“For the love of God, no.” She scowled fiercely back at him. “I will marry someday, and it will be with a man I choose and can grow old with. As much as I desire love and a true courtship by a man who might esteem me someday, I am also a realist. What happened between us was sex, Your Grace, and that is all it was. Please do not make it into this grand catastrophe with an ending that will ruin two lives. We were two people seeking comfort in the moment, that’s all.” She exhaled, watching him fight with his own sense of honor even as his pride felt the sting of her rejection. “Don’t escalate this into more than it is.”

Chest heaving, he raked a hand through his hair and exhaled on an irritated sigh. “This isn’t right. I should have known better. I do know better.”

“Perhaps, but a convenient marriage to placate denizens of society who are not here isn’t your decision to make. I offered, you accepted. Regardless of my state of chastity, the desire was mutual. Leave it be.”

Well awake now, Bronwyn attempted to make some sense of the tangle of her hair. The pins were somewhere about. There! She cringed at the dirty condition of her favorite hairpins with the jeweled lilies and butterflies but had little choice. When they got back to the hotel or the ship, she intended to take the longest, hottest, soapiest bath known to man. She reached for the pins, cleaned them on her shift as best she could, and twisted her locks up into a bun that she secured in place.

“Will you hand me my shirt and trousers?” she asked a still frowning Thornbury.

He nodded and retrieved them both, giving the shirt a good shake before holding it out to her. His eyes fell to her front and something dilated in his gaze before he flushed and averted his head. Following his gaze, Bronwyn looked down and squawked in dismay. Now that her hair was up, her nipples were at proud attention in the cool morning air, the darker areolas of her breasts visible against the transparent fabric. She grabbed the shirt and wrenched it over her head.

The duke shook out her trousers next, and something tumbled from the pocket. What it was didn’t quite register until much too late when she was poking her head through the neckline of her shirt. “No, wait,” she blurted out as he bent to retrieve the item. “That’s private.”

A slow, aggravating smile that made her panic curved one side of his mouth. “I believe you said this love letter was to me. Doesn’t that make it mine?”

“That’s something else!”