“Fuck,” Fitz swore loudly as the door closed behind Matilda’s retreating form, hastily extracting himself from the bedsheets and searching for his trousers. Whatever he had—or more likely, hadn’t—been thinking before was no match for the gravity of the situation and he was trapped at sea.

At least he had pants on now, though fingers that had so expertly unlaced Camilla’s corset now fumbled doing up the simple fastenings of a garment he had worn for twenty years.

He had, in his musings, equated this to bedding a married woman. Fitzroy was beginning to realize that the consequences were, in fact, much more grave.