“Kaaaaaaaaaaate!”

She tried to gauge his distance. After fifteen years of hearing her name bellowed in much the same fashion, she’d become quite proficient at calculating the time between the first roar and her husband’s appearance.

It was not as straightforward a calculation as it might seem. There was her location to consider-was she upstairs or down, visible from the doorway, et cetera, et cetera.

Then one had to add in the children. Were they at home? Possibly in his way? They would slow him down, certainly, perhaps even by a full minute, and-

“You!”

Kate blinked with surprise. Anthony was in the doorway, panting with exertion and glaring at her with a surprising degree of venom.

“Where is it?” he demanded.

Well, perhaps not so surprising.

She blinked impassively. “Would you like to sit down?” she inquired. “You look somewhat overexerted.”

“Kate…”

“You’re not as young as you used to be,” she said with a sigh.

“Kate…” The volume was rising.

“I can ring for tea,” she said sweetly.

“It was locked,” he growled. “My office was locked.”

“Was it?” she murmured.

“I have the only key.”

“Do you?”

His eyes widened. “What have you done?”

She flipped a page, even though she wasn’t looking at the print. “When?”

“What do you mean, when?”

“I mean-” She paused, because this was not a moment to let pass without proper internal celebration. “When. This morning? Or last month?”

It took him a moment. No more than a second or two, but it was just long enough for Kate to watch his expression slide from confusion to suspicion to outrage.

It was glorious. Enchanting. Delicious. She’d have cackled with it, but that would only encourage another month of “Double, double toil and trouble” jokes, and she’d only just got him to cease.

“You made a key to my office?”

“I am your wife,” she said, glancing at her fingernails. “There should be no secrets between us, don’t you think?”