Free Rules of Surrender by Christina Dodd

her lungs, but every other vital body function ceased. It was an amazingly complete shutdown brought on by a warm, insistent hand, two brown, insistent eyes, and a coaxing, blinding, insistent smile. He was just so close and so… close.
    ”Lady Miss Charlotte?“
    ”Yes. Oh. Yes, my lord, if you believe that I…“ She cleared her throat. ”That is, if you think that I am… er…“
    ”Wonderful,“ he said peremptorily.
    ”Yes. Wonderful.“ She leaned forward, trying to escape his touch. Useless. His hand followed her, a warm entity against her rigid spine. She groped on the tablecloth. Her fingers encountered the folded linen napkin; something to do with her hands. With elaborate care, she pulled it from beneath the silverware and into her lap. ”Yes, if that’s what you think, I would not dream of calling you a… of saying you were anything less than truthful.“
    ”Ah.“ Slowly his hand slid up to her shoulder. He cupped it and squeezed, a gentle pressure that surely seemed more like friendship than caprice, and again she experienced that dreadful, betraying breathlessness. ”You are most gracious.“
    From out on the lawn, Leila shrieked, ”Papa! Papa, is it time to eat yet?“
    The elegant, menacing barbarian straightened and looked over the balustrade. ”It’s time,“ he bellowed back. ”Come before my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.“
    Charlotte glared blindly at the white tablecloth, the four place settings, the goblets and the silver salt server. She didn’t see them; somehow Wynter had emblazoned himself on her vision, as if he were the sun and she had been staring without consideration to her safety or her vision. The children clattered up the stairs, breathless and laughing. She turned her gaze toward them, but still she saw their father’s image in Robbie’s boyish features, in Leila’s gamine grin. They slid into their chairs, one on either side of her, and stared at her guiltily.
    Then Harris whipped out of the door with a basin of water and a cloth over his shoulder and knelt by Leila. ”Let’s clean ye up a bit before ye eat, young master and mistress.“
    Guilty. Of course. They’d gotten dirty.
    She looked down into her lap and saw the napkin, crumpled as if she’d twisted it. Why should the children feel guilty when their governess retrieved her napkin even before they were seated? An unprecedented breakdown of civilized behavior! And—she shot a glare at the still-smiling Wynter as he assisted Harris—it was all his fault.
    She took the first deep breath she’d taken since she’d stepped on the terrace, and that breath quivered with outrage.
    Wynter heard her, for he looked her way, and without pausing in his scrubbing of Robbie’s knuckles, said, ”Lady Miss Charlotte, you are short of breath. You must loosen your corset strings.“
    Harris choked and turned a quivering crimson.
    Charlotte stared straight at the man with her steeliest gaze.
    Picking up the basin, he bowed, bowed again, and hastily vacated the terrace.
    Matters did not soon improve.
    Wynter seated himself across from her.
    ”Lady Miss Charlotte, why do you wear a corset?“ Robbie asked.
    Charlotte struggled between her desire to answer any question the children posed to her, and propriety. ”A corset is a proper undergarment for a lady, but it is not proper conversation at the dinner table.“
    ”Why not?“ Leila asked.
    Wynter leaned his elbow on the table, cupped his chin in his hand and stared at her. ”Yes, Lady Miss Charlotte, why not?“
    Charlotte could see the servants hovering by the door, waiting to serve the meal, but she would not signal them to come. Not yet. ”Undergarments, both male and female, are not to be discussed with the opposite sex at any time, and“—she headed off Leila’s inevitable question—”with the same sex only in moments of extreme privacy.“
    Leila smirked at Robbie. ”Ha, ha, she’s going to tell me about corsets and she’s not going to tell