He padded barefoot into the frigidarium, a small leather-bound notebook already in hand, and paused—just long enough to observe the chill of the air and the light glinting off the marble floors.
Then he sighed, soulful and obscene.
Without looking at Wanton, he sat cross-legged on a chaise longue and began scribbling furiously, mouthing rhymes under his breath.
The main doors swung open with a sigh of well-lacquered hinges.
And in strolled Monsieur M.
Masked. Barefoot. Draped in nothing but a towel and mystery.
He moved like a man who had never rushed in his life and considered punctuality a low form of violence. His lean frame glided across the floor as if the marble had been laid purely for him to promenade upon. The towel was knotted with suspicious precision, high enough to be legal, low enough to be sued.
He paused near a sunken lounge, stretched like a feline debauchee, and eased himself down with the grace of a man who had absolutely just ruined someone’s marriage. His arms spread across the backrest. One leg extended. His head tilted, mask glinting.
No one knew who he truly was. Some said he was nobility. Others whispered he was French—which, in certain circles, was worse. Wanton had once overheard a dowager swear he was the bastard son of Talleyrand and a ballerina with flexible hips and even more flexible morals.
She couldn’t confirm the lineage, but the hips checked out.
And then—just when she thought she had survived the worst of the towel parade—the final door opened.
His Grace, the Duke of Arsbury, stepped into the frigidarium like a cold front entering a greenhouse.
Even in his robe de chambre, he made relaxation seem exhausting. His posture was martial. His scowl, pristine. He didn’t so much walk as issue silent orders to the floor to carry him.
Oh, no, his forearms were bare. By Newton’s knickers! Wanton immediately looked away. Then looked back. There ought to be a warning posted by the entrance: Please do not stare directly at the forearms. Risk of retinal burn and spontaneous combustion. They weren’t just sculpted—they were a moral hazard. Veins like sin, skin dusted with dark hair, muscle that hinted at restraint and punishment in equal measure.
She could imagine them braced on a desk. A bed. Her hips.
And suddenly, she had to remind herself—firmly—that she was at a spa. For relaxation. Not for… ocular arousal, mental debauchery, and unauthorized daydreams involving orthopedic-strength corset failure.
She licked a bit of sherbet from the corner of her mouth and attempted to look bored.
It did not work.
She’d seen his glutes immortalized in marble—had verified the Arsbury Hypothesis through hands-on, peerless fieldwork, and now, she could not look at the duke and not see, well the glutes. It was a peril of science. A side effect no one warned you about in the Royal Academy. Every time she made eye contact with His Grace, her brain whispered, Glutes.
Every time he passed her in the hall, her inner voice offered a reverent, Hail the hemispheres. It was, frankly, exhausting. And it wasn’t her fault. She was a scholar. The subject had simply been… exceptionally well presented.
His mouth was set in a hard line. His eyes scanned the spa like a general preparing to assign blame.
She shivered. Whose backside was about to be tanned?
Before he uttered a word, his valet stepped from his shadow. Mr. Trumbuttle. A man whose personality was built entirely of starch and suspicion. His expression was that of a man who’d smelled something beneath him, which was unfortunate, because it was usually everyone.
She ducked her head, praying he wouldn’t see her.
Truly, she had not come here to be condescended at by human vinegar.
She began to tiptoe toward the exit, sherbet in hand, dignity in tatters.
“There she is!” the valet screeched, pointing at Wanton like a scandalized parrot in breeches.
All eyes turned.
Wanton blinked, halfway to the exit, sherbet spoon frozen midair. “Pardon?”
“You!” he cried, storming forward. “You’re the thief!”
