Chapter 12 #2
The answer did not come to her that night, nor the night after.
When the morning of the Harvest festival came around, Cecilia was about to get dressed… if only she could choose from the heap of clothing on her bed.
She slipped on the edge of the bed and pulled the white silk stockings, securing them to the garters.
“The village Harvest celebration…” she reached for her chemise and slipped that on. “I’ve never been to one before.”
Next was the white silk corset that she could only put on with Abigail’s help. At the moment, her maid had dashed out to give a helping hand to Andrews. Even with her maid gone, Cecilia considered herself resourceful, efficient, and competent enough to put on a corset herself.
She managed to loosen the strings wide enough that she could step into it and wiggled it up over her bottom and to her sternum. While pressing the front to her chest, she tried to grab the strings and pull them.
She failed. “Drat.”
After repeated attempts, the strain on her arm made her wish to be one of the contortionists at Vauxhall. On her ninth attempt to grasp the strings, she heard the door open and sighed in relief.
“Abigail, thank goodness,” she breathed. “My arm feels as if it is about to fall off. Please tighten this corset for me.”
“…I am not Abigail,” Cassian’s low timbre reached her ears.
“Cassian!” she gasped, spinning around, grabbing at her breasts as if they were bare. “You cannot be in here!”
“I can be anywhere I want,” he arched a brow, his firm hand spinning her back to him.
She wanted to shrink away. Holding the corset to her chest as if it were a shield, Cecilia sputtered, “I-I’m practically naked.”
“’Tis a pity you aren’t,” he shrugged while his hand fitted on the waist of the garment.
Clad in only a chemise, single petticoat, and short stays, and she could feel every part of Cassian’s body pressed up against her, and gadz, he was like a wall of muscle.
His arms were long enough to wrap around her and—if he did hug her—envelop her entirely. She looked down as his hands rested on her waist, broad hands, with long fingers and crudely blunt nails.
Even through the three sets of cloth, she felt the heat of his hand burning on her skin. “If you were naked, I’d be threatened to miss this festival. We are late to the village celebration, Cecilia, so take a deep breath...”
Cecilia did the opposite. Her breath caught in her chest as he grasped the strings and pulled. She slapped a hand on her chest, not from the lack of air but at the sight of herself in her reflection.
Throughout her life, she had had many maids, but none of them had drawn her corset so tightly that she had looked like an hourglass. “You certainly know your way around a corset,” she rasped.
“Of course,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I have unlaced scores of them. But doing them up was a novel experience. Now, do you need help getting into that walking dress or—”
“Shoo,” she gestured to the door. “I will dress myself before your fingers manage to undo the laces. Go.”
While following a step behind Cecilia as they strolled down the main street of the town, he could not stop his eyes from dropping to the subtle sway of her hips covered in her light pink walking dress.
She was carrying a tightly covered basket—which he believed added to the delicious swing of her hips—and no matter how much he asked, she would not let him peek under it.
For a slender girl, she was curvy, with a nipped-in middle and a sinfully rounded backside.
The firm, rounded tops of her breasts seemed to quiver, and he could not forget how the corset molded her figure into a sensuous shape and set her breasts up so that they had nearly spilled from the pleated cups.
His palm itched to feel them bare.
Her simple dress had clung with subtle eroticism to her curves, its blush color evoking vivid imaginations of her skin beneath the fabric. His pulse thundered in his ears.
Settle down, old boy. You know nothing intimate will come of this marriage; only fifty-four more days to go, and you will be a free man.
The quaint village of Stanbury was alive; a faint ring of church bells heralded the opening of the harvest festival, their cheery tones mingling with the excited hum of villagers setting out baskets of produce.
A trio of dandies in colorful jackets were lingering on the sidewalk; one of them, a tall, sandy-haired fellow sporting a bright silk handkerchief in lieu of a cravat, ogled her openly, but Cecilia did not seem to notice.
Coming to her side, a quelling gaze and a proprietary hand on the small of her back had them starting. One of the men tipped his head and went back to his friends.
“Do you want to go to the market or to the church?” He asked while looking around.
“I’d like to see the market,” she decided after a hum.
Eyes dropping to the basket, Cassian offered again, “Will you please let me take the basket from you? It is already enough that you think me an unrefined lout—I would rather avoid the rest of the villagers knowing it too.”
Cecilia finally handed the basket to him and took his opposite arm. “Unless these good people have not read a single newspaper in the last four years, I think they already know.”
Crossing the main road to the market square, they stepped into a line of wooden stalls that formed a cheery maze through the square.
Within the booming market, stalls and barrows overflowed with fresh produce, flowers, and goods of every kind. The stalls tended by stout farmers and women in aprons and knitted hats were selling hand-churned butter, braided loaves, and thick woolens dyed with madder root.
“Isn’t this quaint?” she murmured wistfully.
From a corner of the square, a fiddler perched on a hay bale coaxed a sprightly tune from his instrument. His bow danced across strings in sudden leaps and trills, adding another note to the cheery air.
Between the market’s bustle and the music’s fervor, voices rose in friendly competition. “Two shillings for the finest marrow!” a stout yeoman bellowed, patting the pale fruit with pride.
“Try a dash of my elderberry wine—half a crown a glass!” called a thin widow whose stall looked like a jewel box of amethyst bottles.
The basket Cassian held was disproportionally heavy; he sensed something stockier in the bottom, though there were lighter things on top. What did Cecilia have in there?
“Where is the main celebration going to be?” Cecilia asked.
“At the town’s chapel and meeting hall,” he replied distractedly. “Not too far from here. The children from the orphanage will be there too, as they grow vegetables to sell to aid the home.”
“Please, take me there,” she asked.
They left the market, carefully winding their way through the tables, and breaking free of the crowds, they did not take long to get to the local church. Near the steps, a stiff wind pummeled them, giving Cassian a fleeting view of slender legs clad in sinful silk.
His pulse quickened as he imagined those legs over his shoulders and her enticingly full breasts beneath him, jiggling as he plowed her.
Once again, by pure force of will, he quelled the heat in his blood.
“This is going to be a long evening…”
Cecilia’s head arched over her shoulder, a corner of her inviting lips was ticked down. “What was that?”
“Nothing important,” he replied dully.
It had to be a curse that his new wife had such kissable lips—that he was banned from touching. The road to hell was surely paved with good intentions.
But maybe there can be some detours…