“Are you entirely deranged? What are you talking about?” Her voice rose nearly to a shriek.

“I’m talking about the title,” Patrick said with a touch of hauteur. “I hadn’t realized that Lord Breksby managed to get it through Parliament.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to tell me?” Sophie was in a fine rage now. “Do you know how embarrassing it was to have the Duke of Cumberland inform me that I am now a duchess? Do you have any idea how dreadful it felt to have no idea why one has suddenly been made into a duchess, and to find a roomful of people tittering because my husband had obviously not bothered to tell me about it?”

Patrick’s face took on a wry, unreadable look. He moved over to his wife and took her arm, leading her to a chair. “I can see that it upset you very much,” he said soothingly. “To be frank, it slipped my mind.”

“It slipped your mind!” Sophie stared up at her husband as he stood before her. Then she erupted back out of her chair. “It slipped your mind that you were becoming a Duke of the Realm! It slipped your mind that you might want to tell your wife that she was becoming a duchess!”

“I don’t see why you are so irritated about it,” Patrick retorted, starting to lose his temper now. “You always wanted to marry a title, as I recall. Well, now I outrank your precious Braddon!”

There were a few fiery moments of silence. Sophie tried to think of ways to answer Patrick’s attack, but it was so outrageous that she couldn’t think of a response.

“What makes you think that I wanted to marry a title?” she asked, finally.

Patrick shrugged. “I always knew you did.” He certainly wasn’t going to sound like a pompous ass by declaring that Braddon was plump and foolish. Besides, he suspected more and more that Sophie actually had had a true affection—if not love—for that blunderhead. Truth be told, Braddon was rather lovable in his own way.

Sophie felt a huge, desolate emptiness pressing on her heart. Her husband’s reasoning processes were utterly incomprehensible to her. “Would you care to inform me,” she said, her tone dangerously gentle as she sat down again, “why the Parliament made you a duke? The Duke of Gisle, I believe?”

“I’m off to the Ottoman Empire as an ambassador in the fall,” Patrick said with a shrug. Now he really felt like a muckworm.

“You are going to the Ottoman Empire … something to do with Selim III?” Patrick registered his wife’s unusual knowledge without surprise. Sophie was a remarkably intelligent woman. At least he’d learned that about her during their marriage. “In the fall?”