The Tempestuous Debutante: Book 4 in the Cotillion Ball Series (Crimson Romance) by Becky Lower Read Free Book Online Page B

and her petticoats fall to the floor.
    She stepped away from them, clad in only her soft deerskin breeches and her high-heeled boots, and curtsied before Parr.
    “Here I am, sir, ready for instruction.” She followed Parr’s eyes as they slid down her body, lingering on her swell of hip, and at the bare skin between her breeches and her boots. He was interested in her, and her feminine wiles could use a refresher course. Maybe learning how to ride again would be fun, at that.
    Parr cleared his throat. “Right-o, then. Let’s get you up on the saddle once more and I can check out your form.”
    Jasmine smiled at him, lowering her face so she could peek up from under her lashes, and replied, “I thought you just had.”
    Parr grinned again. “Ah, you are a cheeky one, just as I suspected. Get a move on, up on the saddle with you.”
    She threw her right leg over the saddle and balanced herself in the middle of it. She put her feet into the short stirrups and pretended to take the reins in her hands. Parr was flitting around her, from one side to the other, checking to see that her feet were placed properly.
    “Ach, you ladies and your high-heeled boots. ’Tis a danger to you to wear them. No wonder you’re frightened every time you get on the back of a horse. You can’t position your feet properly.”
    He had his hand around her ankle, and was investigating her boot. Jasmine stared down at him, enjoying the feel of his fingers tightly wrapped around her.
    “So you’re now an expert in women’s attire? I’ll have you know, these boots are the latest in fine apparel.”
    “Fine they may be, but they surely are not made with function in mind.”
    “What do you suggest, then?”
    “I have an idea.” He moved over to a wooden box and opened the lid. After a few seconds of rummaging around in the box, he withdrew a pair of old boots and turned to Jasmine with a triumphant smile on his face. “These might fit you. They were my first pair of racing boots, and I’ve never had the heart to throw them away, even though they’re too small for me now.”
    Jasmine leaned over the saddle and began to unlace her boot.
    “Here, let me,” Parr said as he hastened back to her side. Slowly, he undid the laces of the boot and removed it from her foot. Jasmine thought his hand lingered a bit longer than it should have at her heel, but she was enjoying his single-minded attention. Her mother would be scandalized if she ever found out she had bared her lower half and her feet in front of the stable boy. That thought alone made her smile. He pulled the boot onto her bare foot.
    “See how it covers your leg up to the knee, offering you protection? And how the heel is just deep enough to keep your foot from sliding forward in the stirrup? The soles are also grooved a bit in front of the heel, to help give you traction.”
    He hastened to put the other boot on her, and then straightened up.
    Jasmine wiggled around in the saddle a bit, and bestowed a smile on Parr.
    “This is nice. Both the saddle and the boots. I don’t feel that I’m about to topple over, which is how I feel in a sidesaddle.”
    “Would you care to try it on an actual horse now?”
    “I think I could, yes.”
    “All right then, let’s get you down from there and I’ll go saddle a mare for you to ride.”
    He helped her down from the saddle and took what he needed to get the mare ready. Jasmine picked up her riding skirt and petticoats and walked out to where Colleen sat, her knitting needles clacking away.
    “Here, Colleen. Can you take care of these while I finish my lesson?”
    Colleen’s eyes left her knitting and she gasped at Jasmine’s appearance. She shook her head. “I don’t know what it is with you Fitzpatrick girls, but you can’t seem to keep your clothes on. First Ginger ran around in her bloomers, and now it’s you in your breeches.”
    Jasmine sat beside Colleen and showed off her footwear. “And look at these boots! They’re