Bronwyn didn’t have to turn to know who had found her, even as that lush baritone shivered over her senses like raw silk gliding over bare skin. The greeting wasn’t untoward, considering they’d been properly introduced in town, but her heart kicked against her ribs all the same. She’d been wrong to come out here alone. At least in the dining room, there were other people.

Other barriers.

Scolding herself silently, Bronwyn lifted her chin. She could do this. She wasn’t some ingenue fresh out of the schoolroom. She was a woman grown and more than capable of handling a simple gentleman. There was only one problem with that logic—the Duke of Thornbury was hardly simple. No, he was highly intelligent, distressingly alert, and nobody’s fool. Least of all hers.

Act natural, Bee.

Pasting a demure smile on her lips, she turned and took him in up close. Fitted bespoke clothing, tremendous height—he practically towered over her smaller form—those angular cheekbones, hooded golden eyes, and lush mouth all conspired to make her lungs squeeze. His pale skin took on the silvery gleam of the moonlight, making him appear more chimerical than he should be…some fantastical sultry specter from her imagination come to taunt her. She’d take that option if it meant she didn’t have to speak to him, but alas, he was indeed real.

“Your Grace, what a surprise.”

A thoroughly unwelcome one.

He leaned against the railing and perused her. “It is, isn’t it? Fancy seeing you here. I thought I had been mistaken in the dining salon, but here you are…in the flesh. Are you alone?”

“My chaperone retired with a headache,” she replied, thinking quickly. Her flighty lady’s maid, Cora, who was prone to the vapors and disappearing at the most inconvenient times was hardly a proper chaperone, but beggars could not be choosers. Particularly beggars turned international spies. Though Bronwyn wasn’t a spy, per se; she was more of a discreet informant. “Is your wife here as well?”

He cleared his throat. “The lady is, though we are no longer married.”

Goodness, her heart shouldn’t have raced so violently at that, but Bronwyn could feel it hammering like a bird about to take flight. His marital state had nothing to do with her. He was her brother’s friend! And a former British undercover agent. A man who would put her in handcuffs without blinking. A different scenario involving restraints—a much naughtier one with rather less clothing—crept into her mind, and she felt her face flame. Did he carry handcuffs?

Stop it, stop it, stop it.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she managed to say.