“A gentleman never argues with a lady, and I like for you to be happy.” He would also like to burn the damned nightgown, but settled for bunching it up around her waist.

“I’m not a lady.” She curled down onto his chest and mashed her nose—no longer cold—against his throat.

“You are a lady. My lady, and my lover.” Won’t you be my wife? That was what made Eleanora so precious. She would be not only Rex’s duchess, appearing on his arm for the requisite social occasions, managing his households, and guarding his interests. She would also be his wife, his ally, his confidante, his lover. The safe haven for his soul, the intimate delight of his heart.

She kissed him on the mouth, then sat up, whisked off the damned nightgown, and aimed it over her shoulder. “You say the most outlandish things.”

For the next little while, Rex said nothing with words, but with his caresses and kisses, he tried to communicate to her that she was infinitely dear, that his yearning for her went well beyond mere erotic fixation.

Perhaps Eleanora understood, for her touch became lyrical and sweet, until they were joined and moving as one.

As a younger man, Rex had indulged in the usual excesses, or perhaps more than usual, given the privileges of his station. Making love with Eleanora was new, though. Intimacy built on aspirations of a shared lifetime imbued the experience with something approaching reverence. When Eleanora at last came undone in his arms, he followed her into a completion so limitless that for a moment, there was no Rex or Eleanora, there was only surrender and joy.

She sighed against his neck, the sigh of a well-pleasured lady. “We’ll make a mess,” she murmured.

The nature of the undertaking meant…Rex’s rosy mental peregrinations came up against a rock wall of chagrin. He hadn’t withdrawn. Great God Jehovah have mercy on a miserable duke, he hadn’t withdrawn.

“Eleanora, I am so—”

She pushed herself off his chest, yawned and stretched, and reached for the linen cloth on the night table. “I’m not much of a talker in these situations.”

The handkerchief disappeared beneath the covers, and Eleanora arranged herself along Rex’s side.

She did not seem upset—far from it, which boded well for Rex’s ambitions. Time enough in the morning to offer matrimony, and really, Rex ought to begin by asking to pay his addresses, just as he would with any woman whom he aspired to marry.

And he’d need a ring. Flowers, French chocolates, bended knee, the whole production, which he would happily plan down to the last detail tomorrow.

Now, Eleanora’s breath fanned across his chest and her knee rested against his thigh.

“Did I acquit myself adequately?” he asked, freeing her braid from between the pillows.