Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch. Miranda JarrettЧитать онлайн книгу.
luminescent in the candlelight.
“Now you understand, don’t you, Jeremiah?” she asked over her shoulder, oblivious to his speechless response. “There is absolutely no way I could do up those lacings myself. I know, because I’ve tried and tried until I nearly wept with my own clumsiness.”
He reminded himself he was a man of the world, a man of experience, but though he knew he should look away he couldn’t, his gaze riveted in admiring fascination to the angled glimpses of her skin. How the devil was he going to act as her lady’s maid, politely ignoring this sort of display? He’d always tried to be a gentleman where ladies were concerned, but this was more than any gentleman should have to withstand. And here he’d been worrying about seeing her in her nightgown!
“Caro, sweetheart,” he began, his mouth dry. “Caro, I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Certainly you can,” she said promptly. “Sailors are supposed to be very good with knots and lines and ropes and things. How different can this be?”
“Oh, it’s different, Caro. Trust me.” He cleared his throat, running his hand back through his hair to keep it from touching her. “Now I’m no expert on such kickshaws and furbelows, sweetheart, but shouldn’t there be more—more petticoats or some such?”
“Of course there should be, but please, please don’t tell your sister!” She turned gracefully halfway around, beseeching him over her shoulder. “I wore the petticoats yesterday because she’d ordered both these mourning gowns for me for this voyage, and I did want to please her, but they’re hot and heavy and stiff and I hate how they tangled between my legs when I walked.”
Lord help him, she wasn’t making this any easier at all. Tangled between her legs, for all love!
“Several years ago, when the fashions were so very bare, one wasn’t supposed to wear a stitch beneath one’s gowns, and I—well, I didn’t. I still don’t, if I don’t have to.” She smiled, the quick conspirator’s grin he’d come to recognize meant trouble for him. “You’re a man, Jeremiah, so you’ll never know how dreadful it is to have whalebone stays and hoops jabbing into your ribs whenever you laugh.”
“I can imagine.” Oh, he imagined, all right, imagined everything there was to imagine.
“Then you’ll understand that I’d rather Desire didn’t know. I don’t want her to think me ungrateful.” She turned away from him again, releasing the fabric she’d bunched in her hand. “Now help me, please, Jeremiah, so we can go up on deck together. I’m sick to death of this wretched little cabin and I can’t wait to see the sun again.”
If she could be so cavalier, than so could he. He took a deep breath and forced himself to study how the back of the gown was constructed. There was one wider tie that seemed to pull the high waist together, and then a narrower cording that must weave the two halves of the back together. No challenge at all, really.
“You must remember I’m only pretending to be a married man,” he said gruffly. “I suppose you’ve grown so accustomed to your husband doing this for you that you think nothing of it.”
“Frederick? Helping me dress?” She laughed, not scornfully but with genuine amusement, yet enough to rankle Jeremiah.
“I suppose you have a whole flock of maidservants to help you instead in that big house of yours,” he said as he untangled a knot she’d worked into one of the laces. “Things are different for a countess, aren’t they? Where I’m from, husbands and wives help each other, and not just because of a lack of servants, either.”
“That’s not the reason,” she said quickly. “It’s that Frederick does not choose to be so familiar, not that we’ve so many servants.”
‘’ ‘Familiar’? Is that what you English call it?” Jeremiah laughed but without much enthusiasm. “I thought that was the whole reason for bothering to marry in the first place.”
“Don’t make judgments about my marriage, Jeremiah.” With her face turned away he couldn’t see her expression, yet he could feel her body tense, her amusement replaced by edginess. “I don’t doubt that what we have differs from your notions of a husband and wife, but in our way we’re happier than most married people I’ve seen. Frederick understands me.”
“Will he understand you asking some other man to do up your clothes like this? Will he understand you pretending to be my wife, sharing this cabin with me?”
“He would understand the circumstances,” she said firmly, though she’d hesitated a moment too long for her conscience to be as clear as she wanted Jeremiah to believe. “In any event, it’s not as if the gown laced in the front. What can my back alone signify?”
“Oh, Caro,” he whispered roughly, “you shouldn’t tempt me to prove you wrong.”
With just his fingertips he traced the long, sweeping curve of her spine, grazing so lightly along her skin that he felt her shiver. Smiling to himself, he ran his hand upward, spreading his fingers so he felt not only the shallow valley, but the soft rise of her back on either side, and this time she gasped. But she didn’t move away, and she didn’t tell him to stop.
And he didn’t.
Caro never would have asked him if she’d thought it would lead to this. But how could she have known? No one had ever touched her like this before. She felt both his hands now as he kneaded the tension from her shoulders, his thumbs working deep into her muscles, and she closed her eyes as her heart quickened and a delicious languor swept over her.
Her conscience told her the freedom she was giving Jeremiah was wrong, no matter how wonderful it felt. She had tried so hard to be a good woman, a lady, and no lady would ever let a man touch her like this. Look what had happened to her own mother, and what had nearly happened to her, as well.
But as she felt Jeremiah ease the silk of her gown further off her shoulders, she couldn’t stop him, not when she felt his hands slide once again down the length of her back, his fingers splayed to cover as much of her as he could. This wonderful, wild sensation that only he seemed able to bring to her simply felt too good. His hands were warm and sure wherever they touched her, learning where her waist narrowed and her hips flared, reaching forward to find the softest flesh on the underside of her breasts. She gasped with surprised pleasure and instinctively arched against him, seeking the strong support of his chest as her own knees turned wobbly as a new lamb’s.
“Oh, Jeremiah, what you’re doing to me,” she whispered with what little breath she still controlled. “Oh my, Jeremiah!”
He chuckled softly, knowing and masculine, as he slid one arm around her waist to steady her. “Exactly what am I doing?”
“You—you know.” Grateful for his support, she turned her cheek against his shoulder, the wool of his coat rough against her skin. With her eyes still closed, she was almost painfully aware of his touch, the stiff hair on his forearm grazing against her side, the rustling silk bombazine of her gown gliding over them both.
“I didn’t know you wanted me to play lady’s maid,” he teased, his lips so close that his breath was warm on her ear, making her shiver yet again. “Don’t be so sure I know what you want now.”
“But you do,” she said breathlessly. “You know better than I do myself.”
“Do I now, sweet Caro?” His other hand moved higher, her breast filling his palm as his work-calloused thumb teased her nipple into a taut peak. She caught her breath as the first hot flames of desire raced through her blood, her whole body tightening, coiling in a way she didn’t begin to understand. Seeking some kind of release she moved restlessly against him, not realizing the agony she was bringing to him until she heard him groan, his grasp on her tightening as he tried to hold her still.
“Steady, lass,” he said, his breathing now as ragged as her own. “There’s naught to be gained for either of us that way, is there?”
“Oh, Jeremiah, I’m sorry!” Unaware