“It is a trick you should actively train your brain to reverse.”
“Somehow, I suspect one needs a friend around them when one begins such a practice.” A wistful note crept into her voice and her eyes went soft with faraway memories.
“I could be that friend, Evie.”
Her lips quivered and then she glanced away, hiding her expression. “Perhaps if we did not already share a history, for there is nothing left between us except memories.”
Such gammon that was. She lied to herself and to him, but he didn’t correct her erroneous statement. He leaned down and grabbed the handle of the trunk. “At the present time, I require your assistance with this.” If at all possible, he’d be the man who would help her find the sunny side of every situation. “Everything else we can—will—discuss at a later time.” As long as the rain continued to fall.
He’d never hoped so hard for a continuation of the dreary, wet London weather more than he did in this moment, for it was the one thing keeping her with him.
“I do not know what there is to talk about.” When he still didn’t answer but merely stared at the trunk, she sighed. “Very well.” She took up the other handle and then she frowned again. “Do you mean that I should go backward up the stairs?”
“If that is what you wish.” He smirked. “No doubt that feat would be challenging for a lady in skirts though.”
Evangeline narrowed her eyes. “If you can do it, so can I.” Quickly, she released the trunk handle in favor of gathering the front hem of her skirts. She tucked it into her belt, which put her stocking-clad legs on full display from the knee downward. Without so much as a sound, she did the same for the back skirting. Once done, she gripped the trunk’s handle and tugged, her eyebrows raised in question. “Shall we?”
“Absolutely.” He grinned like a schoolboy having his first peek of a female’s limbs. But in his defense, she really did have trim, attractive ankles. And supple calves he could think of nothing else better to do than slide his fingertips along. He swallowed hard as they tackled the stairs with the trunk between them. Her knees were adorable and practically begged him to press a kiss onto each one, or ease them apart in the search of infinitely more scandalous body parts.
Oh God. Too much more of those thoughts and he’d be lost without hope of returning.
“Are you quite all right? It appears you are experiencing breathing troubles,” she questioned, a hefty dose of amusement in her voice.
Jasper cleared his throat. “Fine. Never better, actually.” Would the stairs never end? Finally, they entered his apartments. “Shall we leave the trunk in the entryway?”
“No.” Her smile hinted of teasing. “I simply must have it upstairs, for I plan to utilize the gown on the morrow once I depart, should the precipitation cease.”
That grin sent heat sailing into places it had no business going for the moment. He tamped down his reaction. “Of course.” Buggar it. If there was a God in heaven, the rain wouldn’t stop and Evangeline wouldn’t go anywhere. After they’d spent more time together talking and perhaps indulging in a kiss or two, she’d discover her natural place was by his side. The woman merely needed to set aside her inhibitions, cease building the wall around her heart that kept people out and her protected from fear, and let herself think of what might go in her favor while looking at the future instead of what she assumed would go wrong. Then, and only then could they both move forward. Together. “Onward, then.”
The next flight of stairs was accomplished without incident, and once they’d placed the trunk inside the bedroom, Jasper stood upright with a hand to the small of his back.
“Regarding your business…”
“Yes?” She eyed him with suspicion as she freed her hems from her belt.
Cold disappointment crashed through him when the sweep of her skirts covered those delectable lower appendages. He shoved it away. Soon he would entice her into his arms, but he just needed to convince her, perhaps challenge her into moving out on that limb, show her that by clinging to her reservations, she was being as traditional as her mother. “Do you put on the corsets you intend for you clients to buy?”
Perhaps that was the gimmick her sales desperately needed.
“Are you daft?” She gawked at him with her kissable lips slightly parted, her hands propped on her lush, rounded hips. “What sort of woman do you take me for?” Shocked outrage rang in her question.
“The sort of woman who is willing to take chances. Chances that will make her dreams become reality.” He couldn’t help his grin. Her astonishment amused him and he laughed. It was so easy around Evangeline to find that lightness of spirit he’d missed these past several years. “Besides, you should. How else can your future clients see the exact fit of these garments unless you use yourself as a model?” Slowly, he moved his gaze up and down her body. Another wave of heat slid through him. “You have the perfect figure for it.” Before he could do something stupid, like wrap his arms around her or explore those enticing curves with his fingers, he clasped his hands behind his back.
“Oh, do stop, Jasper.” She waved away his compliment while pink bloomed on her cheeks. “I don’t have that kind of courage.”
“I can assist with building it.” He propped a foot on the trunk and then leaned forward with an arm on his knee. “You could practice modeling the clothes for me.” Making a great show of glancing around the area, he moved away from the trunk and spread his arms wide. “There is no one here.”
Her eyes rounded. “Except you. A male. And one with whom I share a history.”
“Don’t think of it like that.” Yes, this was just the thing to break her out of her self-imposed prison where emotions couldn’t reach her heart.
He nodded in the event she didn’t understand. “You trust me, don’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Unless you have deviltry in mind.”
