Before returning through the bedroom to the sitting room, he glanced around, assessing the amenities.

Minerva-his chatelaine-had been right. Not only were these rooms appropriate given he was now the duke, the atmosphere felt right-and he had a sneaking suspicion his old room wouldn’t have suited him, fitted him, anymore. He certainly appreciated the greater space, and the views.

Walking into the bedroom, his gaze fell on the bed. He felt certain he would appreciate that, too. The massive oak four-poster supporting a decadently thick mattress and silk covers, piled high with thick pillows, dominated the large room. It faced the window; the view would always be restful, yet interesting.

At present, however, restful yet interesting couldn’t sate his need; as his gaze returned to the crimson-and-gold silk-brocade bedspread, took in the crimson silk sheets, his mind supplied a vision of his chatelaine reclining there.

Naked.

He considered the vision, deliberately indulged; his imagination was more than up to the task.

As unlooked-for developments went, his chatelaine took the prize. Little Minerva was no longer so little, yet…

Being his mother’s protйgйe, and thus under his father’s protection, too, would normally have placed her off-limits to him, except that both his father and mother were now dead, and she was still there, in his household, an established spinster of his class, and she was…what? Twenty-nine?

Within their circles, by anyone’s assessment she was now fair game, except…while he’d developed an immediate and intense lust for her, she’d shown no sign whatever that she returned his interest; she’d appeared coolly, calmly unaffected throughout.

If she’d reacted to him as he had to her, she would have been in there now-more or less as he was imagining her, boneless and drowsy, a smile of satiation curving her lush lips as she lay sprawled, naked and utterly ravished, on his bed.