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“Why would a chair have mechanized metal restraints?”
Drew could only conjecture, and what he conjectured was that his brother was a no-good bastard. “Let’s free you from those manacles, MissPenny.”
She attempted to free herself but the bands only tightened. She lifted her ankles and thumped them against the metal bands.
Another mechanism ground to life. The top of the chair began to tilt downward, and the bottom to elongate and lift until her legs were higher than her head.
“Get me down from here,” yelped MissPenny.
He sprinted to the chair and attempted to stop it from tilting any further but it just kept going. “I can’t stop it.”
As the chair rose higher, her skirts slid downward, revealing frilly petticoats and white drawers. He was a man, not a saint. The sight of Miss Penny stretched on the chair with her skirts over her ears was undeniably arousing. She was so perfectly proportioned, all feminine curves and alluring hollows.
Her abundant golden hair had tumbled loose from its pins, and the ends brushed the carpet.
While the sight heated his blood to boiling, the predominant emotion he felt was fury. He was going to kill Rafe. Drew could only imagine what depraved things went on in such a chair. How could he have something like this in the house so close to their mother’s house?
“This is a very impolite chair,” said Miss Penny, her voice brave but muffled by her skirts. “Please make it stop.”
“I’m trying,” said Drew, gritting his teeth as he attempted to bodily restrain the chair from moving.
Chapter16
The chair stuttered to a halt. “Thank you,” Mina said. She couldn’t see Thorndon because her skirts were over her eyes.
Her skirts were over her eyes.
Which meant he could see her petticoats, her drawers, her ankles... damn this impolite chair!
She pressed her thighs together.
“I didn’t do that,” came the duke’s deep voice from somewhere nearby. “I think it reached its maximum tilt. I’ll have you down in a moment, MissPenny. I do apologize. My brother’s indecency knows no limit.”
“You did attempt to warn me.” Why hadn’t she listened?
“I swear to you, I didn’t know about this infernal chair when I warned you away. I was only thinking of the other things.”
“What other things?”
“The contents of the cabinets. What the devil?” he swore under his breath.
“What is it? Your Grace, is something the matter?”
“The lever on the side of the chair, the one you tried earlier. In my agitated state I may have... broken it off.”
“You may havewhat?”
“Don’t panic, MissPenny. Don’t panic. If anyone should come and see you like this I’d be taken to task.”
“And forced to marry me by special license.”
“Oh my God.” Strong fingers slid beneath the metal surrounding her wrist and attempted to force it open. “I’ll cut these damned restraints with clippers if I have to.”
“Take a deep breath, Your Grace. It sounds to me like you’re the one who’s panicking.”
Panicking at the idea of having to marry her. But then she would never wish to marry him, either. “The lever you broke didn’t control the restraints, though it may have made it possible for them to be activated by the weight of my arms and ankles. So there must be another way to open them.”
“There is another lever. But it’s... it’s...”
