If anyone had told Hyacinth this evening would end with Lachlan Ramsey’s hands under her skirts, she would have denied the charge most vehemently. She would have said she’d never allow such a thing. She’d have insisted they were mad.
Then she would have spent the rest of the evening wondering what those huge hands might feel like, sliding over her legs, his rough fingertips catching on the delicate silk…
Divine. She’d never had a man’s hands under her skirts before, but now she had, she understood perfectly how it was young ladies could end up ruined.
Or was it just this man’s hands that were so delicious? Was it only his touch that made her eyelids drift closed, and her chest rise and fall like a bellows with each panting breath? Dear God, her bosom was actually heaving. She’d heard whispers about heaving bosoms. She’d always thought it was mere exaggeration, but here she was…
Heaving.
It was so divine she forgot the awful throbbing in her toes and the sharp stab of pain in the arch of her left foot. With a tiny sigh she gave herself over to the seductive stroke of his palm over the back of her knee.
“Damn it. I can’t get the bow loose.” He fumbled at her garters, and Hyacinth let out a soft gasp as his thick fingers grazed the bare skin at the top of her stockings.
His gaze jerked to her face. “Hyacinth? Are you dizzy still? Are you going to swoon?”
Swoon?And miss this? No, indeed.
“No, no, don’t stop…I mean, I’m quite all right, and not the least bit dizzy anymore.” A lie, of course. Shewasdizzy, but for an entirely different reason now.
He gave her a doubtful look, but he continued his fumbling, and after a moment he managed to grasp one end of the ribbon. He gave it a quick tug to loosen it. “There. Got it. I’m going to, um...slide the stocking down your leg now.”
She nodded, bracing herself, but when he dipped his fingers under the top edge of the stocking, it took all of her concentration not to whimper at the seductive glide of his palms over the bare skin of her leg.
My goodness. The shy, prim, reserved Hyacinth Somerset, a wanton? Why, how shameful, or…something else. Delightful?
“There. Just one more to go.”
Hyacinth’s eyes were still closed, but she opened them again at the strained, tortured note in Lachlan’s voice. It was so low and gravelly he sounded like a great, predatory lion, unable to make up his mind whether to growl or purr.
She rose onto her elbows, her brow creased with concern as she studied him. He’d taken great care to keep her skirts pulled down and arranged modestly over her legs, and his gaze was firmly fixed on something over her left shoulder. All very proper, of course, but the fact that he refused to look at her meant he spent a great deal more time foraging around under her skirts than he would have otherwise.
“You can raise my skirts a bit,” she offered. “Just enough so you can see what you’re—”
“No!” The word flew from his lips like a shot from a rifle.
Hyacinth’s eyebrows shot up. “Very well. Are you…are you quite all right?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t look it. He drew his arm across his forehead to wipe away beads of sweat, and when he turned his attention back to her skirts, he wore the same look of grim determination her brother-in law Nick wore whenever Violet dragged him off to the opera.
“Just one more to go,” he muttered again, gritting his teeth, and delving under her skirts a second time. This time he did all he could to keep from touching her, but, alas, the ribbons on her garters wouldn’t untie themselves.
His palm stroking over her calf, the brush of his fingers against her thigh—it was all Hyacinth could do not to stretch and writhe like a lazy cat under his touch, as he left dozens of burning fingerprints on her skin.
By the time he got the bow loose and dragged the remaining stocking down her leg, they were both panting, and Lachlan sagged back against the sofa as if he were exhausted.
Neither of them spoke as they caught their breath, but at last Lachlan turned to her, the hint of a wry grin hovering on his lips. “You couldn’t have chosen to hide in Lord Hayhurst’s study, instead of the library? There’s whiskey there.”
“Next time, perhaps.”
His grin vanished, and the black scowl returned. “There won’t be a next time.”
The hard, uncompromising note in his voice sobered her, and whatever warm glow his touch had engendered dissipated as he gathered her feet back into his lap and carefully drew the first stocking over her heel, and off her foot.
When they saw it, they both gasped, and an agonized curse escaped his lips. “Jesus.” He moved instinctively to cradle her foot, but he froze with his hand hovering helplessly over the battered limb, clearly afraid to touch her.
Hyacinth stared down at her foot as if it didn’t belong to her at all. She’d known it was bad, but this…dear God, how could a pair of gentleman’s pumps do so much damage? How had she managed to stand, much less walk out of the ballroom and down a long hallway to the library?
