Page 37 of Kathryn

Avery darted a look at Gerrit.

So did Kathryn.

Gerrit gnashed his teeth. If he did not assert himself now, she would run roughshod over him. He had trained countless dogs and more than a few horses over the years. Surely, he could train one small woman.

“Leave the place setting where it is,” he said, and then turned to Thomas, who was watching the proceedings with wide-eyed awe. “Help Avery remove all the table leaves.”

The servants jolted into action, and Gerrit seethed at the food for gossip they were currently providing. He knew he should allow her to sit at his right or left hand, but he’d be damned before he’d endure an entire meal feeling nauseatingly off-center.

Kathryn’s eyes drilled into him, a twisted smile on her lovely face. Gerrit was no fool; she viewed his countermanding of her request as shots fired across her bow. Her openly antagonistic expression told him she was more than willing to engage in a pitched battle.

So was Gerrit.

The difference between them was that he would win.

***

After the leaves had been removed and the food served, Katie’s plan had been to completely ignore her husband and eat in silence. But a few surreptitious glances across the table—now shortened to a laughably small four-person size in the massive dining room—told her that heh-REET was delighted to dine in silence and was enjoying the peace and quiet.

Well, she could not have that, could she?

“What time are we leaving in the morning, Your Grace?” she asked, even though Becky had already told her they would be off at first light.

He looked up from his poached sole. “At first light.”

“Ah.”

He turned back to his plate.

“How long will it take to get to our destination?”

He looked up again, locking eyes with her as he set down his fork, finished chewing his mouthful of food, wiped his stern mouth with his napkin, and said, “The trip takes fourteen hours.”

Katie frowned. “That is longer than I thought. Where will we break our journey?”

“The moon is full so we will travel straight through.”

“Lord! That sounds like misery. What is the hurry, Dulverton?”

Knots rippled up and down his jaw as he glowered across at her. “Leave us,” he barked, never taking his gaze from her.

The footmen scuttled from the room.

Once the door had shut behind them, Dulverton said, “This will not serve, Kathryn.”

A flutter of excitement erupted in her belly at the sound of her name on his tongue. It had been years since anyone had called her by anything other than her nickname. Only her parents had ever used Kathryn and then, usually, it had been when she’d misbehaved and was going to be punished. Her father—when nagged by her mother—had employed the time-honored bend over the desk and endure a series of swats method of correction. Katie and her sisters had laughed uproariously at the earl’s ineffectual smacks with a switch.

Their mother, on the other hand, delivered a constant series of pinches and slaps that left bruises all over one’s arms. But worse than that, were her punitive silences that dragged on for days. It had been at least five years since Katie had endured chastisements from either of her parents, but the unpleasant feeling of not measuring up had not changed.

She wondered what sort of punishments Dulverton favored.

The realization that yet another person possessed the authority to control and discipline her was like the jab of a red-hot poker to her already tender sensibilities and her temper—already hanging by a thread--snapped. “What will not serve, Your Grace?” she retorted with a sneer. “Me having the audacity to ask questions?”

“Your combativeness will not serve.”

She opened her mouth, but he lifted a hand. To her shock, the words froze on her tongue.

“I can see that it is in your nature to challenge authority.” He sat back in his chair and regarded her coldly. “But that will not serve, either.”