“I can make that promise.” She’d notify him, though she would first quit London if she so much as suspected she’d conceived. The notion was sobering, but then, Ellie knew all the tisanes to bring on menses, and she—like most women of modest station—kept at least two of them on hand.

Elsmore shrugged out of his jacket and draped it across the back of Ellie’s chair. He dispensed with her stockings next and when she stood, he undid the hooks at the back of her dress.

“Shall I brush out your hair?” He kissed her nape and wrapped his arms about her middle. “I want to see it down, I want to know what the prim Eleanora Hatfield looks like all undone and eager.”

Ellie turned and looped her arms around his neck. “I look forward to seeing His Grace of Elsmore winded and satisfied, not a flowery compliment or pithy insight to his name. I want him panting and dazed, his only thought an incoherent sense of gratitude and joy.”

She was already panting and dazed.

“I want you to forget what an abacus is.”

“I want you to forget your own title.”

They shared a smile, for their discourse was becoming silly and, clearly, neither of them cared. Ellie would not forget Elsmore’s title or his station—not ever—and neither would she forget that once upon a time, he’d been her lover.

She allowed him to wield the brush on her unbound hair, then re-braided it while he undressed. He was un-self-conscious of his nudity, using the bed warmer while Ellie dodged behind the privacy screen to change into a nightgown and dressing robe.

“You are modest,” he said, propping an elbow along the top of the wooden screen. “I would not have anticipated that in such a practical woman. I like it.”

Ellie tossed her dress at him. “You are naked. I like that.”

“A duke is always appropriately attired for the occasion.”

“You are awful.” Awfully dear, drat him.

“Come to bed, Eleanora, and I’ll improve your opinion of me.”

And there was the problem no amount of tallying or rounding could solve. Ellie not only desired Elsmore, she respected him and liked him. She was truly enamored of him, which meant, when her audit was concluded in another few days, her path and his would diverge, permanently and absolutely.

As she settled onto the warmed mattress, and Elsmore drew the covers up over her, she admitted a quiet, devastating truth: This was how it should be between a woman and the man with whom she chose to share intimacies—comfortable, pleasurable, and so very special.

Nonetheless, she would enjoy her passing fancy, and then slip away to her safe, predictable life, there to remain in obscurity as long as she possibly could.

*  *  *