She glanced around the room, avoiding the bed area. “Everything is as I pictured it to be, Your Grace. Thick silk carpets and heavy mahogany furnishings. Very manly. The oil paintings which, upon closer inspection, will turn out to be mostly female nudes reclining on settees or cavorting in the woods with fawns.” She peered into the dark corners of the room. “Yes. All very much as expected.”

His lip quirked. “You sound as though you’ve seen dozens of such chambers.”

“Oh no,” she hastened to clarify. “Just the one. You’re only living up to your scandalous reputation. You can’t help yourself. You must hang voluptuous nudes on your walls and have a huge bed with purple velvet curtains. Now, if you had a sparsely furnished, tasteful, and light-filled chamber I would have been very much surprised.”

“Ha. That is exactly the kind of set-down I was hoping for. Do go on.”

“Your rooms are well stocked with strong spirits, snuff boxes, and cigars. You keep the curtains closed to block out the light after nights spent carousing . . . and you have a great marble slab of . . .” She stopped because her gaze had found something she couldn’t identify. A huge slab of marble with a carved angel on top. “What on earth is that? It looks rather like a . . . tombstone?”

“My tombstone.”

“How morbid.” She shuddered. “Why would you have something like that in your bedchamber?”

“I was drunk one night, several years ago, and I told my friend Rafe what I wanted inscribed on my tombstone and damned if he didn’t go out immediately and commission it for me. Rafe used to be quite wild. We did have some devilish good fun.”

She rose and traced the inscription with one finger. “‘Here lies Brandan Delamar, Wicked Duke of Westbury, who lived Fast and died Young.’ I’ll admit, the prank tombstone is a surprise.”

“It’s not a prank. It’s my actual tombstone. The one I’ll be interred beneath for all eternity. I’ve earned it. I’ve dug my own grave.”

“Don’t joke about such a thing. Your sisters would be heartbroken if you left this world early.”

“Sometimes I think they’d be better off without me. My uncle Marcus would inherit then. He’s childless but at least he’s not a gambler.”

“You say these reckless things but I don’t think you truly mean them. Not anymore. You’ve decided to do the right thing, to be a part of your sisters’ lives. You have something to live for now. Don’t you want to be an uncle to their children, Your Grace?”

“Call me West, please. I don’t go in for formalities between friends.”

“You’re my employer.”

“Is that all I am to you?”

No. You’re also my secret fantasy. And you’ve done the most deliciously sinful things to me in my imagination.

And I won’t think about that right now.