My Lady Notorious (9 page)

She left, and Cyn took the time to force control onto his body. He
took some calming breaths and thought cold, unlustful thoughts.

As his body returned to a more passive state he reflected with
satisfaction upon the encounter with his damsel. They progressed,
indeed they did. Was she really a virgin? That would present problems,
but not insuperable ones. She was clearly no conventional miss.

It was perhaps a little unsporting to let her think him unaware of
her gender, but she had just shown she wasn’t above trying to exploit
the situation too, the hussy. He grinned with admiration and
anticipated her return.

He began to struggle into the gray quilted petticoats. By the time
he’d tied the laces he felt smothered in all this material. He kicked
the skirts out of his way as he tried to pace, thinking that perhaps
hoops were preferable after all. They’d keep the material from tangling
about his legs.

He had no intention of trying to wear secondhand shoes, and so he
slipped on a pair of his own. They were his evening shoes—black kid
with high red heels and silver buckles. Though ladies rarely wore such
shoes anymore he would merely be thought old-fashioned.

He walked a bit more, growing accustomed to the garments, to the way
they moved as he walked, and the way to walk within them. Had Charles
had to go through this performance when she first put on men’s
garments? She’d certainly learned to move with manly confidence.

His damsel returned with a big basket and held out a neckerchief. “Put this on.”

It was a coarse, plain triangle of material, not at all like the
filmy, ruffled ones his sisters wore. He obediently draped it around
his shoulders, wondering what to do with the loose ends.

She clucked with exasperation. “Oh, sit down.” When he sat in a
chair, she deftly tucked it into his neckline at the back, crossed the
front points at his collarbone, and tucked them behind the stomacher.
He refrained from commenting on this expertise and simply enjoyed her
touch.

When she’d finished, he looked down. The bodice still hung loose.
“What do you suggest? Handkerchiefs? I’m not sure I have enough for
this vast cavern.”

“No. They would be too lumpy anyway.”

“My dear Charles,” said Cyn coyly, “who precisely do you think will be feeling my bosom?”

She cast him a disgusted look. “Everyone, if you behave as a woman
like you do as a man. You’re a bold piece, Milord Cyn, and aptly named.
Look.” She indicated her basket which contained unspun wool. “Nana’s
next blanket,” she explained, and passed him a handful. “Push it behind
the stomacher.”

He sat down and pulled out the bodice. “I think it will have to go
inside the shift to be secure.” After a couple of handfuls he said, “It
would work better if you stuffed it in and shaped it. You’ll be able to
see what you’re doing.”

She gave him a suspicious look, but dutifully came over to push the
soft gray wool down against his skin, handful after handful. She
stopped every now and then to ease and adjust it to the shape of the
bodice.

Cyn knew it was unwise to have her touch him like this, but being
unwise in such matters was second nature to him. He relaxed back in the
chair, studying her serious features.

Gad, but she was beautiful. Her skin was as smooth as cream satin,
and the lines of her nose and jaw were as perfect as a marble statue.
Her lashes were not as thick or long as his, but the purity to their
dark curve was the only possible frame for her clear gray eyes.

He felt a cad for having lustful thoughts about such a pristine being, such a madonna.

Then she was concentrating. Her lips parted. Her tongue came out to touch her upper lip with moistness. He caught his breath.

She looked at him. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” he said, swallowing. “It tickled.”

She considered him warily. He caught the revealing flicker of her
eyes toward his crotch, but any physical response was safely concealed
beneath quilted silk and heavy cloth. He smiled blandly, and she went
back to work.

Cyn didn’t know why he was hell-bent on having this torture continue. He’d be a wreck before they finished.

Chastity watched nervously for a return of Cyn Malloren’s lust, but
then she realized it was not him she should be wary of. Each touch of
his skin against her hands was like fire to her nerves. Each breath she
took carried a musky smell that dried her mouth and made her lick her
lips…

This couldn’t be happening to her! Men were animal creatures, easily
stirred to lust. Women were more refined. They didn’t come into heat
just from stroking a man’s chest!

