“You do the honors,” he told her.
Her features vivid with expectation, she lifted the lid of the box, letting it fall back on its hinges. Nestled in the top tray was a green Chinoiserie silk pouch and what appeared to be a delicate gold chain. She picked up the latter, and sudden heat prickled beneath Richard’s collar.
Brow pleating, Violet held up the chain between thumb and index finger. There was a small, bejeweled clamp on each end, and they swung like twin pendulums.
“This is the strangest necklace I’ve ever seen,” she said.
He didn’t think it was a necklace. “Er, why don’t you put that back…”
She was too busy fiddling with the clamps to listen to him. “Maybe it’s broken? This is theoddestclasp. The ends don’t fit together at all.”
“Uh, Violet…”
She tossed the chain onto the bedspread and pulled out the Chinoiserie pouch. “This is heavy. I wonder what’s inside.”
Before he could stop her, she emptied the contents into her palm.
“Now what do you think these are?” She held up the two golden balls, which rolled together sensuously in her palm.
He swallowed. Twice.
“Oh,Iknow.” Her eyes widened.
“You, er, do?”
“It must be for a performance. Juggling or some such thing. Although they’d be dashed difficult to manage given how small they are.” She wriggled them around in her hand. “And they have the strangest weight to them…”
“You might want to stop handling those.”
“Why? Maybe I could learn to use them as Monique did.”
Christ.Try as he might, he couldn’t block the image from forming in his mind. He went rock-hard.
“Oh, look. There’s another tray beneath this one.” Idly jiggling the pleasure balls in one hand, Violet stuck the other in the box. “More circus equipment, perhaps? This one feels oddly shaped…”
She yanked out a jade dildo.
Richard’s every nerve caught fire. Lust paralyzed him as he saw her gaze travel over the large carved phallus clasped within her slim fingers, from its bulbous tip down its vein-girdled shaft, all the way to the smooth bulging balls. Recognition dawned across her expressive features—which he might have found comical had he any blood left in his brain. Every last ounce of it had plummeted to his groin, his erection throbbing with agonizing intensity.
Violet let out a gasp, instinctively flinging the dildo away from her. It bounced onto the bed. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten the balls in her other hand and lost her grip on them. They dropped to the floor, hitting the boards with dangerously loud thuds and rolling beneath the bed.
“Gadzooks, I—I have to get those!” Her eyes were panicked.
She dove after them, sweeping her arm beneath the bed, and he had to close his eyes against the unholy temptation of her delicate ankles, her shapely stockinged legs, her pert and wriggling bottom.
“Crumpets, I can’t reach them…” She crawled halfway beneath the bed, her skirts bunching up, revealing a flash of her garter, the bare skin just above.
He was concentrating on not unmanning himself when she gave a hushed exclamation.
“Carlisle… I think I found something else!”
Perhaps this was God’s way of testing his self-control. “What is it?”
“I accidentally pressed down on one of the floorboards, and it came loose. There’s a piece of paper hidden beneath…”
She backed out from under the bed, clutching a folded piece of paper. He helped her to her feet, and they went over to the table with the lamp, spreading the paper on its surface. Together, they peered at the drawing.
He stared at the detailed architectural rendering. “It’s a map of the house.”
