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Matilda scrunched her lips. How could one strike another for pleasure?
Males were such odd creatures.
She headed up the narrow staircase, arriving at a lantern-lit first floor.
An open door opposite revealed a pleasant dining room, and so she supposed this floor to be the living quarters, small but well maintained, covered by fresh paperhangings with the latest chinoiserie patterns and sumptuous rugs of Turkish design. She turned, as Betty had directed, to the left.
A wide closed door of mahogany confronted her, but as she put hand to handle, a voice bellowed, “Higher.”
Mr Hawkins, if she wasn’t much mistaken.
A muffled reply.
Then a thump.
With brow creased, Matilda opened the door and gazed into a middling-size ballroom.
In the centre, Mr Hawkins stood…naked.
Well, almost naked anyhow.
Solely knee-length breeches and a white loose shirt clothed his powerful frame, those colossal hands raised whilst a slender young man in much the same attire twirled on his toes and batted Mr Hawkins’ open palm with his bare heel.
Matilda closed her mouth.
“Better,” he called. “You’d never be able to use this in the ring, but it’s a handy technique to have. Now, put it into sequence.”
The pair took up a stance similar to the drawings Matilda had studied, but only the young man jabbed out his fists, bare feet dancing soundlessly upon the wooden floor. Mr Hawkins ducked and dodged, his Herculean shoulders straining the cotton seams of his shirt, rolled sleeves displaying bronzed forearms and rippling sinew.
No actual hitting appeared to be taking place, merely fists brushing as though to measure distance and reach.
Skin glistened, Mr Hawkins’ shirt allowing a slab of tanned muscle to peek through.
And weren’t his lower legs hairy?
Matilda blinked.
In 1813, she’d visited Burlington House with her parents to view the marble artefacts purloined from Greece. One frieze had displayed a centaur fighting a disrobed man – all defined muscle and grey-veined, hairless skin – and since then Matilda had thought herself au fait with a male’s components.
Yet…
What the frieze had failed to depict was the grace of movement, the sheen of exertion, the harsh breathing and heaving chest, the hairy legs and–
The buttocks were the same though, and her new employer also sported a fine pectoralis major with a prominent–
Matilda removed her glasses and wiped them clear on her skirt.
Then promptly replaced them.
The young man twirled and stabbed out a foot, his fluid agility a sight to behold, but Mr Hawkins caught the foot before it could clout him on the chin, his shirt front pulling to reveal–
Matilda dropped her reticule.
Bright hazel eyes twisted in her direction.
The foot tumbled from Mr Hawkins’ grip – no effort whatsoever to cover his unseemly dishabille, and he strode towards her, retrieved her reticule from the floor and offered it with open palm.
“Ah, Miss Griffin. I thought you might be early.” He stood so near that she knew not where to place her eyes, so settled upon his – irises the hue of brown earth with flecks of fresh leaf.
