She tried the door handle. It was unlocked. She swung the door open, careful and quiet as any thief. She couldn’t tell if the duke was there. His bed curtains were closed so one would assume he was in his bed. He kept his rooms too dark for her to see anything. She bumped into a chair and nearly swore aloud.

First, open the curtains to wake him and let in some light. Then, find her shawl, give the duke a talking-to about reforming and escorting his sisters to the opera, and make a hasty exit before anyone saw her here.

The window curtains were heavy green velvet affairs so thick they let not one sliver of sunlight inside the room. She must have some light for her search.

She opened one of the curtains until she could see what she was doing. Her yellow shawl was nowhere to be seen.

The only other place to search was the bed.

She peeled aside one of his bed curtains . . . and then swiftly dropped it.

Good Lord. He slept in the nude. Sprawled on his stomach, one arm bent beneath his head. The covers had slipped down until they covered only his sculpted buttocks, leaving the powerful, bunched muscles of his back and shoulders bared to her gaze.

She opened the curtain again, just enough to search for a yellow shawl, not to stare at his bare flesh. At the well-defined hillocks and valleys of his back. At the taut mounds of his buttocks.

She lost sight of why she’d come to the room.

Think, Viola. You’re angry with this man. You have to wake him up and make him promise to reform. And you have to find that yellow shawl, the evidence that you were in this very room last night, kissing him like a wanton.

And yet . . . he was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen. She desperately wanted to pull that sheet a little lower in order to see all of him.

“Your Grace,” she said.

“Mmmm,” he murmured, and shifted onto his side, away from her.

And there it was. Yellow fringe peeking out from beneath his torso.

He was sleeping on top of her shawl.

She drew back his bed curtain fully. “Your Grace,” she said loudly.

He slumbered on.

She placed her hand on his shoulder, blushing at the feel of his warm skin and hard muscle. She shook his shoulder gently.

He opened one eye groggily. “Eh? Oh, there you are. Come back to bed, you saucy minx.” He caught her by the wrist and attempted to draw her into bed.

She pulled back indignantly. “I’m not a saucy minx,” she said in an outraged whisper. “I’m Viola, here to retrieve my shawl, which you are lying upon. I don’t want anyone to see it here and draw unsavory conclusions.”