Love Lies by Cynthia St. Aubin

Author:Cynthia St. Aubin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oliver-Heber Books

CHAPTER 15

“For God’s sake, suck it in!” Allan yanked at the silky black strings of the corset currently doing it’s best to perform an impromptu dissection of my liver. It was the most intimate contact I’d had in two days, during which everyone but I had somewhere to be and something to do in preparation for the state dinner. Not that I was complaining. The solitary stretch of time had somewhat salved the emotional angst proceeding it.

“I am sucking it in!” I gripped the bedpost with both hands, drawing my belly button toward my spine with every ounce of my might as the ornately carved face of a mermaid bit into the meat of my palm.

“Stop talkin’. You have to breave to talk. Now. On de count of free, you’re gonna blow like you’re sucking off a bloody gladiator! Ready?”

I nodded, having very little idea of exactly how much pressure would be required to stimulate the aforementioned entity.

“One. Two. Free!”

Air shoved up my throat in one long gust, and with a triumphant shout from Allan, I was fastened. Inside the dress’s black velvet cage, my lungs rebelled against a sharp inhale, causing a momentary panic as I scrambled to catch one of life’s most elementary rhythms.

“I can’t breathe,” I announced.

“Meanwhiwe,” he said, turning me around to face the full-length mirror. “Your tits look bleedin’ brilliant!”

And to my great astonishment, he was right.

Above the corset’s ribs, my cleavage was a creamy swell. The long lines of my neck and shoulders were unbroken by sleeve or collar. Allan’s tugging had narrowed my waist to a gentle curve that fed into the gown’s full skirt like the stem into the head of a flower. He had managed to give me in cloth a measure of the grace I lacked in person. I turned sideways, then back, transfixed by the satin’s whisper around my legs.

“Go ahead,” Allan invited. “Say it. I’m a bloody genius.”

“You’re a bloody genius.”

“Good. Now let’s do somefink about ‘at hair.”

I perched at the vanity in my palatial bathroom and offered Allan bobby pins as he hovered behind me. Heat from a handful of curling irons breathed onto the delicate skin of my wrist as I leaned forward and turned my face right to left, checking my make-up.

“Quit faffin’ about,” Allan said, releasing a long, red coil of hair, warm against my collarbone. “You look lovely.”

“He hasn’t spoken to me in two days.” Even as I said it, a sharp, metallic tang punctured my heart.

Mark had seen to it that I would be sequestered in this one wing of the castle. Banned from the official meetings and assigned my own security detail, I had wandered the halls like a planet dragging satellites. At least my uninvited entourage had been kind enough to make themselves scarce when I discovered the library. There, in front of windows overlooking cliffs on the River Tay, I’d snuggled down into an overstuffed velvet armchair, stroking and sniffing my way through book after leather-bound book. Meals had materialized under silver-domed dishes.

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