The look on the duke’s face had been worth coming back to London without any solid answers as to who wanted her dead. Bronwyn trusted Rawley, but she had wanted to be there when the assailant awoke. Things were missed in translation.

You have worse things to worry about.

That was true. Someone in England wanted to expose her. On top of that, she had yet to hear from Wentworth since Sesily had not written, which could mean one of two things—either her letter had not in fact reached London, or Sesily had been compromised in some fashion. Either way, Bronwyn had things to do, but she wasn’t above acting like a petty brat when it came to Thornbury.

She didn’t even know what she was irritated about.

He’d offered her the protection of his name, but she didn’t want it. Bronwyn didn’t want to be married to him. Not like that anyway. God, she was a fool a hundred times over. The duke might be an excellent lover and a brilliant strategist, and a man whose mind fascinated her as much as his body did, but he did not have a working heart.

At least one that was capable of love.

Was outstanding sex worth the cost of a loveless marriage? She swallowed around the knot in her throat. She’d watched her mother pine away for a man whose heart had been buried with his long-dead previous wife—Courtland’s beautiful West Indian mother—and Bronwyn had sworn from a young age that she would never fall in love with a man who could not love her back. Her breath fizzled in her lungs.

Dear God, was it possible that she was in love with Thornbury?

No, this wasn’t love. It wasn’t sweet and gentle and lovely, and all the things love should be. It was raw and wild and unprincipled. All teeth, nails, and gasping breaths. Naked bodies and fervent demands. Deliciously filthy promises delivered in the heat of the moment. No, this was lust bordering on pure, impassioned attraction.

That was why she had barricaded herself in her room on the clipper. Being in any close proximity to him resulted in a complete lack of willpower where he was concerned, and Bronwyn wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t yank him into the closest alcove and demand he repeat the carnal acts that had gotten them in trouble in the first place.

The Duke of Thornbury was best put out of her head.