"The formalities, Your Grace?" She offered her best smile largely for Mrs. Hanney's benefit. Certainly it wasn't for her own. "And what are they?"

His eyes glinted like a wolf's in the shadowed hall. "You know perfectly well what they are. Despite your tomfooled idiocy, you are anything but stupid, so why don't you take that idiotic simper off your face?"

If only. But it was as frozen as her hand, a short inch from his sensuous, stubble-dusted lips.

"Your Grace, ...