Page 70 of Dare it all for Love

“I’m not,” Florence said, setting the box aside. She moved closer to him and slid her arms about his waist. “I’m glad I had to chase you down, Henry Stanhope, for you know I do love a challenge.”

He smiled at her words, but there was a look in his eyes that made her breath come faster.

“Um…” she began, racking her brain for something to say.

“Florence, I’d like to take you to bed now.”

Oh. It was finally happening. She couldn’t breathe. This was ridiculous. Why was she so nervous? She’d been pursuing this man for weeks, desperate for his touch, and now she had it… Lud, but her wretched corset was tight.

“Florence?”

“Um… bed. Yes. Yes, we should certainly, definitely… g-go to bed.” She nodded, her head bobbing up and down too fast, staring at the object in question as her pulse thundered in her ears. “Because that’s what people do, w-when they’re married. They go to bed. Together. It’s nighttime, after all, and—”

“Florence?”

“Yes?”

“You’re babbling, love.”

“I know. I can’t make it stop.”

“Don’t worry. I can.”

Henry kissed her, pulling her into his arms and slanting his mouth over hers. For a moment she stood rigid in his embrace, and then all at once the tension drained out of her body as the rightness of the moment wrapped about her as firmly as Henry had. There was no need to be nervous, no need for anxiety. Henry was with her, and that was all that mattered. She was safe, he always made her feel safe. He pulled back, staring down into her eyes for a long moment, searching her expression.

“Better?” he asked.

Florence sighed. “Much. Thank you.”

The grin he returned was boyish and pleased and quite irresistible.

“Right, let’s get this dress off you,” he said, standing back to consider her beautiful gown as though it were one of the labours of Hercules.

It was lovely and delicate, the silk a very pale shade of silver and trimmed with large swathes of Honiton lace. It had also been the very devil to get into.

“Perhaps I should ask Maisie—”

“No.” Henry’s dark brows drew together, and he shook his head, a look of fierce determination in his eyes. “I learned to sail, I can manage rigging, I can even tie a gunner’s knot, so this… this is… I can do this. Turn around.”

Florence bit back a smile and turned, waiting as her husband patiently undid buttons and hooks.

“I’m thinking of going into dress design,” he muttered. “Because whoever is currently responsible for this mode of fashion is a damned sadist. A woman designed this, surely? No man in their right mind would make it so damned difficult to undress his wife. Not a sane one, anyway.”

He chuntered on, grumbling under his breath a bit longer until the dress was completely undone. Florence stepped out of it.

“Now the corset,” she said brightly.

Henry groaned.

Florence laughed as he tugged and cursed at the strings of her corset. Perhaps it was nerves, but the situation tickled her immensely and the harder she tried not to laugh the worse it got. He was kneeling behind her now, wrestling with a knot.

“A fine thing, laughing at your husband on your wedding day, tormenting him with this confounded contraption. A plague on all modistes the world over, I hope their whale bones splinter and their strings snap.”

Florence slapped a hand over her mouth, hysteria bubbling inside of her. Goodness, but he was funny.

“There!”

Henry’s exclamation of triumph was so full of pride that it was the last straw. It was no good, she turned to look at his jubilant expression and laughed until tears ran down her cheeks and she was gasping for breath. And then his hand slid up the back of her knee, her thigh, his finger tracing a delicate line under the curve of her bottom. She made a hiccoughing sound and stopped abruptly.