Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
M ila
“You will stay out of trouble,” Lydia says to me the moment Arthur is gone. “I’m not going to be blamed for your inability to keep yourself remotely safe. Fancy sniffing something because a complete stranger told you to.”
“Excuse me?” I look at her down my nose and hope she feels my disdain.
She clearly doesn’t. Or if she does, she doesn’t care about it.
“I don’t need to be told how to behave,” I tell her.
“Apparently you do. What you did last night was reckless and foolish. New Boston isn’t the Angelish countryside. People here can’t necessarily be trusted just because they are smiling at you.”
“I’m not stupid. I made a little mistake.”
“You made a mistake that could have serious consequences. It had consequences for Emmaline Carpenter. I don’t know why Arthur hasn’t lectured you for it. You need lecturing.”
“I don’t think it is for you to say what I do or do not need. I answer to my husband, not you.”
“You’re quite literally in my guardianship.”
I don’t know why she is talking to me this way. She can’t do anything to me. She can’t touch me. I’m not scared of her.
I am scared of her; I just don’t want to be. I am married now, and I am tired of living in the shadow of one woman or another. My mother and Maraline were always telling me what to do. I don’t want Lydia replacing them. That comment about me being silly to have snorted the Soma could have come directly from Maraline’s mouth.
“I am his wife! And you are my guard! You do as I say!”
Next thing I know, my butt is hitting the floor. I don’t know how, but she just dropped me on my ass while barely touching me. She doesn’t seem to have moved at all. I don’t know how the hell she did that. Magic, maybe?
I look up at her from my position on the floor, and I think of the scariest, worst thing I could say.
“I’m going to tell on you!”
I hate that the first words out of my mouth are a completely childish threat.
The smirk that appears on her lips tells me I sound just as pathetic to her, maybe even more so.
Arthur
I can hear Mila and Lydia disagreeing in the dining room. My bride might have discovered one of this apartment’s secrets, but there are many more. I chuckle to myself at her impudence, knowing that Lydia will not tolerate it.
I could go out there and tell my bride to respect Lydia, and tell Lydia to be nicer to my bride, but I know they will do better to sort these matters out on their own.
“You’re a bully,” Mila complains.
“I’m a bodyguard,” Lydia replies.
“Well, you’re not doing a very good job of guarding me by pushing me around, are you? You know what? I am going to tell on you.”
I compose myself behind my desk and wait for the inevitable arrival of my young bride. I can hear her coming down the hall, stomping loudly all the way.
“I want a new bodyguard!” she says, bursting through the door. “She pushed me over because I told her…”
Mila pauses when she realizes that what she actually said was Lydia had to do as she said, and quite obviously that’s not the case, because Lydia does as I say.
“She pushed me over,” she repeats herself, finishing the sentence there.
“Do you want me to fight all your battles for you, my sweet bride? Should I perhaps invest in a nursemaid, rather than a bodyguard?”
Her cheeks flare red with embarrassment and annoyance, as she realizes that not only am I not going to side with her, I am in complete agreement with Lydia.
“Someone needs to ensure you stay safe. You’ve shown very little capacity for keeping yourself in one piece so far.”
She has no idea how gentle my words are relative to her sins. I am known for my ability to deliver a tongue lashing like no other. This is barely a little verbal nudge.
“You told me to go with the damn woman,” Mila says. “I don’t know why you set me up to fail that way. Is this what you people do? Put others in danger and then blame them when things go wrong? I trusted that you had told me to go with a nice woman.”
She has a point, a good point.
“You’re right,” I admit. “I did not believe Ms. Carpenter would put you in harm’s way in that fashion. I have never been in the ladies’ lounge, for reasons that are most likely abundantly clear.”
It feels good calling the erstwhile Duchess Emmaline Carpenter, Ms. Carpenter. It feels less good listening to my bride’s response.
“So you left me in the company of strange women and blamed me when they tricked me and drugged me.”
“You have not been blamed. I did not punish you. All anybody has said is that you need to be more careful with people who are… people who are not myself or Lydia.”
“I don’t want her as a bodyguard.”
“I am not giving you a choice in that matter. I have led soldiers for decades, and I know she will do anything to keep you safe. You don’t have to like her; you just have to listen to her.”
“Well, good, because I don’t like her.”
There is something very petulant and entirely spankable about my bride right now, the way she tosses her hair and looks at me with what she might consider strength but comes across as insolence.
“Am I to be dismissed, sir?” Lydia asks the question as she comes into the room behind Mila. She is significantly taller than my bride, which means I can see her expression very clearly over Mila’s. The juxtaposition between them is quite amusing.
“No. I think it would be a good idea if my bride took some exercise today,” I say. “Why don’t you take her to the botanical gardens?”
“I don’t want to walk in the botanical gardens with her!”
Now she sounds like a spoiled little brat. “You could also stay home, in our bedroom, if you wish. You do not need to be guarded there. You can stay in that room until I am done with work, in ten or so hours.”
It takes her a moment to realize what I am actually saying.
“Are you sending me to my room?”
“I am on the precipice of grounding you.”
She gasps, horrified. There is some part of me that finds her endearing. I have had one man killed, and a woman stripped of her land and title and sent to the colonies in the last two days on her account, and yet she seems surprised that I would confine her to quarters.
I don’t think she understands who her husband is quite yet.
I also don’t think she was deliberately spoiled. I think she is the product of a very quiet, very safe, very charmed life. I have every intention of sheltering her too, but she will need some exposure to the world in order to live a full life. I cannot have the mother of my children being completely innocent to the ways of the world.
“Very well,” she says. “I will go out with Lydia.”
“Good decision.”