Parts of her body went instantly molten as her eyes slid to the very bed he was propped upon, visions of those fine sheets crumpled around a pair of naked, intertwined, writhing bodies. His. Hers. No end to where each of them began. Much like the carvings and sculptures she’d discovered during a trip with her father to a princely state where the temples of Khajuraho depicted maithuna—the coupling between a husband and wife.

Her maid, Asha, as wide-eyed as she, had been a veritable fountain of information. Hot-cheeked, Sarani had been riveted, gobbling up the wickedly erotic depictions of the Hindu god Shiva, the masculine aspect of divine creativity, and the Goddess Shakti, the feminine aspect of the power of creation. Her people saw the concept of physical desire as something sacred, and that sexuality was a symbol of unity and oneness. She bit her lip. What would such oneness be like with Rhystan?

No, no, no!

Hastily, Sarani blinked the provocative and categorically unwelcome imaginings away. Heavens, what was wrong with her? She was surely out of her mind. There was no future, sexual or otherwise, with this man. She must have inhaled rope fibers and they were clogging her brain, because she couldn’t possibly be thinking that climbing into the Duke of Embry’s bed wasn’t remotely the worst conceivable idea in the history of existence.

Her body hummed its denial.

Not exactly the worst.

“Yes. No.” She gave her head a rough shake. “Of course it would be. And my name is Sara. I’m not that girl anymore.”

“No, you’re not,” he said quietly. He paused with a shadow of a smirk. “As diverting as it is to see you at such a stunning loss for words, that’s not the offer I had in mind.”

A breath rushed out. In relief? Disappointment? Sarani hissed to herself—definitely the former. “Oh. It’s not?”

“No.”

“Then what?” she asked.

“An offer of marriage.” Before the word or its implication could properly sink in, he arched a bronzed brow. “To me.”

Sarani blinked. “Why on earth would you—” She gaped, her jaw falling open in indecorous horror. “Marry you? You have to be joking.”

“Au contraire, I’m deadly serious. I’d like us to become engaged.”

“One of your quartermaster’s blows must have addled your mind, Your Grace,” she said with a frown. “Might I remind you that you are a duke. An engagement to…me will never be countenanced by your mother, remember?”

“Talbot was a peer and you were engaged to him.”

Disgust rolled through her. “Talbot was a swine, the bottom of the barrel, ousted from London. Marriage to me was a windfall for a man like him.”

Sarani couldn’t disguise the ripple of pain that threaded through her words.