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And, of course, the door was locked.

“Bollocks.”

“Such talk from the proper Lady Clara. What would the others say?”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Nothing good, I assure you.”

Something passed over his face. Cold, displeased. With her? She couldn’t tell.

“Wait, the key!” She lifted it out of the neckline of her dress where she had tied it with a ribbon.

It did, of course, not fit the lock.

“I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.”

“Step aside,” he ordered. She knew exactly how good a captain he had been just by her instinct to obey. His eyes flickered over her. She swallowed and stepped back. Something she was very much afraid was arousal tingled through her core. She pressed her thighs together. His gaze sharpened.

It seemed an effort for him to focus on the door.

She was embarrassing herself. He knew she was drawn to him—he must know. The lonely spinster, disdained by Society. The handsome older captain. He must draw women like bees to honey.

She lifted her chin, straightened her spine.

It did not help.

“Why do you that?” he murmured, not looking at her as he crouched in front of the doorknob, the wood carved with roses.

Was he asking why she looked at him like she wanted to devour him? Why she suddenly wanted to kneel as well, but for a very different purpose?

“Do what?” she croaked.

“Stand like a soldier at attention when you’re nervous.”

She swallowed a hysterical giggle. She was turning herself inside out, burning with want, and he had no idea. That was better than the alternative.

Wasn’t it?

It probably never even occurred her that she even knew what lust was. She was as appealing a hardtack biscuit. Miss Vinegar strikes again.

“There’s nothing wrong with good posture,” she said.

And she’d mortified herself all over again. Her voice was too prim, her words ridiculous.

She was a Spinster, damn it. It was high time she acted like it.

She watched as he picked the lock with a long metal instrument and a turn of his wrist. “Will you teach me how to do that?”

“I’ll teach you anything you want.”

That blaze of lust again.

Damn it, Clara.

They stepped into the study, lush and exuding power. Leather-bound books lined the shelves. A portrait of the marquis in a heavy gilded frame hung over the mantlepiece. “That sword is ridiculous,” Clara muttered. “Overcompensating.”

Bram’s lips twitched.

There were crystal decanters, a gold watch fob, pen nibs. In short, a perfectly ordinary study of a perfectly ordinary, if libidinous, marquis. Even the papers in his desk were ordinary: ledgers tallying household expenses, letters from Tattersall’s about horse auctions, a request from an orphanage in London for funds. Ink pots, candles, snuffboxes.