Lady Myddelton's Lover by Evangeline Holland Read Free Book Online Page B

Aline interrupted, standing at her chair, resting a hand lightly on its back. “And I decide to escort myself home.”

Chapter 8
     
    Richard paced in his room, slightly wobbly from a bit too much good champagne, and smoked his pipe. He paused every few minutes and started for the door, stopping inches from turning the knob and going to Aline’s room, before turning back to pace restlessly, feeling both bewildered and utterly disgusted with himself. After her departure he and Sir Carleton, he was ashamed to admit, spent the entirety of their meal drinking magnums of Pommery and Veuve Clicquot, before trying cocktails at the Savoy’s American bar, until both were absolutely, stinking blotto. For a brief moment, he was petty enough not to hope Sir Carleton made it to his home safely, but a sound from just outside his room diverted his attention, and he rushed to the door and flung it open, ear cocked in the darkened hallway.
    There it was.
    He leaned heavily against the doorframe, catching the sound of muffled grunts from behind Aline’s bedroom door. He pushed up and away, absently emptying his pipe in the plant beside his room, went to her door, and knocked.
    “Yes?” She said a trifle breathlessly. “Is that you, Victorine?”
    “No,” He turned the knob and opened the door, swaying—or was it the room that was seesawing up and down like a P. & O. steamer in the middle of the Indian Ocean?
    “R-Richard,” She stammered over her shoulder, her arms twisted into a strange contortion at her back. “What are you doing in here?”
    “I ought to surprise you more often if it forces you to use my given name,” He said teasingly, squinting to scrutinize why her gown looked so peculiar.
    It dawned upon him that she was stuck, and that her attempts to undress herself resulted in the entanglement of her gown around her hips and waist as she tried to pull it up over her head.
    “Don’t you dare laugh at me you…you conceited cad!” She lowered her arms and glared at him.
    “I’m not laughing at you,” He composed his features, but his mouth twitched all the same. “Let me help you.”
    He reached for her.
    “I am not helpless,” She said as she side-stepped his hands. “These, these damned evening gowns are a devil to get off without Victorine’s assistance.”
    “Pretend I am Victorine,” He replied. “And that I can help you out of this damned evening gown.”
    She looked at him suspiciously, “Nothing but assistance with the gown, Lord Myddelton.”
    “I promise,” He held up both hands to reaffirm his words.
    She nodded and turned around, tensing when he placed his hands on her shoulder blades. He felt for the buttons or hooks closing her gown, loathe to admit his clumsiness was the result of being drunk. Ah, there they were! He unbuttoned the small buttons on the beaded overdress and pushed it aside, carefully loosening the tapes running down her back. He paused at the small of her back, swallowing hard, the fizzy, exciting feeling of champagne coursing through his blood and loosening his already precarious inhibitions.
    She took this as a signal of his completion and moved away with a “Thank you,” shrugging the sleeves of her gown over her shoulders and down her body, where it pooled at her feet in a crumple of green silk and glittering beads.  She sat at her dressing table and switched on the small lamp sitting on its surface. A nimbus of warm light flooded across her body, casting a rosy glow across her skin as she raised her arms to unfasten her diamond necklace and then place it in her jewelry box.
    “Do you, ah, need me to loosen your corset?” He asked casually.
    She glanced at him over her shoulders and raised a brow. “Would you?”
    He nearly tripped as he stumbled over to her and dropped to his knees, placing a hand on her waist to steady himself. The laces criss-crossed through the metal grommets in a dizzying pattern, and he felt for the knot at the top of the corset and tugged