by Sara Portman
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lucy’s life in the vicarage was busy. There was always some project or parishioner that required attention. As such, Lucy usually reveled in those peaceful moments to herself when she could read, write letters, or simply gaze out a window in quiet repose. After the excitement of the prior week, however, several days in a row of nothing in particular to do had exhausted Lucy’s capacity to enjoy solitude.
Emma was increasingly tired and had taken to the habit of lengthy afternoon naps. Lucy had written to her parents, completed The Little Academy, and had recounted in her mind numerous times her foolish offer to Bex.
She was so desperate for any distraction, she was grateful for the knock that interrupted her thoughts, even when it was only Agnes who opened the door at her summons.
“Yes, Agnes?”
The girl’s eyes were bright with excitement. “There’s a package delivered for you, miss.”
“A package?” Lucy repeated. Now, that had potential to break her monotony, but she was not expecting anything. “Well, bring it in and let’s see what it is.”
Agnes stepped into the room, her arms carrying a box wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with simple string. It was large enough to be intriguing. Lucy took it from her, feeling it. It was weighty, but not heavy, precisely.
She set the package on the bed and considered it. She could not think of anyone who might send her a parcel. Perhaps it was some sort of thank-you from Lady Constance? Lucy didn’t feel she deserved thanks, but if Lady Constance felt strongly about it, a simple note would have sufficed. This parcel was more substantial than a note. It felt decidedly present-like, despite its plain wrapping.
“Do you know who delivered this, Agnes?” Lucy asked, as she worked at the knot at the center of the parcel.
“No, miss. It was brought upstairs to me by one of the footman. I didn’t make any inquiries.”
Of course not, Lucy thought, finding the knot particularly stubborn.
The knot finally released and the rough string fell away. She peeled back the folded brown paper to reveal a box marked with the scrolled letter D—the signature of the dressmaker Madame Desmarais. It was too much. Lady Constance had already provided the dress for the concert. Already composing in her mind the thank-you letter she would immediately dispatch to the comtesse, Lucy lifted the lid on the box. Its contents were wrapped in raw muslin. She lifted one corner of the muslin and saw a patch of rich, deep red. Her pulse skipped. She lay the fabric back down, safely covering the bold color again.
“Close and lock the door, Agnes,” she commanded brusquely.
“Yes, miss.” Agnes hustled to do as she asked, then sidled toward Lucy, her curiosity no doubt piqued.
Lucy took a deep breath and peeled back the raw muslin a second time, feeling her temperature rise as she glimpsed the red fabric again. She spread the covering wide and gazed down at a scarlet silk bodice trimmed with jet beads.
She heard Agnes gasp.
“Who knows this parcel was delivered, Agnes?” she asked, her eyes still focused on the contents inside the wrapping. She was afraid to touch it.
“I don’t know, miss,” Agnes said, taking the question as an invitation to step forward and peer over Lucy’s shoulder. “I think it’s a gown,” she whispered, her voice thick with astonishment and wonder. “It’s red as blood.”
It was indeed. Red as sin.
Lucy reached down and fingered the row of jet beads. They winked at her in shiny blackness against the silky red of the fabric. Gently she ran her palm across the dress. It was smooth and chilly against her warm hand. She swallowed. Gingerly, she took one shoulder of the dress in each hand and lifted it slowly.
“Oh,” Agnes breathed.
The gown was beautiful—wickedly beautiful. It was richer and bolder than anything she’d ever seen, much less owned. It was scandalously low cut. The sleeves were barely more than wide-set wedges of spare silk.
“Who would send such a dress?” Agnes asked, her voice hushed and reverent.
Who indeed.
Lucy felt warm everywhere. Surely her skin must nearly match the dress for how hotly her flush burned. She did not answer Agnes’s question. She knew—oh, she knew—but she did not answer.
“Is it a gift?” Agnes pressed.
A gift. Lucy smiled to herself. This dress was no simple gift. It was an invitation.
