She’d brought two enormous trunks of clothes with her, insisting they were necessary both for the charade and to prevent them from being stolen in her absence. “I’m sorry, I know I’m disgustingly particular,” she told the maid who’d come up with the trunks. “But all these petticoats have got to be hung up, and not pressed all together either.” Maggie darted a ruthless smile at Simon. “If you’ve got to squash something, squash HIS things.”

The maid smiled hesitantly, unwilling to risk annoying Simon.

The threat to his clothes did not annoy him. Nor did it annoy him that it looked as if a muslin factory had exploded over half the bed. Spangles, embroidery, stripes…all of which Maggie ignored to set out her hairpins on the dressing table, and her hairbrush and jewelry. Unwinding a shawl from around a little painted cut-glass perfume bottle, she set the bottle by the mirror as carefully as if it were a Crown Jewel. Simon felt dizzy, remembering the scent of tuberoses.

Men were SUPPOSED to be annoyed at being surrounded by a froth of femininity, weren’t they? But he wasn’t sure why. In this case ‘froth’ was not a strong enough word—the room was rapidly becoming a whipped custard, a meringue, or perhaps a many-layered trifle of femininity—and Simon just wanted to roll her into that cloud of muslin and kiss her.

But he had resolved with himself not to. THAT was what annoyed him.