Hugh swallowed. His tastes had never run toward such things, but now it was impossible not to think of all the ways one could be compromised while tied to a bed.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Maybe I should just leave you like this,” she said.

“Leave me . . . like this?” he choked out.

“Well, yes.” She frowned, bringing one hand to her mouth in a worried gesture. “That way when someone arrives, and someone will—Daniel can’t have been too far behind me—he will see that nothing could possibly have happened.”

“Your cousin knows you’re here?”

She nodded. “Honoria insisted upon telling him. But I thought— Your father— I didn’t want—” She pushed her wet hair from her eyes. “I thought if I could get here first, I might be able to— I don’t know, calm everything down.”

Hugh groaned.

“I know,” she said, the expression in her eyes matching his grim chuckle precisely. “I wasn’t expecting . . .”

“ . . . this?” he finished for her, and he would have motioned to himself with a derisive wave of his hand . . . if said hands hadn’t been bloody well tied to the bedposts.

“It’s going to be ugly when Daniel gets here,” Sarah whispered.

Hugh didn’t bother to confirm. She knew it was true.

“I know you said that your father will not hurt him, but—” She turned abruptly, her eyes alight with thought. “Would it do any good if I pounded on the door? I could scream for help. If someone arrived before Daniel . . .”

He shook his head. “That will give him precisely what he wants. A witness to your alleged destruction.”

“But you’re tied to the bed!”

“I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that someone might think that you tied me.”

She gasped.

“Precisely.”

She jumped away from the bed as if burned. “But that’s— That’s—”

He decided not to finish her sentence this time.

“Oh, my God.”

Hugh tried not to notice the horror in her expression. Bloody hell, if she had not been completely revolted by him after the revelations of that morning, she certainly was now. He let out an uneven breath. “I’ll find some way,” he said, even though he had no idea how he might keep such a promise. “You won’t have to . . . I’ll find a way.”

Sarah looked up. Her eyes were fixed on the wall, and he could see her face in three-quarter profile. Her expression was stiff, uncomfortable. “If we explain to Daniel . . .” She swallowed, and Hugh followed the slight motion down the soft length of her neck. He’d kissed her there once. More than once. She had tasted of lemons and salt and she had smelled like woman, and he had been so bloody hard for her he’d thought he would embarrass himself.