No.
He was not sending her an invitation. He was accepting the invitation she’d already given.
Had she really meant it? Could she go through with it? She stared at the dress and knew what accepting it meant. Had she been in earnest? Did she really want a love affair with Bex Brantwood?
“Will you try it on, miss?” Agnes asked.
“Do you think I should?” Lucy felt an exhilarating panic at the thought of actually wearing the dress, even if only in her bedroom and only in front of Agnes.
“Don’t you want to?”
Lucy lay the dress back onto the bed and turned to the maid, who was staring at the garment in wide-eyed reverence.
Yes. She did. She very much wanted to try it on. And besides, it would be cruel to disappoint Agnes, wouldn’t it?
“I…I suppose I could try it on,” Lucy said, running her hands over the fabric again. She couldn’t keep herself from touching it. “I’m sure I could never actually wear it, but”—she gazed down at it—“someone must have worked very hard to make it. It seems a shame to not even try it on.”
“Oh, yes.” Agnes clapped her hands together. “Let me help you.” Agnes dove forward, grasping at her chance to handle the garment. She lifted it completely out of its wrapping and draped its full length across the bed.
Lucy gaped at it. It was very, very red. It was loud as a scream against the coverlet of pale green and pink flowers.
“There’s another piece,” Agnes said.
Lucy turned as Agnes lifted another garment. It was a chemise. Lucy reached forward and touched it. It was the softest, most delicate chemise she had ever seen.
It was dyed the same blood red as the dress.
Surely, no respectable woman wore a dyed red chemise. She had never heard of such a thing. Red undergarments? Should she try it on? She looked at Agnes in indecision.
The girl bit her lip and shrugged, still holding the wisp of red up for them both to see. “It does seem to be made for the dress,” she said into the shocked silence.
Lucy nodded slowly. “I…yes…it rather does, doesn’t it?”
Agnes lay the chemise onto the bed and riffled through the box again. “There are slippers as well. And stockings,” she said. Then she lifted a scrap of paper with a wide, triumphant grin. “There is a note.”
With a shaking hand, Lucy took the note from Agnes and read it. It was brief and cryptic.
Tomorrow. One o’clock. Number 27 Inverness Terrace.
She stared at it for a long moment then released a sigh that became a nervous laugh on exhalation. Well, what was a scandalous liaison without a scandalous dress? She blew out the rest of her nervous air in a determined rush. “Agnes, I am going to try it all on.”
The maid nodded; her expression was the picture of neutral acquiescence, but her eyes twinkled in anticipation. She lay the chemise back down and quickly set to work on the buttons at the back of Lucy’s day dress.
Once Lucy was stripped of all but her plain white chemise, Agnes laid Lucy’s half corset next to the dress. Both women could clearly see the dress was cut so wickedly low and wide in both the front and the back that the half corset would not be fully covered by the gown.
“The skirt is awfully narrow as well,” Agnes said, hands on her hips, considering the garment.
Lucy investigated, holding the skirt at its fullest width. “Well, we shall see. Perhaps it is too small.”
In the end, Lucy tried
on the gown with nothing underneath but the matching red chemise.
Agnes finished fastening the short row of buttons at the back of the bodice and stepped to Lucy’s front to take in the full effect.
“Oh, my,” she breathed.
Lucy looked down and realized she could see an incredibly generous portion of her own breasts. She swallowed. “Do you have the glass, Agnes?”
“Oh. Yes. The glass.” The maid turned in a fluster and picked up the mirror. She stepped back and held it up, tilting it slightly to position it for Lucy’s full view.
“Oh, my,” Lucy said, echoing the maid’s reaction.
Lucy felt as though she were staring at someone else’s reflection. The fabric of the dress was opaque silk, thick and rich. Nothing could be seen through it, but it draped so closely across her skin it was as revealing as if the dress were, in fact, sheer. And the bodice…
Well.
