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He turned back, glowering at her. “My name is Seth.”

“And mine is Alicia, but you have called me ‘Duchess’ since we wed.”

“I can call you what I like.”

“Then I shall do you the same courtesy.”

Seth continued up the slope, his anger growing as he pulled himself up root by root. He had forgotten how difficult it was to climb the steep sides of the valley, and he had not taken into account Alicia’s shoes.

As he reached the top, he turned around, watching her follow him. Suddenly, her foot snagged on a tree root, and his heart stuttered in his chest.

Her arms flailed wildly as she lost her balance and fell back, rolling gracelessly down to the bottom of the slope.

Leaping from root to root, Seth jumped down as quickly as he could, landing with a thump beside her.

A lock of her hair had come loose, and there was dirt on her cheek, but she was unharmed. She looked up at him with such contempt that he had to hold back a laugh at the sight.

Seth offered her his hand, which she ignored, pushing herself to her feet.

“I suppose you are too stubborn to accept my help?” he asked her as she turned to tackle the hill once more.

Alicia held back the curse hanging on the tip of her tongue.

She had never been so humiliated. It might have been her intention to have the Duke think her a simpleton, but not to fall on her face and slide several meters down a muddy hill.

Her dress was utterly ruined, covered in mud, as were her hands. The grainy, sharp points of little stones pricked her skin, and she rubbed her hands together to dislodge them.

“At least let me go first,” Seth insisted, coming up beside her, his huge body only annoying her further.

“Why did you bring me here in the first place? It is not safe,” she said sternly.

He twisted around to look back at her, his face impossibly handsome as he shrugged. “I thought you might like to see the estate. Forgive me for assuming you might hold some interest in your new home.”

“That is a fine statement from a man who told me that I was convenient only yesterday.”

“I would not call youconvenientnow,” he said wryly.

Alicia had to hold back the urge to kick him hard in the shins.

He made the climb look incredibly easy, hopping from one side to the other, instructing her where to put her feet so that she would not fall again.

By the time they were halfway up the slope, she had lost all patience with him, and by two-thirds of the way, she stopped, putting her hands on her hips in fury.

“You do not need to show me every handhold. I am not an idiot,” she bit out. “I am quite capable of climbing to the top without you. I simply lost my footing earlier.”

He turned back, one eyebrow raised in query. “Are you sure? You are half my size, and this slope is steep.”

“I am nothalf your size.I am small; there is a difference.”

She scowled at him as the same little smile flitted over his face.

He stepped to the side, leaning against a tree trunk, throwing one arm out wide to indicate that the path was clear. “Have at it, then,” he said smugly.

Alicia would have advanced on him if she had been more sure of her footing.

Now that he was not showing her the way, her stubborn anger faltered. The slopewassteep, and she could not see a clear way up, but she was not one to easily back down.

Pulling her ruined skirts up a little, she continued the climb, the silken soles of her shoes utterly useless against the moving earth beneath them.