She was tugging at his clothing, her mouth chattering on, and Westhaven knew a moment’s impatience. Desire was a bodily craving, like fatigue or hunger or physical restlessness. He tended to it, usually twice a week, sometimes more, and lately less. It had been mildly alarming to find Elise’s departure for a month-long house party had inconvenienced him not one bit.

But she was back, and it had been a month, and his clothes were rapidly accumulating in a pile on the floor.

“Elise,” he said, stilling her hands, “you know I don’t like to be untidy.”

“But you do like to be naked,” Elise quipped, bending to scoop up his shirt, waistcoat, and cravat. She dumped them over the back of a chair and pushed him onto her fainting couch, the better to extricate him from his boots. “And I like to get you naked.” Like a small, blond fury, Elise finished peeling him out of his clothes, showing an enthusiasm he didn’t usually find in her.

“You’ve added flesh,” she observed when she’d thrown his breeches onto the chair, as well. “You aren’t as skinny, Westhaven. Oh, and look, you are glad to see me.”

His cock was glad to see her, anyway. Glad enough that when she pushed him onto his back on her silly red bed, he could concede a month of celibacy had been enough.

“Let me taste you.” Elise was still in her dressing gown, but she climbed onto the bed and knelt at his hip.

Now this was something new. Elise liked having him for a protector, liked thinking the heir to a dukedom had chosen her for his pleasures. She did not, however, particularly like him or like sex. These factors bothered him a little, but no more than they bothered her. In many ways, it was easier if she wasn’t personally attached to him, nor he to her.

Her tongue lapped at his cock, the sensations tantalizing and more arousing than the rest of Elise’s repertoire of foreplay put together. Elise, however, had been reluctant to indulge him thus previously, so with her, he usually contented himself with more pedestrian sexual play. The lapse of time since they’d last been together, and the enthusiastic efforts of her mouth, combined to undermine his usual self-discipline.

“I’ll come in your mouth, Elise,” he warned her several minutes later. “When you suck on my cock, it tempts me—”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Elise glanced up at him sharply, alarm flitting across her face. She opened her dressing gown and lay down on the mattress beside him. “You can’t have all the fun, Westhaven.”

She obligingly spread her legs, so he rolled and settled himself over her.

“I take care of you, Elise,” he said, nuzzling at her neck. She wasn’t much of one for kissing on the mouth, but she tolerated attention to her breasts fairly well.

“You do,” she agreed, arching up against him. “Though you take your damned time about it.” The words were teasing, but something in her tone was petulant, ungracious, so he dispensed with further preliminaries and found the entrance to her body with his cock.

“I will assume”—he began to rock his way to a fuller penetration—“you have simply missed your pleasures, Elise.”

“I have,” she said, wrapping her legs around his flanks and locking her ankles at the small of his back. “Now fuck my feeble brains out and cease jabbering.”

His cock liked that idea just fine, but in the part of him that always watched, always considered, something about Elise felt just the slightest degree off. Her enthusiasm didn’t seemed feigned, exactly, but neither was it… warm.

“Harder,” she urged, flexing her hips to meet his thrusts. “I want it rough today, Westhaven.”

Rough? Where in the hell did that come from? He obligingly thrust harder and felt his own arousal ratchet up. Elise’s heels dug into his spine, though, and the distraction allowed him to hold back his orgasm as he listened for hers to approach.

“Oh, God…” Elise was flailing her hips at him desperately, her passion a welcome and uncharacteristic display. “God damn you, Westhaven…”

She bucked against him harder, until he felt his own climax bearing down on him. He held off until he was sure Elise had found her pleasure in full then arched his back to withdraw.

Elise held him all the more tightly, her legs vised around his waist.

With a sudden wrench, he broke her scissor hold and lunged back.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” he roared. He sat back on his heels, panting with frustrated lust, while Elise stared up at him, eyes dazed with passion and anger.

“Why?” she yelled back. “Why for once couldn’t you just come like most men and not be so goddamned careful? You can’t just fuck, Westhaven. You have to be a damned duke even in this!”

“What on earth are you going on about?” He speared her with an incredulous look. “You know my terms, Elise, and…”

He watched her face, and realization dawned.

“Oh, Elise.” He climbed to the side of the bed and sat with his back to her, lungs heaving. “You let Renfrew plant his bastard in your belly and hoped to pass it off as mine.” He didn’t need to see her eyes to know he’d come across yet another ducal ploy to trap him into marriage. Renfrew was tall, green-eyed, brown-haired, and randy as a goat.

“His Grace promised…” Elise wailed quietly. “His man said if I conceived, the duke would see us wed.”

Westhaven shook his head in exasperation, “Elise, the duke would not have seen us wed when I told him the child was Renfrew’s.”

“And how would he have known that?”

“I am not stupid, Elise, and I have never spent my seed inside you. My father would believe me in that much, at least,” he said as he rose.

“Where are you going?” She sat up, closing the dressing gown around her as if he might peek at her nakedness.

“I am going to take a cold bath, I suppose.” He began to sort through his clothes. “Would you prefer diamonds, emeralds, or rubies?”

“All of the above,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “You were a damned lot of work, Westhaven.”

“Was I really?” He was momentarily nonplussed by the thought but then resumed dressing. “How so?”

“This is just sex.” Elise waved her hand at the bedroom in general. “But still, it’s sex with another person.”

“You don’t think I know you are a person? I didn’t see to your pleasure?” he asked, more curious than he wanted to let on.