Lucy had never been particularly well endowed, and especially would not expect to appear so without the lift of her stays, but the clever bodice of this dress accomplished more than her stays ever had. The band immediately below her breasts hugged her so tightly as to squeeze her upward, and the cut was so low, there were barely a few finger widths of fabric that could really be called a bodice at all. It was a decidedly daring display of skin.
Even flushed, her skin looked as white as a ghost’s next to the crimson silk.
Lucy knew nothing of mistresses and paramours, but surely this was a dress to be worn by a temptress. No respectable woman could be seen in such a dress, any more than she could be seen out in her nightclothes.
Of course, this dress was not for a respectable woman. It was for Lucy, who had boldly offered herself to a man who could not marry her.
“Where did it come from?” Agnes asked, still gaping at this transformed version of Lucy.
Lucy ran her hands over the silk another time. “Well, Agnes,” she said matter-of-factly, “I would presume it has come from the same dressmaker as my concert dress. Who else would have the measurements to create a gown that fits me so…so…”
“Snug?” Agnes suggested.
“It does fit rather closely, doesn’t it?”
“Quite,” Agnes agreed.
Lucy ran her hands over the snugly fitting band of silk that ran below her bust.
“Someone must have ordered it made,” the girl pushed.
“Yes,” Lucy said, toying with the row of tiny jet crystals. She took a deep breath and lifted her head, facing her reflection again in the mirror. Agnes straightened, adjusting the glass. Lucy drew back her shoulders, lifted her chin, and looked. Just looked.
She would never have imagined herself looking as she did now. No one would. No one who had ever known Lucy would possibly envision her as a bold, womanly seductress.
No one, that is, except Bex.
He had envisioned her exactly like this, because he had ordered the dress.
She thought of him as he must have been, describing his vision to the dressmaker, choosing colors, feeling bolts of fabric, selecting this very silk, all the while thinking of her. Did selecting her dress make him feel the way she did now, short of breath and tingling with anticipation? Making the offer to Bex had not seemed so frightening as it did now, standing in the dress he had made for her. The idea seemed very tangible all of a sudden—dangerous and irrevocable.
Lucy stared in the glass again. She looked dangerous. He had done that. Bex was the first person in her life—the only man—who had ever seen her as a bold temptress. No one had before, and likely, no one would again.
“Yes, Agnes,” Lucy said on an exhale of air. “Someone ordered the dress. It was a man. He sent it as an invitation. You must tell no one.” She took another deep breath. “I will need you to deliver a message, because I intend to accept.”
Wide eyed, Agnes nodded.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lucy alighted from the hackney cab and stared down the line of stately, narrow row houses, like a regiment of distinguished soldiers, polished and awaiting inspection. She felt oddly as though she were charging forth across a battle line of sorts, taking command of her own life.
There were very few people on the quiet street, but still she kept her eyes lowered. She clutched the long, hooded cloak more closely around her throat. She had borrowed the cloak from Agnes. It was well worn—threadbare in places—and thus more likely to go unnoticed. She could not have asked Emma for the loan of a cloak, but even if she had, any garment from the duchess would be far too conspicuous.
The desire to remain unnoticed mingled with the shivers of anticipation Lucy felt—both sending her hurrying toward number twenty-seven. She ascended the steps quickly and rapped gently on the knocker.
She experienced a moment of panic as she realized she had not considered what she might say to the servant who answered her knock. Who should she say she was? What would the household staff think?
Her concerns were alleviated when the door opened and she looked up at Bex himself.
“You came,” he said, gazing down with a mixture of desire and wonder that seemed to warm her very soul.
“I came,” she said softly.
With a quick glance to assess the activity on the street, Bex urged her inside. Lucy obeyed and, for the first time in her life, entered a man’s residence without the benefit of a chaperone. It was not lost on her that the very reason for having never done so was to avoid even the appearance of precisely what she intended today. Crossing the threshold into the home of Bexley Brantwood felt like the most significant steps she had ever taken in her life thus far.
