Page 20 of The Boxing Baroness

Yes, his eyes were not deceiving him: she wore men’s inexpressibles along with her chemise and stockings.

Why should that shock him at this point?

Indeed, the cotton drawers fell to just below her knees, so there was actually less skin showing than if she’d worn only a chemise.

Yet the knowledge that she wore men’s undergarments was enough to send his already elevated body temperature soaring. Intellectually, he found his body’s reaction ridiculous, but that made it no less powerful.

Jack opened the door to the stove, tossed in a handful of coal, and then shut it with a clang. “I’ll go get ’im, then.”

Him?

Marianne took a fresh towel off the stack and vigorously scrubbed at her short, damp hair. When she’d finished with her hair, she pulled up her chemise.

Sin hissed in a breath as she exposed her taut, sweat-slicked stomach, which was not only flat, but ridged with muscles. The drawers she wore rode low on her slender hips, the dark shadow of her sex visible beneath the thin cotton.

“Good God,” he whispered, unable to look away.

By the time she finished drying her belly, her normally pale skin was rosy pink. As casually as she’d raised the hem of the chemise, she dropped it, hiding her mesmerizing midriff.

And then she pushed down the straps of both her stays and chemise with two practiced flicks.

Sin’s jaw sagged.

Turn away, you cad.

His body was frozen, and not from cold.

She grabbed the front of her stays with one hand and yanked the stiff garment down, taking the chemise along with it and exposing small, exquisite breasts.

Sin swallowed as she roughly toweled the two delicate white mounds—the only part of her that seemed to have any softness at all—the tips a pinky-brown that quickly pebbled in the cold air. A painful-looking bruise was the only thing that marred their perfection.

She tossed aside her towel and jerked up the chemise and stays as quickly as she’d pulled them down.

The burning in his lungs alerted him to the fact that he’d been denying his body air for longer than was healthy. He inhaled shakily and loosened the fingers of both hands, which had fisted at the astoundingly erotic display. No mistress had ever made him ache so fiercely, so fast, and she had not even expended any effort.

Of course, she hadn’t known that she was performing for a despicable, lurking bounder.

Sin decided to feel bad about that later.

She turned to the door as it opened and called out a friendly, “Hello,” as she approached a man who appeared to be a few years younger than her own twenty, his body caught in that awkward stage between boyhood and manhood.

The lad returned her pleasant greeting with an insolent smirk that caused Sin to bristle. Marianne, on the other hand, appeared amused rather than affronted.

The young man turned to Jack. “’Ere then,” he said in a grating, nasal voice, “she ain’t exactly moy weight, is she? Wot if I ’urt ’er?” He eyed Marianne’s lithe, stripped-down body with an insultingly dismissive look.

He was right that he outweighed Marianne by a stone at least and was perhaps two inches taller. Sin wondered if the trainer was not a bit mad to put a woman with a man, no matter that the man in question couldn’t be more than seventeen.

“Just worry about yerself, Tommy,” Jack advised the lad with a wry look. “Do you need a bit o’ time to loosen up?”

Tommy sneered, his beady eyes flickering derisively over Marianne. “Nah, I reckon I’m good the way I am.”

Sin’s fists clenched at the younger man’s obnoxious disrespect. Why he felt offended on Marianne Simpson’s behalf, he had no clue, because she certainly didn’t seem to notice the lad’s behavior.

“Awright, then.” Jack gave an abrupt nod. “Strip down and I’ll wrap yer ’ands before I tie on your mufflers.”

“Wot?” Tommy demanded, halting in mid-strut. “You ’spect me to wear mufflers?”

Jack’s jaw tightened ominously. “I told you that already. If you want the money, you’ll wear gloves. Now, either shut yer gob or get the fuck out.”