Free My Lady Notorious by Jo Beverley Page B

through him. “Got them,” she said, “but they’re knotted at
the front, I think.”
    Her hands followed the laces to the front. She suddenly jerked back.
“I can’t untie them,” she said in a strangled voice. “You’ll have to
take the gown off.”
    “Oh, I’m sure you can,” Cyn said casually. “Far easier than
struggling out of all this.” His voice was strained too, but with the
urge to laugh. Did she know just where her hands had been? He suspected
she did.
    A silence made him think she would refuse, but then her arms
encircled him again. They met in front, took hold of the knotted laces,
and began to work at them. She made no attempt at all to guard where
her hands touched.
    Cyn took a deep breath. Hoisted with his own petard, by gad! The minx knew exactly what she was doing.
    She’d pulled his skirts up all the way at the back and her belly
pressed against his buttocks. Her arms encircled his waist and her
hands brushed against him again and again as she worked at the knots…
    The first wisps of lust fevered his brain. He could imagine turning
slowly within her arms and kissing her; sinking to the ground to
explore her mouth, her breasts, the warmth between her thighs; the dark
intensity of her eyes when he slid into her…
    His own shudder warned him he had almost gone too far. His erect
penis struggled against his drawers as if seeking the comfort of her
hands. Those hands froze, loosely cradling him. He could feel her rigid
panic.
    Unless, he thought in desperate optimism, it had been a deliberate seduction, and her tension came of desire?
    He pulled out of her arms and turned. No. She was scarlet. Horrified. Frightened.
    Cyn forced himself to relax, struggled to control his breathing.
“Don’t look so aghast, my boy. Perfectly natural reaction to all that
fumbling about. Nothing personal.”
    He turned away and raised the front of his skirts to finish the job.
“We should have realized I could do this at the front myself.” He
pushed the laces toward the back. “There. If you can just knot them,
we’re done.”
    She looked as enthusiastic as someone putting her head into the
mouth of a hungry tiger, but she came back behind him, raised his
skirts again, and took the laces. In a moment they were tied and she
had retreated. He just wished the feelings she’d roused would retreat
as quickly.
    What was he to make of her, bold at one moment, prudish the next?
    “Tell me,” he asked lightly, “are you a virgin, young Charles?”
    “Yes!” Her color flared again, even deepened. “Not that it’s any business of yours!”
    “Of course not,” he soothed. “I merely thought to offer my services to amend the matter.”
    She gaped. He knew she had temporarily forgotten her disguise, but
was all too aware of the state of his body. “What on earth can you
mean?”
    He smiled kindly. “Just that an older man often takes a younger
under his wings and shows him how to go on. Introduces him to the right
kind of female. If we’re going adventuring…”
    He watched her come back to reality with a bump and, he hoped, a
soupcon
of disappointment. A layer of frost settled. “We are engaged in a very
serious business, my lord. It will not allow time for visits to
brothels.”
    “But if it does?”
    He saw the mischievous gleam before she hid it. “I might be interested. But for now, we are supposed to be readying you.”
    Cyn loved the touch of naughtiness. She was too sober, and he knew
it wasn’t her true nature. She was surely a wild creature at heart, kin
to himself, but for some reason afraid. He really must stop tormenting
her.
    “How do I look?” he asked, twirling before her.
    She grimaced. “Flat, top and bottom.”
    Cyn looked down. The skirts hung limp, and the bodice sagged away
from his flat chest. It had clearly been made for a lady of generous
endowments. No one would ever think this gown had been made for him.
    “The gray petticoat will serve to fill out the skirts,” he