“
We’ll meet you at Ringrose’s Inn tomorrow for a late breakfast. Say, around ten A.M.?”
Tristan barked a laugh.
“What?” Jane asked. “Is that too late?”
Now Dom laughed, too, and Tristan laughed even harder.
“What’s so funny?” Jane snapped.
“It’s not about you,” Lisette said dryly. “They’re laughing at me. My brothers think me incapable of rising early. Or getting off in a timely fashion.”
“That’s because, dear girl, we have yet to see you rise before eleven or leave by noon for a trip,” Dom teased.
Tristan grinned at Jane. “Better schedule that meeting in York for a bit later, Freckles.”
Freckles. Tristan had dubbed her with the nickname during Dom’s courtship of her, and that reminder of her past with Dom and his family roused an ache in her chest.
She avoided Dom’s gaze. “How about midafternoon then?”
“Nonsense.” Lisette rolled her eyes. “I can rise early, no matter what my idiot brothers think. We’ll be there midmorning for breakfast if I have to dunk my head in ice water to accomplish it. Max wanted to get an early start, anyway.”
Dom chuckled. “Max always wants to get an early start. But he’d have to have a different wife in order to manage that.”
The two men nudged each other with smug looks.
“Yes, he would,” Lisette said in a voice of pure sweetness, “one he wasn’t quite so enamored of. But since sampling my particular charms always takes him so very long in the morning, I admit that we do end up lying abed late more times than not.”
Jane knew she ought to be shocked by such frankness, but she was having too much fun watching the men’s mouths fall open, and a red flush creep up their faces.
Lisette flashed them a coy look. “But I shall endeavor to prevent my husband from enjoying his usual pleasures tomorrow morning. That should resolve the matter.” She threaded her arm through Jane’s. “Now come, my dear, let’s join the others for dinner. I’d love a glass of wine, wouldn’t you?”
The two women had barely made it out into the hall before they burst into laughter. “That’ll teach…them,” Lisette gasped. “Did you see…Tristan’s face?”
“And Dom’s,” Jane choked out. “Oh, Lord, you are so wicked!”
“Why, of course.” Lisette’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “What’s the point of being a duchess if you can’t shock people from time to time?
”
”