The Proposition (14 page)

Not enough though to relinquish the advantage she seemed to have gained over him. "You heard me," she said. A little thrill shot through her as she pushed her way into the dare that—fascinatingly, genuinely—rattled him. She had at last set him on his ear as he did her so often. Ha ha ha, she thought. She wanted to clap her hands in delight.

She spoke now in earnest what seemed suddenly a wonderful exchange: "If you shave off your mustache, I'll hike my skirt and you can watch—how far? To my knees?" The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

"Above your knees," he said immediately. His amazed face scowled in a way that said they weren't even talking unless they got well past her knees in the debate.

"How far?"

"All the way up."

She frowned, then cautioned, "Just my legs though."

"Right. To the tops of your thighs."

"But I'm keeping my knickers—"

"Then I'm only takin' off half the mustache."

His mustache! "You'll take it off?"

He looked at her, thought about it. "You'll lift your skirts and let me see your legs?" He added, "Without your knickers."

"No, no." Instantly, she shook her head. "Certainly not. I won't take my knickers off."

He knew when he'd gone past the limit. "All right," he agreed quickly. "With your knickers on, but all the way up to the tops of your thighs."

They were silent a moment. How had they come to such a quick, insane place? Were they seriously negotiating for what was both trivial to discuss—hair on a lip, looking at legs, silly if she thought about it—yet in some ineffable way so significant they neither one should have been bargaining with what he or she had to lose?

Modesty and mustache.

Yet, Winnie thought smugly, when she dropped
her skirts down again, her loss would be over and his lip would be bare. "Yes," she said.

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long can I look?"

She pinched her mouth. Oh, now he wanted all afternoon to stare at her. Well, he wasn't getting it. "A minute."

"Then no." He shook his head. "Longer than a minute."

"How long?"

"Fifteen minutes."

Blood rushed, making her arms, her hands, her cheeks hot. "I can't stand there for fifteen minutes, you dolt! That's absurd! Just standing there with my skirts up? My knickers hanging out?"

It was meant to be a ridiculous image. His face changed though. His expression relaxed into it. Oh, she hated to see that. She'd lost ground somewhere. He was winning again. His mouth drew up on one side, indenting his cheek with that single, deep dimple. A slow, sly smile spread into his features. "Yes, fifteen
minutes. And I get to touch your legs—"

"Now wait one instant, Mr.
Tremore—"

He stopped her by coming forward onto the legs of his chair with a clunk as he pointed his finger at her. "You, Miss Bollash, want me to shave off my—well, my masculinity. The least I get for that is to know what those legs feel like."

She balked. No, this was not at all what she'd had in mind. Her idea was getting quite out of hand.

He wiggled his mouth at her then, making the mustache come alive on his lip. Oh, she hated that thing.

Why? Why did she dislike it so much?

"All right," she said before he could ask for anything else. "But only ten minutes. And, if you have to, you can touch my legs." She restricted, "At the end," then cautioned sharply, "but just my legs. If you touch anything else—"

He grinned widely, crookedly. "Agreed. Just your legs." He laughed, showing a lot of good teeth. "And ten minutes is all right, but now. I want to see 'em right now." With the flat of his hand, he patted the tabletop. "Hop up here, loov. Let's see what's under those skirts."

Chapter 9

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T
he way Edwina and Mr. Tremore worked it, since neither one trusted the other very well, was that he could see her legs now for five minutes, but not touch them. (Oh, so absurd! she thought, as she stood up shakily—and somehow euphorically—from her chair. She could hardly believe they were discussing the plan, let alone acting on it!) Then they would go upstairs together, where at his washbasin and mirror she'd watch him shave his mustache. Oh, yes! After which,
he'd get to see her legs for the last five minutes. And touch them at the very end.

"Once," she said.

"Once." He repeated the word, but was so merry about the whole business, she didn't think he heard her. He stood briskly.

To her surprise, his hands landed on her waist, and then the ground came right out from under her. Simultaneously, as he lifted her up and over him, she said, "And I'm not getting on any table—"

She stood on one, looking down at him.

A strange perspective. Below her, she watched him drag his chair back a few feet. "I can't see everything proper unless it's at eye level," he said. He turned, grinning, and plopped himself into the chair, folding his arms over his chest.

And so he was: eye level with her skirts, about four feet away. She glanced over the edge of her lesson table. The floor seemed a chasm, the table a cliff. This wasn't right. It wasn't what she'd imagined. What
had
she imagined?

His lip lathered up, a straight razor neatly cutting through shaving soap foam. That was as far as her fancies had taken her.

The face of reality was a man with a sloping grin, his thick black mustache slanted at a triumphant angle, his spine scooted down in his chair, his legs wide, knees bent, his arms crossed over his well-cut vest.

"So?" he asked. When she gave him a frustrated look, he said, "Your skirts. Lift 'em up. Or are you already backin' out?" His arm rose off his chest so his finger could stroke the hair on his lip. He prodded, "The sooner you do it, loov, the sooner we go upstairs and get to what you fancy so damn much."

She nodded. Yes, of course. She put her hands in her skirts, grabbed fabric. Five minutes wasn't so long. The clock on the mantel behind him said twenty till eleven. At a quarter till, she'd be done, or half done at least.

Yet getting her skirt up was so much more difficult than she would have thought. He watched intently—he wasn't going to miss a second, his eyes not even attempting to look at her face. She wasn't accustomed to a man's eyes openly fixing themselves on, well,
there
at the hem of her dress. It gave her a funny feeling, a frisson … not up her spine exactly, but a light
downward ripple into her belly.

"You need some help, Winnie?"

