“Your point?” He stared at her. “Did you think a woman couldn’t be ruined in the glare of the sun?”
She swallowed as she watched his hands unbutton his shirt, revealing a broad chest dusted with golden hair. He pulled the tails free of his breeches and flung himself down in one of the large wing chairs. “Your turn.”
“I-I-um—” Charis blinked. “I don’t know what to do.”
Sinjun tilted his head. “Undress.”
“Here?”
“No. Outside by the lily pond. Ofcoursehere, sweet Charis. Here where I can watch. I doubt the goldfish would appreciate the sight as much as I’m going to.”
Charis slowly unfastened her cloak and looked around her.
“Put your clothes on the sofa.” He shifted a little, spreading his thighs wide. There was a distinct bulge beneath his soft breeches that caught Charis’ eye. She blushed and did as she was told.
“Now the gown.”
Awkwardly, she let her hands find the buttons at her neck and began slipping them free.
“Slowly. Arouse me, Charis. Seduce me with what you’re doing. Don’t rush.”
She sighed. He was rather demanding about all this. But Charis obeyed, feeling a tingle within her body as the buttons popped open down the front of her dress. When she reached the last one, she glanced at him from beneath her eyelashes and let the gown slide off her shoulders to the floor.
“Excellent.”
The bulge was growing. Charis stifled a shudder of excitement. She must be wicked indeed to respond so enthusiastically to what she was doing. Standing there in her petticoat and chemise, her nipples budded into peaks beneath the thin silk, her belly began to ache, low down between her thighs.
“Continue.” His voice cracked into the stillness.
Charis leaned down, realizing as she did so that her chemise was gaping around her breasts. She smiled to herself as she unfastened her laces and kicked her shoes away.There.Thatwould show him she wasn’t totally ignorant of all things seductive.
“The undergarments?” She glanced at his face as her hands moved to the ties behind her back. There was a taut look around his cheekbones as his gaze roamed her body. He simply nodded.
It only took a few more moments. Charis hadn’t worn a corset, since she’d dressed herself in the simplest clothes she possessed without her maid’s assistance. Within a minute she was standing naked but for the light chemise which barely reached her knees.
“Finish it. I want you nude. Right where you are. In the sunlight.”
She was more than a little self-conscious. He was still partly dressed, it was the middle of the morning, she was in a strange house and undressing in front of a man who was virtually unknown to her. Then the thought of her purpose stiffened her resolve. Better this sensual interlude than marriage to a lackwit or a life of drudgery.
His gaze burned hotly over her legs and she noted his throat move as he swallowed. In spite of his apparent calm, it would seem he was not unaffected by what she was doing. The thought gave her the courage to tug at the ribbon holding the chemise in place.
Taking a deep breath, she let it drop.
“By God you’re a beauty.”
The softly breathed words surprised Charis and she opened her eyes wide at the man devouring her with his gaze. She was unused to thinking of herself in such terms—in fact she was unused to thinking about herself very much at all.
She had the requisite number of arms and legs, and everything worked the way it was supposed to. Other than that, the question of beauty hadn’t been part of her thoughts on a daily basis. Who needed to be beautiful for horses or the moors of Northumberland?
“Unpin your hair.” He choked out the command, his body no longer sprawling relaxed in the chair. Sinjun looked…tense.
Fighting the urge to cover herself with her hands, Charis lifted her arms and pulled the pins from the untidy mass atop her head. It fell down past her shoulders, a soft tickling caress against the bare skin of her spine. Obeying some natural instinct, she ran her fingers through it to straighten the tangles, noting how his eyes followed her movements.
“Now come here.”
Charis went willingly. There was a certain charm to the way Sinjun smiled. The tone of his voice, the laughter in his eyes. He’d touched something inside her at their first exchange of words—he’d appealed to her on many levels.
She already felt as if she knew him and knowing he thought herbeautiful? Well, that was enough of a compliment to make her heart pound more rapidly in her breast.