“You.” She glared at him with reluctant affection. “You probably had a list in your pocket as you set out today: Replace right hind shoe on gelding; draft terms for running the universe; visit Elise; meet cronies at the club. Except you don’t have cronies. And when you get here,” she ranted on, “kiss her cheek, and carefully disrobe. After folding each article of clothing precisely so, twiddle her bubbies, twiddle her couche, insert cock, and stir briskly for five minutes. Oh”—she threw up her hands—“just forget I opened my mouth.”

“Twiddle, Elise?” Westhaven said, sitting next to her on the bed. “I perceive you are disappointed in me, but twiddle is a bit harsh. And given your sentiments, perhaps it’s best you aren’t going to be my duchess, hmm?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I would likely have killed you, Westhaven, though you aren’t a bad fellow underneath it all.”

“A ringing endorsement.” He rose then turned and studied her. “What will you do, Elise? Renfrew is pockets to let, for all that he’s a good time.”

“I don’t know, but I’d appreciate it if you’d give me some time to figure it out.”

“Take all the time you need.” He hugged her, a simple, affectionate gesture that seemed somehow appropriate. “I believe I’ll swear off mistresses for the nonce, and the lease here is paid up through the year, so you might as well put the place to use.”

“Most generous. Now be gone with you.” Elise shoved him away from her. “I’m swearing off titles. I’ll find myself a rich, climbing cit and get the blighter to marry me, bastard and all.”

“Seriously, Elise.” He paused to force her to meet his eyes. “I’ll provide if there’s a child. You will allow it.” He put every ounce of ducal authority into his expression, and she visibly shrank from his gaze.

“I will.” She nodded, swallowing.

“Then good-bye.” He bowed, as if they’d just shared a waltz, and kissed her cheek.

Westhaven left his mistress’s pretty little house, thinking he should have been angry with Elise and most especially with his father. The duke, though, had simply covered a logical base: If Westhaven were already swiving a woman, it made sense that woman was the most likely to conceive his child.

But Elise, as a mother? Good God… His Grace must be getting senile.

Mentally, Westhaven found himself adding to his list of tasks to complete: Send parting gift to Elise, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, if possible; replace Elise; draft epistle to His Grace, decrying his suborning of bastardy.

And had Val not sent him an alert, would Westhaven have seen through Elise’s ploy?

He should just damned marry, he thought as he gained the steps to his townhouse. But if finding a mistress had been difficult, finding a woman worthy to be his duchess and his wife was going be almost impossible.

“The prodigal returns,” a voice sang out in his front hallway.

“Valentine?” Westhaven found himself smiling at his younger brother, who lounged in the doorway to the library. “You left our sire unsupervised? Our sisters unprotected?”

“I’m up only for the weekend.” Val shoved away from the door and extended a hand. “I got to fretting about you, and His Grace is under the supervision of Her Grace, which should be adequate for a few days.”

“Fretting about me?”

“I overheard Renfrew bragging.” Val turned to lead his brother into the library. “Then it occurred to me my note was perhaps not clear enough.”

“Elise and I have come to an amicable if somewhat costly parting. I will call upon Renfrew in the near future to suggest, quite discreetly, that should he see fit to precede me into holy matrimony, a token of my good wishes would be forthcoming.”

Val whistled. “Elise was playing a desperate game. The girl has cheek.”

“She and Renfrew would understand each other,” Westhaven said, “and I’ve been looking for a way to unload Monk’s Crossing. It takes two weeks each year just to put in an appearance there, and it isn’t as if we’re lacking for properties.”

“Why not sell what isn’t entailed? You wear yourself out, Gayle, trying to keep track of it all and staying on top of His Grace’s queer starts.”

“I have sold several properties that were only marginally producing, and I should be doing a better job of keeping you informed of such developments, as you are, dear Brother, the spare of record.”

“Yes,” Val said, holding up a hand, “as in, ‘spare me.’ I’ll pay attention if you insist, but please do not intimate to His Grace I give a hearty goddamn for any of it.”

“Ah.” Westhaven smiled, going to the sideboard to pour them each a finger of brandy. “Except you do. How are the manufactories coming?”

“I don’t think of them as manufactories, but we’re managing.”

“Business is good?” Westhaven asked, hoping he wasn’t offending his brother.

“Business in the years immediately following decades of war is going to be unpredictable,” Val said, accepting his drink. “People want pleasure and beauty and relief from their cares, and music provides that. But there is also a widespread lack of coin.”

“In some strata,” Westhaven agreed. “But organizations, like schools and churches and village assemblies are not quite as susceptible to that lack of coin, and they all buy pianos.”

“So they do.” Val saluted his brother with his glass. “I hadn’t thought of that, because I myself have never performed in such venues, but you are right. This confirms, of course, my bone-deep conviction you are better suited to the dukedom than I.”

“Because I have one minimally useful idea?” Westhaven asked, going to the bell pull.

“Because you think about things, endlessly, and in depth. I used to think you were slow.”

“I am slow, compared to the rest of the family, but I have my uses.”

“You don’t honestly believe that. You are not as outgoing as our siblings, perhaps, but we lack your ability to concentrate on a problem until the damned thing lies in tiny pieces at our mental feet.”

Westhaven set aside his drink. “Perhaps, but we needn’t stand here throwing flowers at each other, when we could be stuffing ourselves with muffins and lemonade.”