Page 42 of The Luckiest Lady in London

There had been no question that they would honeymoon at Huntington and that his summer house party would proceed as usual. How else was he to make her erotic dreams come true?

She sucked in a breath. “It is a fascinating pavilion.”

And she was a fascinating woman. He could not imagine now what he had been thinking when he’d believed he’d marry a girl twenty years his junior with a tremendous pair of breasts and nothing upstairs.

“I have a Roman folly, too, you know,” he informed her grandly.

And much to the befuddlement of his footmen, they both burst into laughter.

Chapter 9

They reached the end of dinner in forty minutes, a record at Huntington. She rose and withdrew with a significant look his way. Don’t make me wait.

But he did make her wait—she ought to know better than anyone else that he was that sort of bastard. He enjoyed his glass of Armagnac with a smile—and perhaps a leer—on his face, thinking of her willingly spread thighs. He walked up to his apartment imagining the moans of her helpless pleasure. And as he slowly prepared himself for bed, in his head he could already hear her pleading for more.

And more. And even more.

He barely managed to duck a flying hairbrush as he opened the connecting door.

She stood at her vanity table, still in her evening gown, her hair loose, her face screwed in displeasure. “I told you not to make me wait.”

“My goodness.” He laughed. “I didn’t marry just a liar, but also a virago.”

She turned her head away with great, hair-tossing drama. “I am not in an amorous mood anymore.”

“What a thing to tell a man who’s come to make love to you,” he said, stalking toward her. “And why, pray tell, if you were in such an amorous mood, did you keep on your dinner gown?”

“I dismissed my maid before I left for dinner. I was planning to use you for a variety of menial tasks tonight—including brushing my hair, by the way, which I had to do myself, because you were probably out in the gardens staring at big-busted statues.”

He pinned her between himself and the vanity table. “Quite wrong. I was picturing your bust and hoping it would be spectacularly diminutive.”

He gathered her hair to one side so he could press a kiss to her nape. She expelled a whimperlike breath. “Why would you want me to be that flat-chested?”

He kissed her earlobe, delighting in the tremor beneath her skin. “Because I like secrets, the bigger the better—and the size of this secret is inversely proportional to the size of your breasts, my dear, dear Louisa.”

The buttons on the back of her dinner gown presented very little challenge. She watched him in the mirror as he undid every last one of them, her lips parted, her gaze heavy lidded. He extricated her from the gown and started on her corset.

“Where is this mythical bust improver of yours? I’m most anxious to make its acquaintance.”

“This one is built into the corset.”

He had now loosened the corset enough to slip it over her head—and examine its amply augmented interior. “Well done.”

“Thank you—I suppose.”

“Now, if you will allow me to help you out of these petticoats, we will be able to tackle your combination and see just how much you’ve exaggerated.”

“Can’t you see that I am practically concave on top?”

The petticoats slid to the floor. He turned her around. “Promises, promises.”

She bit a corner of her lower lip. “I wish I could tell my mother your enthusiasm concerning my hollow chest. She was quite apprehensive during our ‘talk.’ I do believe she barely restrained herself from suggesting Frederica, who needs no help filling bodices, as a substitute bride.”

He rubbed a finger along the neckline of her combination. “Your mother is proving herself an exceptionally silly woman. Did she manage to tell you anything useful?”

“No. I believe you taught me more about the male anatomy with your walking stick.”

They tittered, she winking conspiratorially at him. He was still smiling when he began to toy with the topmost button on her combination. She was so very pretty with her hair tumbled all about her in fat, bouncy curls, her limpid eyes fixed on him, her gaze on his hand one moment, on his eyes the next.