Page 68 of Wicked By Design

“Very well. I shall not smoke a pipe at the dining table,” she said solemnly, pressing her hand to her heart.

“Funny,” he said, shaking his head at her. “Most amusing. This is serious, Celia.”

She bit her lip and sat up a little straighter. “Sorry. Do carry on. Rules.”

“Yes, rules,” he said crossly. “We need them.”

She used his coat sleeve to make a ‘go on, then’ motion. “Please elaborate.”

Damian sighed. “We will not live in each other’s pockets, but I shall ensure that I take you out at least once every week. If we are in town—”

“We are to have a townhouse?” she asked, apparently thrilled at the prospect. “You mean, you don’t intend to bury me in the countryside?”

He stiffened, a little indignant at the idea. “Well, obviously not. I’m not such a brute as that. I mean, I assume you enjoy the theatre and gallery visits and balls and—”

“Oh, very much. Or at least, I never really enjoyed balls before now, but I shall with you.”

Damian opened his mouth to protest this was not at all what he was getting at, and closed it again, uncertain what argument he could make. “Anyway, if you would let me get back to the point—”

“The point, yes,” she said, gazing at him like she expected pearls of wisdom to fall from his mouth.

“The point,” he said tightly, “is that we shall keep a calendar of the days when we are to see each other and the days—”

“We don’t,” she suggested, though her eyes had dimmed now, the teasing light gone.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“How many days?”

“I….” Though he had worked this all out last night, he found he couldn’t tell her, could not bear to see her expression grow more despondent. “We can figure that out later,” he said rashly, and immediately cursed himself for being a coward.

“Very well. What other rules are there?”

Damian reached into his pocket for his notebook and scanned it.

“You wrote them down?”

He nodded, holding the book out of her reach when she tried to take it from him. “Nothing is set in stone; they are merely things I did not wish to forget.”

“Such as?”

He peered at his untidy scrawl, all the worse for having been produced at three in the morning by candlelight. “Ah, yes. You are not to go weeping and enacting a Cheltenham tragedy over sweet peas, for the love of God. If there is a problem, you will tell me the problem, not create another problem to cover it up. Is that clear?”

She blinked at him. “That’s a rule?”

“Certainly, it’s a rule,” he said crossly. “I cannot be chasing down every gardener in England looking for heaven alone knows what precious bloom you’ll come up with next whenever you are unhappy with me. If I have done something wrong, you will have the goodness to explain what the devil it is I’m guilty of.”

Her lips twitched, but she nodded. “I promise to abide by this rule,” she said, a trifle unsteadily.

Damian narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you laughing at me?”

“N-No.” She shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together.

“Fine,” he said tightly, stuffing the notebook back in his pocket. “Snigger all you like. But we’re doomed unless we put things in proper order.”

She took a deep breath and slid her arm through his. “Forgive me,” she said, all contrition. “What is the next rule?”

Reluctantly, Damian withdrew the notebook again, glancing at her to be sure she wasn’t still making a joke of the whole thing. “If we must entertain, which I suppose we must, I insist on having a say in the guest list. I’m not spending my evening with some halfwit droning on endlessly or having some pea goose debutant making sheep’s eyes at me.”