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door. “And aren’t you leaving, too?”
    Mr. Parker-Roth took her arm. “Melinda Fallwell is London’s second greatest gossip—second to Lady Dunlee, of course—and, no, I am not leaving. We need to discuss our betrothal. Where can we be private?” He started back down the corridor, opening doors and peering in. “Ah, this will do nicely.”
    He pulled her into what Hobbes had called “the, ahem, Oriental room” when he’d given Anne a quick tour of the house the day before. She called it the harem room. It was furnished with low couches and oversized pillows. Gauzy striped curtains festooned the ceiling and hung down the walls giving one the feeling of being inside a large tent.
    Mr. Parker-Roth picked a brass statue off the mantel. His eyes widened and he chuckled. “Interesting decorations you have, Lady Anne.”
    She had a bad feeling about this. “Everything was here when we arrived.” She snatched the statue out of his hands and looked at it. There was a man and three women and they were—
    “Dear God!” She stuffed it behind one of the couches. As soon as she got rid of Mr. Parker-Roth, she would examine all the knickknacks and pack away the inappropriate ones before the twins found them. This looked like just the sort of room ten-year-old boys would love. “Apparently collecting erotic—I mean exotic —items runs in my father’s family.”
    “Apparently.” The annoying man had found another inappropriate sculpture on the mantel.
    “ Will you put that down?”
    “I don’t know. It’s rather . . . stimulating, don’t you think?” Mr. Parker-Roth sent her a heated look. His thumb was rubbing slowly over the brass woman’s extremely prominent breasts.
    “No, of course not.” If he wanted prominent breasts, he would have to look elsewhere.
    And why was she thinking of breasts at all? How shocking.
    Her body wasn’t shocked. Her little breasts felt oddly sensitive, almost achy, as if they’d like Mr. Parker-Roth to touch them as he was touching the statue. “Didn’t you drag me in here to discuss our b-betrothal?”
    He put the statue back on the mantel and smiled. “Yes, I did.” His voice sounded like sin as he came toward her. He looked like sin.
    He’s the King of Hearts, you ninnyhammer. Seduction is his middle name.
    She looked for a sturdy settee to dodge behind, but the damn room had nothing so conventional. She grabbed a fat pillow instead and held it in front of her like a shield.
    He stopped a good two feet from her and frowned. “You aren’t afraid of me, are you, Anne?”
    “Of course not.” God help her! His look of concern made him even more alluring.
    She wasn’t afraid of him; she was afraid of herself.
    What was the matter with her? Had she forgotten the last time she’d let her body rule her head? Ten years ago, she’d gone with Lord Brentwood into Baron Gedding’s garden and come back without her virginity. She would not be so stupid as to make that mistake again.
    Well, she couldn’t, could she? Virginity once lost was gone forever.
    “I won’t hurt you.” Mr. Parker-Roth actually looked worried. “I thought you knew that.”
    “You’re drunk.”
    He shook his head and winced. “Not any longer—or at least not enough to mask my other aches and pains.” He looked at her intently. “But even drunk I’d never force myself on a woman.”
    He wouldn’t have to. Women would force themselves on him.
    She dropped the pillow back on the couch, feeling a little ridiculous. “About this sham betrothal?”
    He studied her for another minute and then shrugged, running his hand through his hair. “I do think it’s the only way to save your reputation and salvage your sister’s Season.”
    She had a very uncomfortable feeling he might be correct. She didn’t care about her reputation—she didn’t have one to salvage—but she’d fight tooth and nail to protect Evie’s chance to enjoy a London Season and perhaps find a suitable husband. “If Lady