Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(102)

There was no help for it now. She couldn’t tight-lace herself. “I require some assistance,” she mumbled.

“What was that?”

Cleo gritted her teeth. “I can’t lace myself.”

“Would a ‘please’ be in order?”

“You’re the one who did the damage. It seems reasonable that you should repair it.”

“Perhaps I can slip past your voluminous skirts after all,” he mused.

“Please help me,” she blurted.

“Turn around,” he ordered.

Cleo spun, reluctant to face him again. She could barely see him in the murkiness, a tall, imposing figure. His hands slipped inside her bodice, expertly finding the lacings he had loosened.

“Breathe in,” he told her.

She did and he pulled tightly, cinching her waist to a painful wasp silhouette once more. “Thank you. I can manage the buttons.”

He spun her about and brushed aside her fingers. “I’ll get them.” She swore she heard a smile in his voice. “After all, it only seems reasonable I repair the damage I’ve done.”

“Fine then.” His breath fanned her lips and she could feel his intense gaze on her. She tilted her head to the side to ease her disquiet at his nearness. Was it just her imagination, or did his fingers linger at the buttons nearest her bosom?

“There you are.” Thornton fastened the last one, brushing the hollow of her throat as he did so.

She closed her eyes and willed away the desire that assaulted her. This man was not for her. He ran the backs of his fingers along her neck, stopping when he cupped her jaw.

“Thank you,” she whispered again.

“You’re most welcome,” he said, voice low.

The magnetism between them was inexorable, just as it had been before. Despite the intervening years, despite all, she still recalled the way he had made her feel—weightless and enchanted, as though she had happened upon Shakespeare’s moonlit forest in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

His thumb brushed over her bottom lip. “If you don’t go, I’ll undo all the repairing I’ve just done.”

She knew he warned himself as much as he warned her. Sadness pulsed between them, a mutual acknowledgment their lives could have turned up differently. So many unspoken words, so much confusion lingered.

“I must go,” she said unnecessarily. She was reluctant to leave him and that was the plain truth of it. “I find my megrim has returned.”

With that, she left, returning to the hall, to sunlight streaming in cathedral windows. More importantly, she hoped, she returned to sanity.