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This man, one who commanded half the island of Manhattan, noticed me. Wanted me, even. It seemed unreal, but the truth was plain in the lust stamped across his flushed features.
Still, I hesitated. What did he plan to do?
“Anything I want, whenever I want it.” He jerked his chin and patted his thigh. “That’s our bargain, widow.”
My enthusiasm dimmed considerably. This was a bargain, nothing more. I couldn’t forget it. I was doing this to save my father and Bax was doing this to . . . humiliate me? Humiliate my father? Either way, this wasn’t a romance, and I was Bax’s willing strumpet for however long it took to rescue my father.
I had to remain brave. Sliding across the carriage, I gingerly placed my bottom on Bax’s knees.It’s no different than sitting on his lap during the meeting.
Except the upper half of my body was nearly naked.
His palms swept up my back and across my ribs, shaping and testing me. Feeling how the garment supported my breasts. My nipples tightened inside the whalebone, silk and cotton, pushing out and begging for his attention.Yes, definitely a strumpet.
His hands drifted over my middle. “Look at all the beauty you’ve been hiding under that hideous crepe gown.”
“That is generally where undergarments are worn. Under gowns.” I was nearly panting, my voice thin from lack of air.
“I wasn’t referring to the undergarments.”
My belly clenched at the compliment. No one had ever said something so thrilling about me before. “Thank you.”
“Is it comfortable?”
“Yes, actually. It’s very well constructed. The silk is imported from—” Dash it. Billy Baxter didn’t care about the stitching of my expensive undergarment.
“Don’t stop,” he urged, his fingers gliding perilously close to the mounds of my breasts.
I wanted him to touch me there. Desperately. I arched my back ever so slightly.
“Belle. Keep talking.”
“Hmm? Oh, the silk. You don’t really wish to hear all that, I’m sure.”
“Wrong. I want to hear every thought going on in that gorgeous brain of yours.”
He really needed to stop with these compliments. They weren’t necessary. “The silk is woven in Lyon by a group of nuns. They’ve used the same process for hundreds of years, taught to them by the Italians when they first moved into the area. Then the silk is shipped to Maison Joubert in Paris. Monsieur Joubert designs these corsets.”
“Yeah? All I know is I fucking like the feel of it.”
“I have seven others,” I said.
He groaned and dropped his head back onto the seat. “You’re killing me, widow.”
“I don’t care if people think it’s extravagant or wasteful. Some Fifth Avenue princess wasting her father’s money—”
“Whoa.” He slid me closer. “I didn’t say any of that. If you want to spend your pin money on pretty undergarments, who am I to complain? I love the way you look in them.”
“You don’t think they make me look loose?”
“No one could ever accuse you of being loose.” He dragged a fingertip along the satin edging, and I shivered. “If they do, they will answer to me—and I will cut their tongues out for disrespecting you.”
My heart swelled like a lovesick schoolgirl. Why was that the most romantic thing I’d heard? Goodness, I was being foolish.
I inhaled and reminded myself who I was and who I was with. This was a means to save my father, nothing more. “It doesn’t matter, because I can’t buy them any longer.”
“Why not?”
“The tariffs on luxury fabrics. The customs house charges almost double the cost of garments like this.”
