“Mars, perhaps? With that scowl, you could be the Roman god of war. Ah, I’ve got it! Pluto, god of the underworld, but that would be too much on the nose, don’t you think? I do credit you with a little more imagination than that.” Her gaze traced him from the tip of his crown to his raven-black evening clothes and polished boots, ignoring how well the tailored jacket fit his broad shoulders and the snug lines of his trousers over strong legs. “Never mind. I know who you are. You’re Janus, the two-faced god of duality, one face to the past and the other to the future.”

A grim laugh broke from him. “Clever. And who are you supposed to be?”

When he returned the favor, that hot golden stare swept down the shimmering swaths of fabric that wound over her body, and Bronwyn felt it everywhere. Visions exploded in her head from that one heated look, of bodies tangled together on satin sheets, sweaty, slippery, and hot, coming together in passionate, carnal ways. God, how was it possible to desire a man so keenly? A man so utterly wrong for her in every way.

Not wrong in bed.

They’d never even seen a bed. She yearned to see him thus. Sprawling and naked, every gloriously hewn muscle on display for her ogling pleasure. Heavens, her imagination was like a runaway horse.

Oh, stop!

By some miracle, Bronwyn kept her face even, no small feat considering the flames of lust threatening to immolate her from the inside out. “Isn’t it obvious?” she said, tapping at her golden crown and waved a handheld peacock mask. “Juno, Goddess of Marriage. One cannot say my mother is without a peculiar sense of humor or urgency.”

A low huff of laughter rumbled through him, making her desperate to hear it again.

“That dress is…” His voice emerged like gravel and cut off, as if the passionate spell that had come over her had taken him in its grasp, too. He shifted ever so slightly, and she felt the graze of his fingers on her upper part of her spine laid bare by the gown—those five points of pressure like burning embers against her skin—and froze in place. The duke was much closer than was proper, and she still wanted to press backward into him. Each nerve in her body yearned for more of his touch. “You’re stunning, Bronwyn.”

Pleasure spun through her. “Thank you.”

“I heard an announcement might be in the wind tonight,” he said softly.

Her fogged brain fought to catch up. “Announcement?”

“Engagement. Yours.”