To Love A Duke

The Hounds

Song Recommendation: all time low by Jon bellion

Ladies detest stalkers and shadows, surely you must know this dearest gentlemen?

Orion wondered how long she planned to keep up the malice and anger. It seemed quite a while, for the past week since she ran up the stairs almost in tears. She had been giving him the cold shoulder, when she did speak to him it was some cutting remark to provoke him. Like at the pond the other day, when he had come so close to throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her off for some s******g. He had been hard as iron simply looking at her legs and bare feet. Oh what those feet did to him, he had been furious with her for wading when it wasn’t just him around. The library had been different it had just been them and even then he had been concerned about others coming in. She was treading a thin line, tempting him and defying him like that in public. Like he conjured her from his imagination she walked into his study door without so much as a knock. “I’ll be heading into the town today for the fair and I would like you to call off your hounds” she said looking positively pissed

“No” he said leaning back into his chair

“You find an afternoon at the fair, too dangerous?”

“For one such as yourself, yes.” He looked he right in the eyes when he spoke

“ for one such as myself?”

“A fair is wild and crowded, people from so many other towns and constituents will be there, you could be easily lost in a crowd, easily shoved or jostled. There could be thieves, pick pockets, or worse at the fair, and a gentle bred lady of means could be an easy target, a duchess no less, a high quite profitable target” he sounded like he had thought it through and was making the best decision, he was forgetting a tiny part. It wasn’t his decision to make. She laughed and it didn’t quite reach her eyes

“ I can handle myself you scrupulous Spiffy man!” she wasn’t calm any longer “you can’t do this to me, you can’t restrain me like this” she said making a show of scattering all his desk belongings to the door and running out of the room.

When he assumed the storm had died down from her outburst that morning, he came to her room and knocked at the door, receiving no reply he opened the door, he had had the lock taken out from the inside, and he regretted it now. She was a full grown woman and he had promised her her freedom when they had wed. The armed guards at her heels were for her own safety but perhaps he was overreacting perhaps he should trust that she would be just fine and let her make her decisions. When he came in she lay in bed fully clothed in her yellow day dress, her head rested on a pillow and she didn’t bother raising it up at his entrance. He cleared his throat.

“You didn’t come down to dinner” she didn’t raise her head or show any indication that she heard him. He tried again.

“I could take you to the fair if you want” No reply still.

“It would be just us, no guards” she answered him without turning to look at him

“Would that mean they would be gone for good?” She asked

“All I do, I do for your safety” she chose silence again.

“Damn it Artemis look at me” she did. She sat up and came around the bed to meet him