond of him, meaning there is a puppy living in the Hartley’s back gardens that is growing fat while its master goes hungry. I believe that qualifies the lad as a miserable wretch in need of a free meal.”

“What do you mean by ‘newly impoverished’?” Persephone had saidas much when she’d first revealed James’s residence at the Milworth House.

Adam set down the quill in his hand. The slightest of sighs tinged abit with impatience escaped as he looked at her once more.“Generally the phrase indicates that a person has very little money at his disposal and thatthe situation has come about only recently.”

“I know what the phrase means.” Why must he be so infuriatingly difficult?“What I do not understand is why you have applied it to him.”

“Because he has very little money, and the situation has come about only recently—”

“Adam, do be serious for one minute.”

The Duke of Kielder adopted a truly jesting mood only on the rarestof occasions—fewer than two or three times a year. Why must he do so atprecisely this moment?

“Please stop speaking in riddles and talk to me.” Daphne could feelherself growing more upended by the moment. She had fully expected to confront Adam, receive some ridiculous explanation of his motivations, offer him a stinging set down, and then leave with head held high, having bested the most feared man in the kingdom. He was being maddeningly uncooperative.

Adam leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms in front of his chest.When she realized his stance exactly mimicked her own, Daphne droppedher arms to her side. She couldn’t be entirely certain he wasn’t needling her.She would normally have called him on it, insisted he take her seriously.Her feelings had been pricked far too often of late, however, and she knewherself unequal to the task of enduring mockery.

“Nowyou wish for me to talk?Nowyou want conversation?” Adam allowed a single, dry, unamused chuckle.“Have you finally decided to break your seemingly impregnable silence without being marched about the gardens of Westminster by force?”

In the six years she had lived in Adam’s home, he had never once ridiculed her, but in the little more than two weeks since the disastrous picnic, he had done so on more than one occasion. She felt all the bravado and indignation she’d built up in order to sustain her through this confrontation slip away.

Daphne whispered,“Could you not simply say ‘You are an idiot,Daphne’ and leave it at that?” She knew she had mere minutes before the tearsshe’d fiercely held at bay would break past all her barriers.

Adam stood and reached her side so swiftly she hardly realized he’d moved.“Daphne,” he said, his tone softer than it had been but still firm and a touch exasperated.“Come sit with me.”

“No, thank you,” she answered.

“There was no question mark adorning the end of that sentence.” With one hand at her back, Adam guided her gently but forcibly to the sofa wherethey had spent many a pleasant interval the past half dozen years. Those enjoyable interludes seemed ages ago.

“Allow me to answer the various questions you have posed,” Adam said.

Daphne kept her gaze on her folded hands, attempting to regain controlover her emotions. Tears were useless, and she refused to indulge in them.She’d not cried during their walk in the garden. She’d not grown teary duringdinner the night before. Where had this emotional upheaval come from?

“The Techney estate is solvent and in no particular financial danger,” Adam said.“Lord Tilburn, however, is in quite the opposite state, having been cut off by his father in light of what is viewed by that man as his son’s recent failure.”

Daphne stiffened. Was that why James had returned to her life? To have another go at courting her in hopes of reconciling with his father’s pocketbook?“Then he truly came here last night because he’s impoverished?”

Adam rested his heels on the ottoman in front of him, legs crossed at the ankles.“He came because I told him to, and he remained because I insisted upon it.”

Her heart dropped. James hadn’t come in order to see her specifically. That came as more of a blow than she would have expected.

“Lord Tilburn may be a lot of things,” Adam said,“but he is not an imbecile. Had I not required his presence last night, he would not have been here.”

Daphne nodded, the misery of understanding rushing over her. She had hoped at least part of James’s motivation had come from missing her the way she missed him in spite of everything. Obviously her heart wasn’t as guarded as she thought.

“Wipe the tortured-puppy look off your face,” Adam instructed.“That was not intended to serve as an unflattering assessment ofyou.”

How could she possibly take it otherwise? Harry had more or less been forbidden to court Athena, but that hadn’t kept him away. When Persephone and Adam had been separated in the early days of their marriage, Adam had crossed several counties despite his intense dislike of leaving home in order to be with her again. James came to dinner only because he was forced to, just like he’d been forced to feign interest in her in the first place.

“Though I do not particularly like Lord Tilburn and certainly don’t entirely trust him,” Adam said,“I think he stayed away in order to avoid upsetting you further than he has.”

“Stayed away? He’s been living two doors down.”

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