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The door swung open.

Alan stood framed in the doorway, in a spill of golden light. She’d swum in that banyan he was wearing, pale blue silk patterned with vines. His broad shoulders spread the simple robe to capacity. She could see a wedge of bronzed chest between its front folds, the dusky channel that divided his pectoral muscles. The hem hit well above his knee. He wore trousers, darker blue, loose. They looked soft, curving with the hard muscle of his thighs.

She swallowed. Just now, in dreams, his lips had played over hers, until her blood had thickened and flowed through her veins with the sweet lassitude of syrup.

The left corner of those lips tipped up in a crooked smile.

“Your monkey, madam.” He held Fritz in the curl of an arm. “Again.”

She swayed. Heaven help her. Her bones were also syrup.

Gently, he lifted her hair over her shoulder, smoothing it down her back. He set Fritz on his preferred perch, the slope of her neck.

“I’m sorry we woke you.”

“I wasn’t asleep. I was reading.” His pale, black-rimmed eyes narrowed. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Is it?” She cleared her throat, so dry it tickled. “I wasn’t sure.”

“You should be in bed.”

Of their own volition, her eyes swerved around him. From where she stood, the foot of his bed was visible, two posts of a dark four-poster.

Fritz chose that moment to launch from her shoulder to Alan’s, a light, brief landing. His next bound carried him into the bedchamber.

“Bugger. Drat it. Pardon.”

Alan stepped aside to let her hurry after.

“It was a dull book anyway.” His voice followed her.

Low-burning lamps and the coals in the fireplace gave the room its golden glow, along with the gold-framed pictures hanging on the burgundy walls. She averted her eyes from the bed, looked instead at the mahogany wardrobe, the large, worn armchair. Behind the armchair, glass-fronted bookcases rose as high as the wainscoting. Fritz posed among the statuettes and vases arranged on top.

She put the candleholder on a low table and changed course, darting to the French doors. As she shut them, she heard another click. When she turned, her heart hammered her ribs.

Alan was walking toward her with a slow, deliberate tread. No cane. His steps were ever-so-slightly uneven.

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

Her heart skipped a beat, and her courage failed. “About Fritz?”

He shook his head, eyes bright. “About this.”

This. No.

She took a breath. “Nothing. You don’t dally with employees.”

He kept walking toward her. “We’ve established that you’re not my employee.”

“You don’t dally with forgers, either. You seemed to remember that the other day. When I . . .” She flushed. “And then you . . .”

She had leaned toward him on the settle, and, in the end, it was he who had pulled away.

“I didn’t stop kissing you because you’re a forger.” He stilled, a yard away.

“That’s why I should have stopped.” Her gaze slid to the notch at the base of his throat. “It’s too confusing. You’ve forgiven me—or it seems you’ve forgiven me—by making the blame Jack’s. But the blame is also mine.”

“I do forgive you.” His pulse flickered, hypnotic. “And you are your own person, accountable for your actions.”