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title alone. Only Katherine possessed an integrity not commonly found in women. He stood and his rapid movement forced her to retreat. “Do you know why, sweet?” he asked quietly.
     
    “Don’t call me sweet,” she ordered automatically. In her haste to be away from him, she bumped into the Hepplewhite pier glass table. She winced, but continued moving backward. “And why?”
    He forced her across the room until her back collided with the white-plastered walls. Harry braced his elbows alongside her head and framed her within the confines of his arms, ignoring the heat of her lithe figure. “Because you are no different than every other self-centered, title-grasping lady. You speak of love.” He shook his head. “Yet you’d ask a notorious scoundrel to school you in the art of seduction. You’d put your material pleasures above all else?” He chuckled. “And for what?” He lowered his brow to hers. “More ribbons.”
     
    She jerked as though he’d struck her.
     
    For one slight, infinitesimal moment guilt slammed into him. He felt like a bastard who’d bullied a small child into turning over their bag of peppermints.
     
    She wet her lips in a way he’d come to learn, just in this past day, of Lady Anne’s nervousness. “You don’t know me, Harry.” Accusation blazed from the blues of her eyes. “You judge me as being, what did you say? Title-grasping and self-centered? But you don’t truly know anything about me.”
     
    He scoffed. Really, what more was there to know? Only…his biting response died on his lips. Something indefinable, an uncharacteristic somber glint in her eyes gave him pause. Something that hinted there was more to Lady Anne than he or any of polite Society had ever suspected. Her chest rose and fell heavily with the force of her breath. He swallowed hard.
     
    Anne hurried to collect her stack of ribbons, wholly unaware of the effect she had on him. “Here.” She thrust them toward him.
     
    He eyed them as though she’d handed over a pile of snakes. “What is this?”
     
    “They are my ribbons. Take them. They are yours.” She touched the piece he’d woven through her hair. “But this, this one is mine. This is the only one that matters.”
     
    If he were a complete bastard he’d point out that the last thing he wanted or needed of her was her fripperies.
     
    “Material possessions do not drive me. If that is what you think of me, then you’re greatly mistaken.” She jerked her chin toward the ribbons. “Accept them as a kind of payment for your efforts.”
     
    He rubbed the ribbons between his fingers a moment. Soft. Silken. Like the feel of her lips beneath his. “Then what does drive you?” Wealth, power, a grand title—just like Margaret. “I’ll not take your ribbons.” Not when they seemed to mean a good deal to her, for reasons he did not know or understand and reasons he likely would never know or understand.
     
    Anne soberly shook her head. “The only thing you need to know is how to help me.”
     
    It was highly foolish to keep any of the lady’s things. He set her scraps of fabric down. The sooner he aided her efforts, the sooner he could end his connection to the infuriating Lady Anne Adamson with her too many ribbons. “You want my guidance, Anne? Then wear the damned ribbon when you see Crawford.” The stern, proper duke would forget propriety and spirit her off to Gretna Greene for the plump mounds of her cream white breasts alone.
     
    Anne touched her fingertips to the satin ribbon, eliciting all manner of sinful thoughts he should never have about this hellion. With long, graceful fingers, she stroked the flesh of her décolletage. “This is silly.” She looked pointedly at the ribbon. “It’s not even properly placed.”
     
    He choked. “Trust me, it is properly placed,” he said, his voice garbled. The young lady didn’t realize that if she were to use her clever hands exactly as she was now in the presence of the duke,