“Only because trouble downstairs required my assistance. How do you think it looked to my gaming boss to see me naked and trussed up like a Christmas goose?”

“How did you get in here?” she asked, unwilling to address his question, the mortification he must have felt.

“I’m a man who can pick locks, sweetheart. Do you really think you can find any place where you’ll be safe from me?” He took a long stride toward her. “Why, Lena, why were you crying? Why did you run off?”

It was so much harder to face him when he used her name rather than an endearment. So much more difficult when his first concern was her sobs and not her abandonment. Shaking her head, she felt the tears threatening once more.

“Why?” he asked again, but this time his voice reflected no hint of anger, only true concern.

Taking a deep breath, she met and held his gaze. “Because you take such precautions not to have children. And I need desperately to get with child.”

Her words bludgeoned him. He’d been correct from the beginning. All she desired of him was his cock. No, that wasn’t quite true. She wanted his seed.

She was a widow, a very recent widow. He’d never asked if she had children; she’d never spoken of them. He didn’t ask now, but merely stated fact, as her reasons crystallized. “You didn’t give your husband an heir.”

Slowly, she shook her head, finally unplastered herself from the door, walked to the sitting area, and lowered herself into a chair near the fireplace. Against his better judgment, he dropped into the one opposite hers. He preferred standing when fury had ahold of him, but his anger was abating. Damn her for that, for making him care about her troubles. “Surely the next in line will ensure you are provided for.”

“Lushing was the last. He had no surviving brothers or male cousins, distant or otherwise, to take his place. His titles will be declared extinct. His entailed properties will go to Her Majesty’s Treasury. I inherited a dower house, and he set up a trust. The interest will see me in good stead but it’s not enough.” She shook her head. “It’s not the money. It’s the prestige, the influence. My sisters have not yet had their Seasons. I want them to make good matches but without the dukedom”—she spread her arms—“I am naught. I have no power.”

“I suspect you have more than you think.”

With sadness etched over her features, she stared at her clasped hands.

“What of your brother? The responsibility of seeing to their welfare falls to him, surely.”