“My marriage is not your concern, you will not speak of it again. My husband is not your concern either. He is also not a barbarian. If you refer to him that way again, Father, we will no longer enjoy these visits. If you truly wish to spend time with me before all is said and done and I return to my new home, endeavor to make that time agreeable. Do not endeavor to drive distance between my husband and myself. I can assure you, if you pit the home and hearth you gave me at Bower Manor against the grandeur and serenity my husband offered at Catrame Palace, you…will…lose.”

He stood, sharing, “You might be Queen of Firenze, but you are still Countess of the Arbor and my daughter.”

“There’s but one of those titles that has meaning.”

He recoiled in insult.

I glared up at him.

“It seems I have bad timing, no?”

I started when I heard my husband’s deep voice.

He was leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, deceptively casually.

He’d donned his shirt, thank the gods.

He’d also donned an expression of benign inquiry.

But his eyes flamed so he did not fool me.

And those eyes were aimed at my father.

“I believe I’ll take my leave,” Father muttered furiously.

“I would too,” Mars said.

Father cast him a scorching look, but no one could beat my husband with the scorch.

He then looked to me. “I will accept your apology at Bower Manor when you’re ready to offer it.”

“I will send word to the servants there to be sure to sweep away the cobwebs while you’re waiting for that,” I returned.

His face hardened, before, without a backward glance, he stormed from the room.

I heard the front door slam and then I whirled on my husband.

“You will be sacking Pegeen,” I demanded.

His brows went up.

“Sorry?” he asked.

“The maid. The fair one. You’ll be sacking her. Today. I want her out of this house by supper.”

“It is not my place to manage servants.”

“You have no problem flirting with them.”

I felt the room begin to heat and it was not the excellent irons under the fire that made it do so.

“If my wife is at issue with the company I keep, I would suggest she keep me company.”

“I have no interest in chopping wood.”

“Neither do I,” Mars returned smoothly. “However, it is a better use of my time than taking my mood out on my men, or, say, shaking some sense into my wife, no?”

Shaking some sense into me?

What sense did I need?

And…

His mood?

“And how are you in a mood?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Silence, perhaps it’s because I don’t have a spouse seeing to my needs,” he answered.

“By watching you chop wood?” I queried incredulously.