He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. He wasn’t angry, but he was certainly annoyed, and not just a little confused. A mistress had no conceivable reason to get upset at being called a mistress.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “And why the devil did you hit me?”

She paused long enough to glare at him. “I did not take you for a fool, Christopher Malory. Do not pretend to be one now.”

“I beg your pardon?” he replied stiffly.

“As well you should,” she snapped. “But you are not forgiven!”

“I wasn’t asking to be. If I said anything wrong, I’m bloody well damned if I know what it was. So why don’t you tell me what you objected to, then perhaps—perhaps, mind you—I will apologize.”

Her face flushed furiously. “I take it back, Gajo, you are a fool.” She marched toward him. “Get out of my way. I am going home.”

He didn’t move away from the door. He did grab her shoulders to keep her in front of him, though he refrained, just barely, from shaking her.

“You aren’t going anywhere until you at least explain yourself. You owe me that much.”

Her lovely cobalt eyes flared. “I owe you nothing after what you just did!”

“What did I do?”

“You not only let those men insult me, but you stood there and did exactly the same thing. How could you speak of me like that? How could you?!”

He sighed at that point. “Those are my closest friends, Anastasia. Do you think I wouldn’t be proud to show you off to them?”

“Show me off? I am not a toy. You didn’t purchase me. And I am not your mistress!”

“The devil you aren’t,” he snapped, but then he paused and frowned. “Don’t tell me I forgot to ask you last night. That’s why I went back to your camp. Why else would you be here, unless I asked you and you accepted?”

“Oh, you asked me,” she said in a soft, furious whisper. “And this was my answer.”

For the second time, she slapped him. His face turned quite red this time, and not just from the slap. Now he was angry.

“Do not hit me again, Anna. It was a natural assumption for me to make, that you had agreed to be my mistress, particularly since I woke up to find you lying naked in my bed. Blister it, you even said you agreed. I distinctly remember you saying so this morning. What the devil did you agree to, if not that?”

“You have only to recall what I told you was the only way you could have me, and you’d have your answer. I’m not your mistress, I’m your wife!”

“The devil you are!”

It was probably because he looked so horrified that she shoved her way past him and out the door. That he was utterly horrified was why he stood there in complete bemusement, rather than try to stop her. He just couldn’t believe that, drunk or not, he would so totally ignore the strictures of his class. A marquis did not marry a common Gypsy, well, not so common, but still a Gypsy, well, half Gypsy, but still . . . it just wasn’t done.