“We’re decidedly not friends.” He didn’t have friends anymore. And he didn’t want them. The fewer people to care about, the better it was. The better he was, in not having to expose himself to the kind of pain that came in loving too deeply.

“As such,” she carried on as if he’d not even spoken, “you must call me Myrtle.”

“Myrtle,” he muttered. Except it really wasn’t so awful. It rather . . . suited her.

She frowned. “And I’ll call you . . . ?”

“No.”

She pursed her lips. “Hmph. You’ll be that kind of duke, then.”

Don’t ask. Don’t ask it . . .

“And what kind is that?”

“The one who insists on being referred to as Your Grace. Good day, Your Grace.”

And gathering up her basket and ignoring his protestations, the stubborn minx continued on with a spritely little step, leaving him as he always was after a meeting with her—completely and totally befuddled.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“What is wrong with the name Myrtle?”

The following morning that voice, both slightly annoyed and faintly curious, slashed across the morning quiet and Val’s musings, startling a curse from him and knocking the burden in his arms to the snow-covered cobblestones.

A basket swinging in her hand like she was a veritable Red to his Wolf, Lady Myrtle hastened over, stopping only when she reached him.

“I . . .” Befuddled as he always was around this one, Val managed only to shake his head.

“My name,” she said when she reached his side. “Yesterday when I suggested you call me by my name, you went, Myrrrtle.” She growled in such a near dead-on impersonation of his voice that Val found himself smiling. “I’ll have you know,” she carried on, as she so often did in that conversation for one, “I don’t blame you. In fact, I quite agree with you.”

“I . . . ?” Val found himself managing nothing more than a shake of his head.

“I’ve always quite despised my name.”

Hearing her say that bothered him for reasons he didn’t understand.

“Myrrrtle,” she said aloud in her best imitation of those low, gravelly tones of his.

The kind of tones that suggested he wasn’t one given to talking.

In fairness, he wasn’t. He didn’t interact with other humans anymore.

“You do know they say I’ve killed my household staff,” he said in a bid to end this discussion and send her running.

“I do,” she said without missing a beat. “You do know if you hadn’t, you would have people about to help you,” she piped in as she set her basket down. Stooping over, the lady stuck between childhood and womanhood fished through snow entirely too deep for London for the logs he’d dropped.

Despite his better judgment, and despite a commitment to not engage anyone, a question left him. “I beg your pardon?”