She sternly commanded her foolish senses to behave, and pummeled his bosom into shape.

Cyn worked at appearing bored. It wasn’t easy. His damsel was
pressed against him, breathing unsteadily, lips full and moist with the
need to be kissed.

And he’d go odds she didn’t even know it.

Her hands trembled against him, and she looked into his eyes for one lost, revealing moment…

Then she caught herself and moved away. “There. I think that looks true to life.”

Cyn sighed for what might have been, then he looked down. “‘Struth!” he exclaimed. “I’ll cause a riot!”

Chastity’s mind was fogged by unruly longings, but his remark
dragged a laugh from her. “Not if you thrust it forward and glare,” she
said. “Then they’ll call you a battle-ax. And you better had. If anyone
does feel your tits, they’ll know they’re not real.”

He looked at her with a wicked glint. “I think you’ve been leading me on, young Charles. How do you know what tits feel like?”

Chastity could not think of a clever answer. “You know the problem with this?” she said quickly.

“No.”

“We’ll have it all to do again tomorrow.”

She saw the hilarity in his eyes before he stood. “
Il faut suffrir pour etre femme
,” he drawled, and twirled again. “Now. Will I do?”

And, heaven help her, she too would enjoy playing this game again tomorrow. She was undoubtedly mad.

She pulled her mind back to work and looked him over.

“Somewhat,” she said with a frown. “But I don’t think you make as pretty a woman as you thought you would.”

“Want to change roles?”

She remained silent and he smiled.

Cyn peered into the small mirror. “I forgot to buy a cap. A matron should have a cap.”

“I’ll get one,” she said, and left.

Not pretty? Cyn realized she was correct. His jaw was a little too
square, his cheeks too lean. He carefully applied rouge to them, and
was heartened to realize that for once he looked too masculine.

He dusted his tanned neck, chest, and face with the pale powder,
then rubbed some rouge onto his lips and pouted into the glass. He
pulled the ribbon from his hair and combed the russet waves so they
hung about his face. He teased curls out around his temples as he’d
seen his sisters do.

Then he took up the perfume and dabbed a little by his ears. It was
a musky, sultry fragrance that would distract the senses of any man who
came close. That, along with his tremendous bosom, would have him
defending his honor ten times a day.

He’d mainly bought the perfume, however, in the hopes that
eventually his damsel would wear it for him. He indulged briefly in
thoughts of her, naked and damp with lusty sweat, her body perfumes
mingled with this artificial one…

When he heard her return, he turned and pouted his reddened lips. “Kiss me, sailor?”

Chastity was startled by how feminine he looked. He’d fluffed out
his hair and rouged his cheeks, but it wasn’t simply the cosmetics and
the figure. It was something in he way he stood, in the slight droop of
his neck, and the coy use of his lashes. He was a gifted mimic.

Again, she knew he was dangerous. As she handed him the plain cotton cap, she swore off all future skirmishes.

He took it between two fingers and considered it as a disdainful
lady would. “No frills? No lace? How terribly dull,” he drawled in a
husky but feminine voice. “I suppose it does match the equally dull
neckerchief, however. To whom do these drab items belong?”

Chastity didn’t want to answer that question. “That’s all there is,”
she said bluntly. “Verity has scarcely the clothes she stands up in. If
its plainness bothers you,” she added sweetly, “you can embroider it in
the coach. ‘Twill be a suitably matronly occupation.”

“ ‘Twould be disastrous,” he said, matching her tone. “I’m sure even
you could wield a needle better than I, sir.” He turned away to put on
the cap in front of the mirror. It was designed to cover all the hair,
but he managed to set it back on his head so the front hair showed.
When he’d tied the strings under his right ear, even that dismal
headgear looked almost fetching.

Chastity discovered that high-minded resolutions didn’t always work.
She had sworn off skirmishes, but was still under assault. She and Cyn
weren’t touching, they weren’t even looking at each other, he seemed
more like a woman by the moment, and still she felt light-headed.

It was impossible that she feel like this. She had never in her life
reacted to a man in such a way, and these days she hated all men. She
wondered if women
could
come into season, like horses. That was what it felt like. As if she were a giddy mare scenting her first stallion.

