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“That can’t be true.”
“I have difficulty keeping housekeepers. As fast as I engage one, they find a reason to flee.”
“Perhaps Gertrude has something to do with that.”
“Maybe.”
“There are other reasons for servants to run screaming from the premises?”
Lord Hatherly shrugged. “Might be.”
“Well.” Alice drew herself up, ready to shoulder new burdens. “I may have to institute a few improvements during my time at Sunderland.”
Lord Hatherly’s gray eyes darkened. “No changes. The household functions perfectly well.”
“With no housekeeper and only intermittent maid service?” Alice sniffed. “Mama would be scandalized.”
He gave her a seductive smile. “I’d be happy to assist with your toilette, Lady Hatherly.”
Closing the distance between them in two long strides, he placed his large hands on her shoulders. “Turn around.”
Alice’s heart raced as he nudged her shoulders until she followed his instructions.
He untied her bonnet and laid it aside. The pelisse quickly followed.
Then he began plucking hairpins and strands of pearls from her disheveled coiffure.
Could the removal of hairpins make one’s knees buckle? Seemed a commonplace enough procedure. One Hodgins had performed hundreds of times.
But there was nothing commonplace about Alice’s reaction to his strong, sure movements in searching for the pins, freeing them gently without once pinching her scalp.
“Hold still,” he commanded. “One’s caught.”
She held her breath as he yanked on the pin. This was the most intimate contact she’d ever had with a gentleman. Somehow more intimate even than his kiss in her father’s study.
No gentleman had ever seen her with her hair completely unbound before.
When every pin was gone, he gathered up her hair and slid it all over one shoulder, exposing her back. “Now, the gown,” he whispered in her ear.
Alice spun around. “I can’t allow you to remove my gown in broad daylight.”
She’d never contemplated exposing herself in such a way.
She’d imagined candlelight. Moonlight.
“I’ll find a way,” she said. “I’ll manage.”
“Really?” Hatherly folded his arms. “Show me.”
“Pardon?”
“Show me that you can undo the top button.”
Alice twisted this way and that, reaching back and finally managing to undo the top pearl button. “There,” she said, a bit breathlessly, only because she’d been exerting herself.
Certainly not because he was standing so close, watching her disrobe.
His eyes glinted. “Now the next one.”
