“It’s important to be precise in all things,” she said, but she was grinning, too.

He chuckled at that, then held up his glass. “Drink?”

“What is it?”

“Whiskey.”

Iris blinked in surprise. She’d never heard of a man offering a woman a sip of whiskey.

Immediately, she wanted some.

“Just a little,” she said, setting her books down on a table. “I don’t know if I’ll like it.”

Richard chuckled as he poured a finger of the amber liquid into a glass. “If you don’t like this, you don’t like whiskey.”

She gave him a questioning glance as she took a seat in the straight-backed chair across from him.

“It’s the best there is,” he said without modesty. “It’s not hard to get the really good stuff here, as close to Scotland as we are.”

She peered down at her glass and took a little sniff. “I did not realize you were such a connoisseur.”

He shrugged. “I seem to be drinking a lot of it lately.”

Iris looked away.

“Didn’t say that to blame you, by the way.” He paused, presumably to take a drink. “Believe me when I say that I know this is a quagmire of my own making.”

“And Fleur’s,” Iris said quietly.

His eyes found hers, and the corner of his mouth tipped up. Just a bit. Just enough to thank her for recognizing that. “And Fleur’s,” he agreed.

They sat in silence for several minutes, Richard downing his glass of whiskey while Iris carefully sipped hers. She liked it, she decided. It was hot and cold at the same time. How else could one describe something that burned until it made you shiver?

She spent more time looking at her drink than at her husband, allowing herself to study his face only when his eyes closed and he leaned his head against the back of the chair. Was he asleep? She didn’t think so. No one could fall asleep that quickly, especially upright.

She raised her glass to her lips, experimenting with trying a larger sip. It went down even more smoothly, although that could be the result of all the whiskey that had gone down before it.

Richard still had his eyes closed. He was definitely not asleep, she decided. His lips pressed together and relaxed, and she realized she recognized the expression. He did that when he was thinking. Well, of course he was always thinking, that’s what humans did, but he did that when he was thinking about something particularly vexing.

“Am I such a bad person?” he asked, his eyes remaining shut.

Iris’s lips parted in surprise. “Of course not.”

He let out a little sigh and finally opened his eyes. “I didn’t used to think so.”

“You’re not,” she said again.

He regarded her for a long moment, then nodded. “Good to know.”