A locked door. It could serve as a counter to curiosity or a protection for secrets. It could inspire youthful invention or rouse suspicion. It was utterly crucial when taking to bed someone who was not one’s spouse.

It had been overlooked entirely by both Fitz and Miss Zabini—Camilla, probably, now that he had been inside her—as their heated passions had given them other priorities.

And now he was laying in bed beside his latest conquest with his cousin (and Camilla’s sister-in-law) looming over them like a Titan.

Fitz hastened to adjust the bedsheets so that he might be better covered.

“I would say that it isn’t what it looks like,” he remarked dryly after a what seemed like a decades-long silence, “but I don’t imagine you would believe me.”