But he was hardly the first male she’d met.

She’d encountered all kinds of men, especially in London. There had
been ones who quoted poetry, and ones who made sly, unseemly
suggestions. Ones who reverently kissed her hands, and ones who groped
at her body under the concealment of the dance. Then there had been
Henry Vernham, who had thought he had the right to put his chilly hands
all over her until she’d shown him his error by stabbing him with a
pair of needle-sharp scissors.

None of these men had made her feel at all as Cynric Malloren did, and he wasn’t even trying.

It was unreasonable.

It was impossible.

It was incredibly dangerous and could not be allowed.

For heaven’s sake, she’d even enjoyed a brief flirtation with
Rothgar without this effect, and he was the kind of man mothers warned
their daughters about. As handsome as Cyn was beautiful, he carried an
aura of dark power which had its own magnetic quality.

She remembered one encounter in a dim arbor of a garden during a
ball. She’d known it was bold to go apart with him, and had been
curious as to what he would do.

Smiling, he’d put a finger under her chin and merely touched his
lips to hers. She’d felt singed—wickedly, deliriously singed, in a far
more potent way than during the few groping full kisses she had
permitted from other men.

Chastity had enjoyed the excitement of touching on something so
dangerous, and yet she had felt nothing in particular for Rothgar, and
had been secure in the knowledge that he felt nothing in particular for
her. There had been none of this obsessive awareness of the man’s every
move, this dizzying vibration from the slightest touch.

She made a silent prayer that Cyn never find out she was female, for
then he might unleash the full power of his wiles against her, and
she’d surely be lost.

Cyn grimaced as he put on the plain, coarse cap. He guessed cap and
kerchief must belong to his damsel, but what could possess her to
choose such ugly pieces? They were more suitable to the inmate of a
house of correction.

When he put these garments together with her masculine dress, he
wondered if she hated her very femininity. Look at her now. Her face
had all the warmth of a marble deathmask.

Why on earth was he drawn to such an oddity? Why was he stirred by
her more than he’d been stirred by the most skillful whore, or the most
fetching lady? It must be abstinence. He’d not had a woman since before
he became ill. Perhaps this reaction proved he was fully recovered.

In that case, all he needed was a lusty, willing wench and his obsession with his damsel would disappear.

But he found he had difficulty imagining being aroused by any woman other than this one. That was alarming in the extreme.

He sifted through the pathetic collection of trinkets and clipped a
pair of earrings of painted tin on his lobes. He dismissed the rest and
demanded his own jewels. He sprinkled them about the sober garments,
then turned his attention to the flat straw hat.

He wound the yards of fawn ribbon around the low crown and then
formed a great deal of it into a loveknot at the front, anchoring it
with the pearl-and-diamond pin. He passed the remaining ribbon through
the two slits at either side, popped the confection on his head, and
tied the ribbons in a large bow.

Chastity was astonished by his nimble expertise. “Dress like this frequently, do you?”

He turned and smiled, disconcertingly female. “No, but I’ve dressed,
and undressed, a number of females in my time.” He fluttered his
outrageous lashes. “Don’t worry, young Charles. Your turn will come.”

Chastity’s body responded to a meaning he could not possibly intend.
For a moment a vision of his long brown fingers slipping off her
clothes swamped her reason.

He touched her arm and she flinched. He appeared not to notice and
just pushed her gently ahead of him out of the door. “Let’s see what
Verity thinks of this transformation.

When they entered the parlor Verity looked up and stared. “My goodness! If I didn’t know, I’d never guess.”

“Let’s hope that is true for everyone.” Cyn looked over Verity in turn.

She was the picture of a rather slatternly maid. She still wore the
plain, sleeved chemise, a skirt of cheap striped cloth, and a
sleeveless laced bodice in a practical and ugly mud color. She’d added
an apron, and a neckerchief, knotted in front. A cap covered almost all
her hair. Cap, neckerchief, and apron looked suspiciously kin to the
ones he wore. Unpleasant suspicions stirred in his head.