“Even if you weren’t my wife,” he said softly, “I would be taken by the striking color of your eyes, your black hair. Or perhaps it’s your bearing that entices me, your habit of looking at people intently, one eyebrow raised, as if you are waiting for them to prove themselves to you.”
“I don’t do that,” she said, taken aback.
“Yes, you do, and if you doubt me, I suggest you ask anyone at Chavensworth what it’s like to be stared down by Lady Sarah.”
She faced forward, staring in the darkness, the moonlight adding shadows to the shape of the bureau. “Am I that frightening, truly?”
“Not frightening it all,” he said. “Merely arresting.”
He thought her eyes striking. Did he think the color of her hair was attractive? And her figure? He hadn’t said anything about her figure. Did he think her ugly and was just too kind to say?
If she had any courage at all, she would confront him on that point. But she discovered that she wasn’t as brave as she thought herself to be, at least not in regard to her own appearance. Nor did she like facing the fact that she wanted him to consider her pretty, or if not pretty, then certainly acceptable.
A word or two of flattery would not be amiss from time to time.
Were men ever as uncertain about their own appearance? She had never heard that they were, and had it not been for her two seasons in London, she wouldn’t have known that other women felt the same way.
Her mother had never spoken of her appearance, had never seemed concerned by it. She never spoke about her green eyes or mentioned her curling auburn hair. They were simply part of her, like her legs or her arms. Her mother seemed not to give a whit about her appearance and, until Sarah went to London, it hadn’t been her focus, either. Once there, however, she’d felt ugly, ungainly, and too tall.
She didn’t have the blond locks and pale blue eyes that were all the rage. Her coloring was too stark, and different. Her figure was too odd, her breasts were too large in comparison to her waist, which was relatively small. She was used to her body, comfortable within it, understanding it, but until she went to London, she had never judged it.
He pushed gently on her shoulder until she was lying flat on her back. She kept her attention determinedly on the ceiling, but it was difficult when he was leaning over her, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.
His hand went to the placket of her nightgown, and to her shock, he began to unbutton it.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as her hand went to cover the next button.
“I want to see your breasts,” he said. “By moonlight.”
“No.”
“Pretend it’s a dream,” he said. “I am a mischief-maker in your dream, a brownie come to entice you to dance naked in the meadow.”
“Absolutely not.”
His fingers pushed her hand away, unbuttoned one more button.
“I shall not ask that you light a lamp. Nor will I touch you, unless you ask.”
“Why would I ask?” she said.
Her hand rested against yet another button, and when he would’ve pushed it away, she would not let him. The opening in her nightgown, however, was enough that he could slide his hand inside if he wished.
“Have you never felt the anticipation of desire, Lady Sarah? Have you never wanted something so much that you could almost feel it, even before it happened?”
It seemed he didn’t need an answer for that question because he bent his head close to her pillow as if inhaling her scent.
“Sometimes the anticipation is too great for caution. Sometimes, you do something rash in order to relieve the tension.”
“Are you going to do something rash?”
“I want to rip the nightgown from you,” he said. “Is that rash enough?”
Suddenly, she could barely breathe. “Yes.”
She sat up then, partly to distance herself from him and partly to ease the tension in her own body. Shewanted to move, needed to do something almost as reckless as what he had proposed.
She unfastened the buttons in the front of her nightgown until it was open to her waist. Slowly, but without thinking about it, she withdrew one arm from the long sleeve of her nightgown, then her other arm, until she was sitting with the garment pooled around her hips and her breasts bared to the moonlight.
