Page 79 of The Siren of Sussex

He reminded himself that he was neither, and that no amount of intimacy between them—no measuring and pinning of her garments—would make him so.

“Miss Maltravers.” He bowed. “May I present my cousin, Mira?”

Smiling warmly, Miss Maltravers extended her hand.

Mira gave it a wary look before taking it.

“I’m so very pleased to meet you,” Miss Maltravers said. “I understand you’ve been embroidering my ball gown.”

“Yes, miss.” Mira withdrew her hand.

“I can’t wait to see it.” She ushered them further inside. “My uncle’s housekeeper, Mrs. Quick, has given this room over for my use. I hope it will suit our purposes?”

He set the boxes down on a tufted chair. There was a silk-printed trifold screen in the corner, and a low tapestry footstool nearby, just the right height for alterations. “It will.”

Miss Maltravers summoned her lady’s maid, Agnes, to help her change. Mira disappeared behind the screen with the two of them, and after much whispering and rustling of fabric, Miss Maltravers at last emerged in her ball gown.

It was a shimmering jewel of a dress, with a magnificent set of double skirts, gored to form a slight train behind. The bodice was cut close to her figure, shaped with darts and skillfully curved seams to hug her midriff and provide a sensual frame for the voluptuous swell of her breasts. Short ruffled sleeves left her arms bare, and a silk ribbon belt served to emphasize the narrowness of her waist.

Ahmad stepped back to look at her, solemn and silent, even as his heart threatened to beat out of his chest.

Good God.

She was all the fanciful, overly romantic things Mira had predicted she’d be. Starshine and moonbeams. A vision of luminous beauty. All creamy ivory skin and fiery auburn hair falling from its pins.

He swallowed hard.

Now wasn’t the time to lose his focus. The dress was unfinished and needed his attention. As for the lady in the dress . . .

“I haven’t a looking glass,” Miss Maltravers said. “And judging by your faces I must be grateful I don’t. I might cry otherwise, to see myself in something so beautiful.”

“Oh, miss,” Agnes murmured under her breath. “It’s ever so fine.”

Mira arranged the delicate gauze upper skirt. It was caught up with ribbons to reveal the box-pleated hem of the silk skirt below. Sunshine glinted over the delicate embroidery, making the glass beads twinkle like tiny stars. “You must take care not to rend the gauze when you reach through to use your pocket.”

Miss Maltravers’s eyes widened behind her spectacles. She looked down at her skirts. “A pocket? What pocket?”

“Here.” Ahmad came to stand in front of her.

He was painfully conscious of her low neckline. Though he’d designed the bodice to be revealing, he hadn’t fully prepared himself for the lushness of this particular view.

Heat crept up the back of his neck as he gently took her hand and drew it to the secret, on-seam pocket he’d made in the silk lower skirt. “It’s for your spectacles. You said you didn’t need them for distance. Now you can tuck them away when you’re not using them.”

There was an odd glisten in her eyes. The same unsettling sheen that had appeared when she’d first seen herself in one of his riding habits. “I never asked you to do this.”

“You didn’t have to ask. It’s my job to take such things into account.”

Her hand slid into her pocket and then out again. “You’ve solved a problem I didn’t realize I had.”

“I can solve it in all of your dresses if you like.”

“Can you?”

“Of course.”

“And it won’t spoil your designs?”

“A dress can be functional as well as beautiful,” he said. “And they’re my designs. I can do what I like with them.”