“Having trouble with what?” he asked. As if making a final decision, Andrew released the one hand he’d kept on the doorknob and let it fall closed. The noise it made rang with irrevocability.
“Oh,” Della breathed. “My stays. My hands are... not quite functional at the moment, and I can’t get them laced and tied.”
“Would you...” he started to ask, shifting from foot to foot, “like me to assist?” His tone was oddly formal, as if this were an act of common decency. As if he were taking her hand to help her out of a carriage or picking up the handkerchief that had fallen out of her reticule. This was not an act of decency, she hoped. In her wildest dreams, this was an act of want. Not even a particularly active decision, just a sense of need that compelled him forward toward her.
“If you wouldn’t mind.” And then all Della could do was nod.
Andrew let out a noise that Della couldn’t quite place. It was somewhere between a groan and a bitter chuckle. He crossed the room slowly, and she realized some of his rigid posture could be attributed to his manner of dress. He was stunning. In fawn trousers with a matching waistcoat and a cravat she’d never seen before. It must be new, if he’d worn it before it would already be stained.
“You are so beautiful,” he said once he reached her. She felt his words like a caress, across her cheek and underneath her jaw, down over her collarbones.
“I believe you’re supposed to save the compliments for when I’m fully dressed,” Della remarked. It was an attempt to bring some levity to the situation. Everything felt so heavy, even the air between them.
“I’ll be sure to repeat the sentiment then.” In the looking glass in front of them, he smiled. Those dimples were all the levity she needed. Della felt herself relaxing, and as her spine curved, she met the ridges of his chest. His hand came to rest at her waist, and his thumb rubbed circles over the fabric of her chemise just below her still-loose stays.
His other hand moved her unbound hair over one shoulder, and she felt a tug on the laces she’d been trying so desperately to tame. If this was what happened when she asked for help, Della would never dress herself again. The laces tightened just a bit more as he tied them off. In the mirror, she watched as his head dipped to press his lips against the nape of her neck. Della’s sharp intake of breath was audible between them, and she reached for his hand where it still cradled her waist.
“What about your gown?” Andrew asked. She didn’t recognize this voice of his. It was low and husky, almost a grumble that she felt beneath her ribs. “Can you do up the buttons?”
Perhaps on a good day she could. Though she reconsidered, as today was turning out to be a very good day indeed, but she had no desire to even touch those buttons.
“I am not sure,” she murmured.
He seemed to take that as the invitation she’d intended it to be, and he picked up her silk gown off the chair at her side. He draped the back open and held her hand as she stepped in. The silk flowed around the bottoms of her legs and those gorgeous beaded sleeves fell over the tops of her arms. Andrew started at the bottom of her waist, lodging each button with slow precision. It was torture, to feel him so close. His breath blew across the hair at the back of her neck and Della felt the oddest sensation, a tugging in her core. An ache that she’d only read about.
“Andrew,” she moaned, and she felt his entire body stiffen at her back. The hand she still held to her waist flexed against the fabric covering her skin.
She watched in the mirror as he opened his mouth to respond, but then they heard it.
“Della, dear?” His mother’s voice, then a gentle knock at the door. She should’ve known before that it was Andrew rather than his mother. His knock had been much less soft. Perhaps she had known. “Are you ready for me to turn up your hair?”
Della met his eyes. He nodded. He was standing so close his chin brushed her temple. She wasn’t ready, in fact. She would never be ready to let this moment go. She’d never be ready for him to back away, from the aching warmth of those hands to fade into cold.
“Yes,” Della shouted in the direction of the door. Andrew backed away, giving the image of respectability even though they were still alone in her temporary bedchamber. She’d never felt such intense bliss evaporate so fast.
“I’m ready.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Andrew felt pathetic.He hadn’t wanted to come to this godforsaken ball in the first place. He didn’t belong among the rich unless he was working for them, but Della had begged. Well, perhaps begged was an overstatement. She’d asked exactly once. Her eyes had softened, and his heart had melted, and that was all it took. Hence the reason he felt pathetic.
As they rode in tense silence toward the Kittredge home, Andrew cursed his own inability to take action where she was concerned. The more time he spent around her, the more he realized it was entirely possible to be frozen in adoration for someone. He cared so much for her that he’d never been able to risk it. Except he had once, and that had ended disastrously. He could only hope that tonight would be different. For her sake, at least.
The cravat around his neck was impossibly tight, and so was every single one of his muscles. They had been since he’d touched her. Scarcely an hour ago, he’d lived out the beginnings of all of his wildest dreams. Alone with Della, standing so close. Feeling her warmth and her skin. In his mind, it went in reverse. She let him peel the clothes off of her, though he had more than enjoyed helping her dress. The sensation of that almost-liquid silk would linger on the pads of his fingers for days. He would always remember the soul-deep peace he felt when his skin touched hers.
“I will be lingering about the lemonade table,” he heard his mother say. “I am a chaperone in name only. I have no plans to hinder your evening.”
Andrew’s stomach churned while Della laughed. This was why he hadn’t wanted to come. Of course, he wanted to witness her big moment and her triumphant return to society, but he didn’t think he could bear to watch her charm every man in the room the way she’d so thoroughly charmed him.
She hadn’t even tried, all those years ago, just as she wasn’t trying now. She’d done nothing but be herself, a gem of a person everyone in London was going to get to behold in just moments. There would be someone there bolder than himself. Stronger. With more courage. Someone who was not frozen in their enchantment with her, someone who was set aflame by it. Not a coward like him who had her in his arms and let her drift away.
“I’m not sure what kind of evening I’ll have anyway.” Della sighed, looking out the window at the fading light. “I have this terrible fear that no one will want to speak to me. It seems childish to be so scared of silence, but I truly am.”
Andrew heard her voice break, and he would give anything to give her her confidence back.
“Well, that is why we’re here.” His mother grabbed one of Della’s hands, sending her a warm, maternal smile. It made the tight strings around Andrew’s heart loosen. He didn’t think Della had ever received enough smiles like that. No one could ever have enough gestures of familial tenderness, but Della had felt so few.
“I appreciate that—” Della continued, then her words halted on a gasp. Andrew followed her gaze out the carriage’s small window. It was another carriage, the one marked with the Morley crest. Her parents. They hadn’t been sure they’d be here, not entirely. They’d assumed, they’d prepared, but all of that anxious forethought paled in comparison to knowing they were but a few paces ahead of themapproaching the crowd of revelers filing into Kittredge House.
