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“Which is why you wouldn’t compromise her,” Stella said, a wave of exhaustion breaking over her head. “You adored her as a being above such menial emotions as lust. When you lost the object of your adoration, you settled for desire. Which I do have. For you.”

She didn’t allow her voice to be defiant. Women had the right to feel lust, just as much as men did.

“It’s possible that you think a man has to choose lust or love,” she said, spilling out everything that had gone through her head since she walked out of the drawing room. “You are wrong, by the way.”

“Interesting.”

He was clearly enraged, speaking through clenched teeth. But then Silvester never liked being corrected, did he? It went with the coronet, with the condition of being a swollen bullfrog.

“Merry’s husband adores and desires her,” Stella said. “I would guess he courted and seduced her.”

Silvester snorted. “He did more than that. Their wedding was notorious. He stole her from his own brother.”

Stella swallowed hard. She was happy that her friend had the experience of having a man adore her so much that he stole her. Merry deserved it. She was lovable.

“Don’t you see, Silvester? You could have that too. You are behaving irrationally, in the aftermath of Yasmin’s rejection of you. You are giving up too soon.” She hesitated. “We could explain away your proposal. No one knows except my aunt.”

Silvester walked across the room and bent over her in the dark. Specs hissed and leaped from the bed. “You’re a fool.”

“Charming,” Stella said, trying to stop her heart from speeding up.

“Do you want to know why I played my trump card, why I told your aunt I’d kissed you?”

“I know why. You’re not evil,” Stella said, feeling a wave of sadness. “But you are used to getting your own way. Far too used to it. You’re a swollen bullfrog, in Merry’s words. I understand.”

“No, you don’t. I want you so badly that I will do anything to have you, Stella. Anything. So put that calculation into your little witch’s brew of incorrect assumptions.” He leaned closer until his lips almost touched hers, his arms braced on either side of her head. “You think Yasmin’s kisses would have been so damned heady that I would ignore a dead rodent?”

Stella swallowed. “How would you know, if you never kissed her?”

“I never wanted to kiss her!” he growled. His tongue swept across her bottom lip. “I don’t just want to kiss you, Stella. I want to ravish you.”

Stella couldn’t stop herself from kissing him back because his voice was impassioned, and domineering . . . and maybe, just a little uncertain.

Next thing she knew he was lying next to her, kissing her so deeply that there didn’t seem to be a beginning or end to their bodies. She was surrounded by heat and passion, desire flooding her veins. Silvester’s hand curved around her cheek, and he was murmuring things in a voice so low she couldn’t pay attention to them.

About desire, about her lips, about the way she kissed, about her eyes, about . . .

“You may not ravish me,” she said.

He pulled his head back. In the dim light, he resembled a hawk, a predatory animal with grace and murder in its grip.

“You are mine,” he retorted.

Stella was tired of the whole conversation. Her heart was bruised, but honestly? She had no chance of escaping being a duchess, not after Silvester fixed his gaze on her.

She wouldn’t get what he gave Yasmin, but she would have something Yasmin never had.

That was important, right? They could build on lust.

“All right,” she said with a shaky sigh.

Silvester rolled her flat on her back and then draped a heavy thigh over her, presumably to keep her in place, though Stella had no thought of leaping from the bed. “All right, you’ll marry me?”

She nodded.

“We’re getting married.” He caught up her left hand and shoved something cold down her second finger.

Stella didn’t bother to look at her hand. Knowing him, the ring was gold and studded with invaluable gems, the kind that queens squabbled over.