She threw him a frown. She was going to say,
Miss Bollash,
but then she only wet her lips. She didn't bother. All her instruction in the matter so far hadn't done any good.

Just do it, she told herself. "No, no help."

Still she couldn't get her hands going. It was his fault. He was trying to—

Oh, bosh. It occurred to her. His triumphant smile. The challenging way he'd taken over. Mr. Tremore didn't believe her. He was having a good time because he thought he was calling a bluff.

The idea that he thought she couldn't do it made her feel positively audacious.

Without looking down, she made her hands work.
Her fingers balled up fabric into her fists, bunching.

She watched him, still slouched in his chair, as a
tension overtook him, his humor replaced with surprise—and an anticipation that was hard to miss. The way Edwina stared expectantly sometimes at the curtain as the big, bold first notes of the overture to a
favorite opera sounded. She felt like that—kettle drums, cellos, heavy strings swelling, rising to sing in her veins. Yes. Do it. Shock him. An odd thrill hummed her blood and tickled her chest.

She looked down at herself. There was an inch of shoe showing. Well! That wasn't so hard! She watched as her hands gathered up more, feeling the scrunch of silk and horsehair and linen.

An inch more of shoe leather appeared. The room
grew still, not a sound except the slide and rustle of
fabric. More and more of it accumulated, till
it was too
much to hold in her fists. She had to catch it against
her forearms and thighs, gathering, catching, gathering. Till she was looking at all the laces to the tops of her shoes and an inch of shins.

Skin. She had to stem a nervous giggle. It was so silly, yet exhilarating somehow now that she was at it.

When her skirts were at her knees, a faint draft brushed against her legs. It moved up under her skirts. A giddy sensation. She wouldn't look at Mr. Tremore, though she knew he was there. She heard him shift in his chair, clear his throat.

She saw the knee lace of her own knickers at the same time as she heard a soft, kind of whistling word. "Ch-e-e-e-sus." Mr. Tremore. Excitement shot through her. Her stomach rolled over. Anxiety and
pleasure. The combination brought such a
pinching delight.

It was so strong, the feeling. Stronger than anything she could remember. From standing on a table and lifting her skirts till her legs showed from the knees down.

Yes, more. She wet her lips again, gathering fabric as quickly as she could, not stopping, as if she were digging through it. Up, up, up, and there she was: all her legs in view. The last little bit, where she brought her skirts in a ball against her hips, gave her the most peculiar little sensation, a kind of electrical charge at her belly. A warm, melting tingle that felt actually, physically, present inside her—right there, under the bunch of skirts, as if a response to them somehow.

Good. Done. And quite successfully, she thought, elation lifting her, taking her up. Yes, yes, yes. Now all she had to do was stand here for a few minutes and—

"No, no," he said.

She jerked her head, frowned down over the table at him.

Mr. Tremore stared at her legs, with a kind of … involved expression, completely engaged by the sight, yet … uncomfortable. And dissatisfied.

"You, ah—" He moved his head back a degree, but not his eyes. They didn't leave her legs. "Your stockings," he said. "You have to take them off."

"I do not." She straightened, dropping her skirt. "We never talked about stockings."

He scowled at the dropped skirts, then lifted his scowl to her face. "We said
legs.
I was looking at stockings."

"You were looking at legs. You had a good, clear view of exactly what we discussed."

"We discussed legs, not stockings."

She glared. So was he telling her that he wouldn't shave his mustache now, unless he got to add more to his side of the bargain? Why, the conniving—

"It has to be legs," he said. "Really your legs."

She pressed her lips together. She'd gone this far. It hadn't been bad. And the stupid man was looking for a way out. Well, she wouldn't give it to him. "Turn around," she said.

"I don't have to turn around."

"You do. We didn't say anything about watching me take anything off. Turn around. I'll tell you when I'm ready."

He protested briefly, but then stood enough to swing a leg back and around. He straddled the chair, his back to her. Winnie bent over hurriedly, reaching up under her petticoats, pushing the edge of her knickers out of the way enough to get at the new garters the shopkeeper had sent. She quickly slid them down her legs, one then the other, pushing her stockings along with them to her ankles.

She stood, then pulled her skirts back against herself to stare at what she'd wrought: her silk stocking waded in a clumping ring about the ankles of her high-laced shoes. It looked stupid, foolish. Good, she thought at first. Then no. A kind of vanity took hold. There was no point, she told herself, in looking any more foolish than she already would.

She squatted, sitting back onto the table with a bounce, lifting her foot immodestly to work at the ties of one shoe, then the other. There. Bare feet. She wiggled her toes. That looked … better. She stared at her foot. Better? It looked
something.

"Are you ready yet? What's taking so long? I could take them off myself in less than a minute."

"Just wait. I almost have it." She got her feet under her, but as she raised up, unbending, she realized she could see his reflection in the window glass—his mustache a vivid bar at his mouth—which meant presumably he was looking at her reflection. They stared at each other in the glass.

Anger prickled the hairs up her arms. But its result was her digging in. No. She would not call it off, not slow it down, not give him one single excuse. She straightened completely, pulling her dignity up around her. "All right." She looked at the mantel clock behind him. "It's five minutes till eleven. You have till eleven o'clock." She'd be generous.

Because she fully intended to be merciless in the end.

His eyes lingered on the clock as he came around to face her. The game began again. He sat back, facing her, crossing his legs as if casually, one knee over the other—he did that in a way that couldn't be taught, in a rare way. Delicate, a refined air, particular and graceful, without being the least effeminate. Masculine, in fact. She didn't know where he'd learned to do such a thing, but it added to the illusion of a gentleman.