She took them without hesitation.
Bex closed the door behind her and enfolded her in his strong arms. He pushed back the hood of the cloak and placed a gentle, lingering kiss on the top of her head. “I am afraid I have exhausted my ability to resist you, Saint Lucy,” he whispered, his breath soft against her hair.
She burrowed her face into his broad, unyielding chest. “I don’t want to be a saint anymore,” she mumbled against him.
“You will always be a perfect saint,” he said, then held himself away from her and looked into her eyes, “but I want you like the very devil.”
Bex’s storm-gray eyes seemed to darken with heat and promise. They were devouring and powerful and they held her in such a vise she could not have pulled her own gaze away if the entire house crumbled around them.
He held her there, captured in his gaze for what could have been a moment or an hour for all her awareness of time, and then he crushed her to him again, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.
“I still cannot believe you are actually here,” he said.
Gently, she pulled back from his grasp and he released her, just enough so that she could look up into his face. She smiled shyly. “Now that I am here, whatever shall you do with me?”
Bex’s knowing grin sent delicious shivers through her. “You’ve gotten a bit brazen, haven’t you?”
She had felt very bold—until he’d pointed it out. Belatedly, she looked around to verify their privacy, knowing it was ruining the effect of her boldness. “Have you sent everyone away?” she asked.
“Not everyone,” he said with a light laugh. “We can’t leave ourselves entirely helpless.”
“I’m not without practical skills,” Lucy said.
“Of course you aren’t,” Bex said, drawing her in to hug her closely again. “I am sure you lay claim to all sorts of skills that can be called practical, but you won’t need any of those today.”
She swallowed. “So only some of the staff are here?”
“Yes. And I have assurances of their discretion.”
Lucy must have looked doubtful, for he laughed again and said, “My father is not particularly well liked. I think they are happy to occasionally keep a few secrets from him.”
>
Lucy nodded.
“Why don’t you come with me,” he said, taking her by the hand. Still enrobed in the borrowed cloak, Lucy followed without hesitation as he led her up the stairs at the end of the hall and up two flights of stairs. He guided her to a door at the back of the narrow hall, and opened it into a tidy bedroom with a large bed, two tall windows covered by simple brown drapes, and a comfortably worn corner chair. It was a simple, masculine room shrouded in shadow from the pulled drapes.
Lucy stood on the threshold, unsure what she should do. Then Bex took her hand and smiled down at her with so much sweet patience that all of her uncertainty ceased to matter. He didn’t care that she didn’t know what to do. He did, and she trusted him.
He gave her hand a gentle tug, and she stepped forward into his bedroom. He closed the door behind her and reached up to untie the fastenings of her cloak. Lucy stood compliantly while the sides of the garment fell loose, revealing a slash of the scarlet fabric underneath. He pushed the two sides of the cloak apart and over her shoulders. It fell away and pooled in a heap at her feet.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bex stared. She was not beautiful. She was ethereal and wicked at the same time. She was so soul-alteringly lovely, it caused him physical pain.
“That dress is its own scandal,” he breathed.
Because it was.
Even as he blessed his unbelievable fortune for the gift of seeing her in it, he vowed no other man ever could, for his own sanity. The alabaster skin of her slender throat, her long arms, and the tantalizing curves of her breasts glowed in the dim room as though from their own source of light. The luminosity was only extinguished where it was shrouded in crimson.
The scarlet silk cupped her breasts and lifted them up to him as an offering. It skimmed neatly down from her bust and teased so closely over her curves, it tempted him like a clue to a secret. With a motion he could not have halted if he tried, his hand reached forward to stroke the smooth silk down her side, from the swell of her breast to the curve of her waist and the round of her hip. He felt like a thief fingering a prized ruby, poised in indecision of whether he should close his fist and take it, giving in to his consuming lust for the forbidden jewel.
