Page 56 of A Figure of Love

Serena closed her eyes and laughed.

Take them off; you know you want to. You want him to see you.

Serena had to agree with the taunting voice. She had, after all, posed more than once for Monsieur Favel when he or one of the others had needed a female form. Replicas of her body fairly littered Europe, armed with shields, winged helmets, and breast-exposing togas.

She wanted him to see her. Her body, although that of a mature woman, was lush and appealing and men found her attractive. She had nothing to be ashamed of and lacked an Englishwoman’s ingrained shame when it came to nudity.

She glanced around, her eyes moving to the hillside where she’d watched from when he was bathing.

He saw her look. “I instructed Jessup that I wished to be alone and to advise the servants I have placed this portion of the river out of bounds. And the men are not digging today, as they have done all they can until after tomorrow. I believe the chances of discovery are less than eleven percent.”

She wanted to ask him how he’d come to such a ridiculous figure but there was no point in delaying the inevitable.

The gown she was wearing was the type of day-dress a woman of limited means wore. It tied at the neck and beneath her breasts, where the bodice was gathered to adjust to any changes in size or to allow for a new owner with no alteration. She removed her fichu first and tossed it onto the ground. His eyes flickered down to it and he frowned, reminding her of his penchant for neatness. Well, that was too bad. She untied the ribbon on her bonnet and tossed it a foot in the other direction, enjoying the way his forehead creased, almost as if the scattering of garments made him physically uncomfortable.

She crouched to remove first one sturdy ankle boot and then the other before standing and kicking them in two directions.

Gareth shot to his feet. “Mrs. Lombard.” He did not raise his voice, but he spoke far more emphatically than usual.

She paused and gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Yes, Mr. Lockheart?”

He made a vague, restless gesture with one hand. “Perhaps you would like to place your garments here, on the blanket. Neatly.”

“No.”

“No?”

She almost laughed out loud.

“You wished me to disrobe and bathe, sir. I am doing exactly that. Now, shall I continue?”

She could see his jaw moving from side to side and could almost hear his teeth grinding over the din of the running water.

He sat down, his back ramrod straight this time, his expression one of grim determination. Serena began to feel sorry for him and the obvious torment the garment tornado was causing him. But then she recalled this had been his idea and reached behind her neck and pulled the tape.

∞∞∞

The events of the past hour and twenty-seven minutes were something of a blur. In fact, nothing was quite clear starting from the moment he’d seen the nude representations of himself in Mrs. Lombard’s sketchbook.

His brain, usually the most reliable of organs, had utterly deserted him. Instead, it was as if some devilish stranger had taken control of his body and began to issue cool and shocking commands. Commands he heartily agreed with, by the way, but which he could hardly believe he was capable of uttering with such mastery.

He’d been having one of the best days of his life, right up until the moment she began to clutter up his enjoyment by distributing her garments in a way that was surely unnatural to any man or woman.

Now, his mind seemed to have fractured. The imp that had engineered this afternoon of unparalleled pageantry was mightily enjoying the display, as was evidenced by an erection that belonged somewhere between nine point nine and ten on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness.

But the total disarray around her!

Her lips curled in a way he could not recall seeing before. . .almost as if she were . . . mocking him. But that was not possible. After all, he was the one wearing the clothing.

She reached behind her neck and everything in life narrowed to that one moment. Their eyes locked as she pulled the tape loose and her neckline sagged lower. She reached her other hand behind her back, her movements sinuous and studied, like the steps of a sensual dance. The second tape made no appreciable change to her garment until she gave it a slight tug and the fabric opened the dress to a wider diameter, until it slid off her arms and down over her hips.

His chest hurt and he realized he’d forgotten to breathe. He inhaled deeply as she stepped out of the puddle of dress, toward him.

His eyes darted from the messy pile of fabric to her plain buckram corset in the shape of an hourglass. Beneath the corset was a whisper-thin chemise, tied around her waist a single petticoat made of undyed muslin.

He looked up at her face when he realized she’d stopped disrobing. She smiled and then reached for the waist tie of the petticoat and released it with a single pull. Again, it slid to the ground with nary a sound.

She left it behind as carelessly and callously as the gown, but his eyes saw nothing except her, now. Like a ship locked in ice, they remained fixed on her stockings, garters, the hem of her chemise—blessedly short—and the snug garment that compressed her into the ultimate manifestation of male desire.