“I am offended you could believe that of me.” He assumed an expression of shock and pressed a hand to his heart with an injured air. “After all, didn’t you say I was…” He lifted his eyes to consult the ceiling, pretending to think. “…traditional, too proper and somewhat boring?” When he looked her way, he held his glee in check as her embarrassment deepened. “What harm or scandal could I possibly do?”
“I’m not certain this is a good idea.” She glanced at the trunk and then at him. “Such things are rather personal.”
No, not a good idea, but an ingenious one. “We were once friends, were we not?”
“Yes, I suppose.” She drew out the words. “Close friends, friends who almost…” Her words broke off, and he frowned. Was that a sob she tamped down?
“Indeed.” He would wager a quarter of his yearly salary that she still cared for him. “I am willing to help you in this endeavor. For the sake of your business, of course,” he added in a rush.
“Somehow, I find it difficult to believe you are true of heart in this matter.”
“Clever girl to be wary.” Evangeline would probably give him a tongue lashing and a right proper dressing down once she discovered his ultimate intent, but he hoped the eventual outcome of his gambit would temper her reaction. “If you can model those underclothes in front of me, explain to a male how superior they are above manufactured items, then there is nothing you cannot accomplish in front of prospective, female clients bent on cattiness.”
Silence brewed between them for long moments, broken only by the howl of the wind and the lash of the rain against the windows.
To drive home the point, he added, “Where’s the woman who hiked up her skirts to help haul this trunk up here? You certainly had no qualms about uncovering your ankles and knees in front of me. There is no difference with my request.”
Finally, she sighed. “Now I know why you are so successful with your confectionary business.”
“Why?”
“If you can convince a woman to strip down to her underclothes and then parade about in front of you explaining why they’re worth
y, selling a customer a box of chocolate bonbons must be child’s play.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks.
Jasper couldn’t help his grin. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”
She nodded but her eyes twinkled, more blue than green now. “But you must swear on your life you won’t tell a soul. I do have a reputation to think of.”
“Upon my honor, I will never speak of what occurs here tonight.” He gave her a bow from the waist, and when he straightened, he smiled, feeling much like the Cheshire cat from that much-loved novel. “Shall I assist you with hooks and buttons?”
Her eyes widened. Emotion lit those jeweled depths, so fleeting he couldn’t read it, but she shook her head. “The gown is one I can manipulate on my own, as is one of the corsets I intend to show, so chivalry won’t be needed.”
The statement was true enough. There was nothing close to chivalry on his mind just now as excitement played his spine. “Very well. I shall go downstairs and make tea to give you the privacy you’ll require for changing.”
As if the conversation’s outcome didn’t matter, he headed down the staircase, not caring if he made the tea. It was merely an excuse, and to let her come to terms with the choice she’d made. He was either the biggest idiot London had ever seen or would be lauded—in his private circle of friends if he should choose to share the details—as a genius when it came to romance.
At the moment, that opinion could swing either way.
Chapter Seven
What have I done?
Well, more to the point, what was she about to do? Evangeline stared down the dimly lit staircase where Jasper had vanished. Anxiety twisted her insides. It was one thing to have exposed ankles and knees to him, but quite another to shed her clothes down to the very underpinnings she attempted to peddle in the hopes of maintaining her independence.
And in front of the man she ran away from five years ago, no less.
“Oh, this worrying is pointless,” she muttered, and opening the trunk, she pawed through the lace, satin and fine cotton until she came to the corset she wanted. “It is Jasper, after all.” They were friends, and he wasn’t a rogue. He wouldn’t molest her and then send her on her way with a ruined reputation.
Corset in hand, she scurried into his bedroom and shut the door behind her. Yet, there was a change about him. No longer was he the proper gentleman she remembered. In that man’s place was Jasper Winslow, the man with a sense of humor and an air of wicked indulgence. She shivered as she began the task of removing her skirt and shirtwaist. Where she used to know exactly what the man five years ago would do, she was in the dark about what this Jasper might attempt.
Yet she’d consented to appear before him clad in her corset and underclothes.
Her hands shook. Her chest tightened with nerves. The corset she wore fell to her nimble fingers, as did her two petticoats, her half-boots, her stockings and the bustle cage. A shiver coursed down her spine, whether from the chill in the air or what she was about to do, she couldn’t say.
“What the devil was I thinking?”
She surveyed the small pile of discarded clothing around her feet with dismay. This wasn’t right. Neither was it proper. A woman of good morals would never show a man she wasn’t married to her underclothes. She could almost hear her mother’s admonishment echo about her mind.
Then she straightened her spine. “I am not her.” The confident whisper sounded overly loud in the quiet room. “By my very occupation, I have proven myself more daring and innovative than she has ever been.”
Perhaps Jasper had been correct after all. She was a woman of courage… if she would but let herself follow through with that bravery. If this didn’t help bolster her confidence, she would have no choice but to return home, disgraced and defeated, and let her mother resume her matchmaking process. That wasn’t what she wanted for her life because that would mean she would have to truly leave Jasper in her past, and that everything between them would be over.
