Page 35 of Better Off Wed

With fingers that fumbled only a little, he reached beneath her hems to untie her garters and gently rolled down first one stocking, then the other, sliding the first from her left foot, and finally easing the second over her tender right ankle.

“How does it look?” she asked.

“Beautiful. Er, I mean to say, it looks to be healing beautifully. The swelling’s gone down from last night.”

She had closed her eyes, bracing for discomfort that never came, but now her eyes popped open. “Last night? I didn’t know—”

“I, er, I was watching when—that is, when Mr. Phelps was examining the injury, he called me over.” She watched him ball her stockings nervously in one hand, then apparently discovering belatedly what he’d done and uncertain what to do with them, he stuffed them into the same coat pocket in which he’d stashed the tonic. Finally, he raised his eyes to her face, and she saw a telltale flush across his cheekbones. “Do you not recall?”

The laudanum must already have begun to work, for her breathing felt suddenly shallow, uneven. She could not speak, only managing to move her head in something that must have passed for a nod.

He pushed himself to a half-kneeling position. “Right then. Let’s get you up.”

His hands at her waist, lifting her, steadying her when she wobbled, turning her to face the bed—it was only the familiar strength and firmness, the same hands that had carried her the night before. Nothing had changed.

If his touch seemed different now, gentle, almost reverent, it was only because she had so little experience with the hands of men, and almost all of it limited to the sort of grasping and groping Penhurst had done that night at Vauxhall.

Still it would be easy to make too much of the way his fingers loosened the fastenings of her gown—was that a tremor of nervousness? or something else entirely?—and unknotted the laces of her corset. His fingertips never brushed her skin, yet her flesh tingled with awareness.

He’d been right to call this unwise.

“Tell me,” she said, though it required clearing her throat twice before the words would come, “what was discussed at dinner.”

“Oh, nothing of particular interest. Lady Thornton wanted to hear more about our courtship. Apparently my proposal of marriage was…what did she call it? Ah, yes. ‘Heart-stoppingly romantic.’”

His proposal? Oh, dear God. They’d been caught in a lie, and Jeremy didn’t even know it.

Instead of stopping, Laura’s heart, which had been beating too fast already, began to hammer against her ribs, threatening to break free of what had heretofore seemed a sturdy enough cage. Surely he could feel it pounding?

He’d paused in unlacing her as he searched for the word, but now he resumed drawing the sturdy silk cord through the eyelets, at each step a quiet zing. “I pretended modesty, of course, and told her I’d been so nervous I could hardly remember your answer, let alone what I might have said that prompted it. Her eldest daughter was generous enough to offer a few hints.” Zing. “For a moment, I could not think why such a speech would sound familiar, then I recalled where I had heard it: from the lips of Kean himself in Love’s Crooked Arrow last season. Evidently the story is a great favorite with your sex; my sister insisted on seeing it three times.”

Had she stolen the idea from the play? Fortunately, Jeremy’s memory was better. “Did anyone else recognize it?”

Zing. “No. I do not believe Lady Thornton ventures much into town, and if Thornton attends the theater, I doubt he goes to hear the play.” Zing, zing. “I must say, I’m surprised you were willing to give your husband such eloquent words. Any real ones a man might offer would be lackluster in comparison.”

Her corset began to gape, and she tried not to wonder about the condition of her shift. Until that moment, she had never worried much about undergarments that no one ever saw. “Honesty is always preferable to a rehearsed speech, I think.”

“I am glad to know our fine English actors have not left you jaded.” One last zing, and then, out of the corner of her eye, she watched him lay the coil of corset lacing on the bedside table. “Shall I fetch your nightgown?”

“No, I’ll just…manage...” Shyness was not a condition with which she was ordinarily afflicted. But now, positioned between Jeremy and the enormous bed, longing for something she was reluctant to name, she no longer knew what to do. She had not considered the dreadful possibility that pretend emotions might become real. Shaking free of her dress and corset, she clambered onto the bed without assistance, heedless of either aching head or injured ankle, and pulled the sheets up to her chin.

The sudden series of movements seemed to startle Jeremy, who took a step back and developed an unexpected interest in the ornamental molding on the ceiling. “All set, then?”

“If you could…cover me…” She gestured toward the blue counterpane draped half off the bed and onto the floor.

“Yes, of course.” He bent to straighten the bedding, then kept going, until he was kneeling beside her. His dark hair gleamed like a raven’s wing in the lamplight.

“Jeremy, I—”

When he looked up, the pounding of her heart became something perilously close to anticipation. Then he rose again, clutching her discarded clothes in one hand and a folded piece of paper in the other. “Miss Godfrey’s note. Wouldn’t want to forget that.”

Mortification flushed into her face. She was in danger of forgetting a great deal more than that. “Burn it, please,” she instructed him, certain the heat of her cheeks would be sufficient to do the job. “I should have done already.”

He nodded, strode to the fireplace, and flicked the note into the glowing coals. “There. Now it won’t cause any more trouble.”

If only. “Strange the upheaval a single slip of paper can cause.”

His head tipped to one side, as if the remark required a great deal of thought. “Yes. I suppose it is.” Then he disappeared into the dressing room.