But then, he already had a good life here. There was no place for her; they couldn’t go back, for they weren’t those people anymore, even if there was a flicker of hope—
“Evangeline?” His voice sounded on the other side of the door. A soft knock landed on the panel immediately after. “I’ve brought tea up. Are you ready?”
“Almost.”
With more haste than attention to detail, she donned the corset she’d selected. Her fingers slipped over the pink French sateen as if it were water as she fitted the garment to her body. She fumbled with the tiny hooks and their loops. Even though the fastenings went down the front of the item, she struggled, more frustrated with nerves than of her inability to work the hardware. Finally, the last hook was completed and she smoothed her hands along the corset. The pleating provided visual interest and kept the eye looking vertically, which helped with the illusion of appearing thin for her chubbier clients. Black lace trim along the bodice, combined with black satin ribbons made the piece eye-popping and gave the wearer a bit of a naughty secret beneath their everyday dresses and shirtwaists.
“I’m coming out now. Please be kind.”
Aware her voluptuous curves were enhanced by the French-designed corset, she again pondered whether this looming stint at exhibitionism was a good idea. At least she still wore the camisole and drawers beneath to further hide her form. “Stop it, Evangeline. Find your bravado and make it stick,” she fiercely whispered to herself. How would Jasper react? Even though they were no longer together and he hadn’t indicated that he wished for circumstances to change, she had the girlish thought that she wanted to render him speechless. “You are not trying to impress him, remember. You are trying to learn how to sell more corsets.” Right, he is part of my past.
Then she stepped around the discarded clothing and put a hand on the doorknob. Her heartbeat raced through her veins. The muscles of her stomach clenched. Every nerve in her body seemed strung too tight. In some ways, she was more horribly exposed than merely showing off the undergarments. Vulnerability was one thing she didn’t do well, and with nothing to hide behind—literally and figuratively—terror lurked in the pockets of her soul. Restless energy zipped from her toes to the ends of her hair. Would she lose her courage and hide herself away behind his bedroom door? It was time to find out.
Whatever she thought would happen the moment she emerged from the bedroom, crossed the hall and entered the parlor, it flew right out of her head when he clambered to his feet. The linen napkin slipped off his lap and onto the floor, unheeded. His lips formed an “O” of surprise, his eyes darkening to the color of rain-swollen clouds over the sea.
And still he said nothing. The void of silence grew more charged with tension until she could stand it no longer. “Well?” She propped her hands on her hips, and he followed the action, his gaze sweeping along the nip of her waist. “Do you like the sample or not?”
“I don’t know what to say.” His lips made words that he didn’t utter. Instead, he simply stared, gestured once at her with a hand and then finally cleared his throat. “The corset is incredible.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You are beautiful in it.” He dropped his voice. “One could argue it is your curves that give the garment life.”
Evangeline smiled. She couldn’t have asked for a better reaction. “You were always one for pretty words.”
“This time they’re not merely complimentary.” He rubbed his chin. “It’s nothing but truth.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, thank you. I knew this was a good piece to show.” Still beset with nerves, she wetted her lips and cast a glance over her shoulder. “I should change.”
“No.” Jasper, apparently regaining his senses, came around the table and approached her. “Not yet. If it is all the same to you, I’d like to examine the corset to fully appreciate its lines.”
Strange request, but she nodded. The closer he approached, the faster her breathing came. Why? She’d never been nervous around him before. Not in the two years
they’d courted had his presence sent gooseflesh racing along her arms or tingles sparking at the base of her spine. “How many, uh, women have you inspected corsets upon?”
“Not as many as you probably want to believe.” He reached out a hand, and when he traced the lace at her bodice, his fingers shook, and that slight tell tugged at her heart. “The trim is a nice touch.”
“Yes. When we requested these made, we didn’t wish to forego fripperies even though no one would see the underclothes.” She barely forced the words past a tight throat. “I fully believe that if a woman wears pretty things as her foundation, she will find the confidence she needs to face whatever occurs throughout the day.”
His gaze never left hers. “Except, why do you not practice that same philosophy?”
“I beg your pardon?” The awareness of him grew overwhelming. She couldn’t think straight while he stood there, so close with his hands now resting lightly on her hips. No longer did his interest fall to the corset.
“Where has your confidence in yourself and your abilities gone in recent years, Evie?” he asked in a whisper, his warm breath skating across her cheek. “The young woman you used to be had stars in her eyes and steel in her veins.” As he held her gaze, the tension between them hummed into being. “While I’ll admit I was hurt when you went off chasing your dreams and left me, I am sad that now you’ve closed yourself off from everyone and let your dreams float down the road.” His fingers tightened on her hips as his eyes held the wicked twinkle that signaled mischief was imminent. “Will you chase them or let them slip away?”
She laid her palms on his chest with the determination to push him from her. He was entirely too close for her peace of mind, yet his words rankled. “I am doing the best I can at living my dreams.”
“Are you?” Jasper moved a hand from her hips to cup her cheek. He brushed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, the action as fleeting as the touch of a butterfly wing. “Truly and without reservation, or are you doing an excellent job of hiding from them?”
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