Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels #2) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,20

came to her shoulders, toying with the straps of her chemise. “Will you want all of them brought from Hampshire?”

“I don’t think there’s room for all of them.”

“I’ll find a way for you to keep them here.”

Her eyes widened. “Would you?”

“Of course.” His fingertips traced the curves of her shoulders with beguiling lightness. “I intend for you to have everything you need to be happy. Orchids . . . books . . . a silk mill dedicated to looming stockings only for you.”

A laugh caught in her throat, her pulse quickening at his leisurely caresses. “Please don’t buy a silk mill for me.”

“I already own one, actually. In Whitchurch.” He bent to kiss the pale curve of her shoulder, the brush of his mouth as warm and weightless as sunlight. “I’ll take you there someday, if you like. A grand sight, it is: a row of huge machines throwing raw silk into threads even finer than strands of your hair.”

“I would like to see that,” she exclaimed, and he smiled at her interest.

“Then you shall.” His fingers sifted through the loose blonde locks. “I’ll keep you well supplied in ribbons and stockings, cariad.” Easing her down to the bed, he began to reach beneath the chemise for the waist of her drawers.

Helen tensed, her hands catching at his. “I’m very shy,” she whispered.

His lips wandered gently up to her ear. “How do shy women prefer their drawers to be removed? Fast, or slow?”

“Fast . . . I think.”

Between one breath and the next, her drawers were tugged down and efficiently whisked away. Gooseflesh rose on her naked thighs.

Rhys stood and began to unknot his tie. Comprehending that he intended to undress right in front of her, she slid beneath the sheets and the eiderdown quilt, and yanked them up to her collarbone. The bed was soft and clean, scented with the dry tang of washing soda, a comforting smell because it reminded her of Eversby Priory. She stared fixedly at the fireplace, aware of Rhys’s movements at the periphery of her vision. He worked on his collar and cuffs, and soon discarded his waistcoat and shirt.

“Have a look if you like,” she heard him say casually. “Unlike you, I’m not shy.”

Clutching the sheets higher against her neck, Helen risked a timid glance at him . . . and then she couldn’t look away.

Rhys was a magnificent sight, dressed only in trousers with braces hanging loosely along his lean hips. The flesh of his torso looked remarkably solid, as if it had been stitched to his bones with steel thread. Seeming comfortable in his half-naked state, he sat on the edge of the bed and began to remove his shoes. His back was layered with muscle upon muscle, the contours so defined that his sun-colored skin gleamed as if polished. As he stood and turned to face her, Helen blinked with surprise at the discovery that there was no hair at all on the broad expanse of his chest.

Often when her brother Theo had nonchalantly walked about Eversby Priory in his dressing-robe, a scruff of coarse curls had been visible on the upper portion of his chest. And when Devon’s younger brother West had been put to bed after suffering an extreme chill, Helen had noticed that he was hairy as well. She had assumed all men were made that way.

“You’re . . . smooth,” she said, her face heating.

He smiled slightly. “A Winterborne trait. My father and uncles were the same.” He began to unfasten his trousers, and Helen looked away hastily. “It was a curse in my teen years,” he continued ruefully, “having a chest as bare as a young lad’s, while the others my age were all growing a fair carpet. My friends baited and teased me near to death, of course. For a while they took to calling me ‘badger.’”

“Badger?” Helen echoed, puzzled.

“Ever hear the expression ‘bald as a badger’s arse’? No? The long bristles on a shaving brush come from the area around the badger’s tail. There’s a joke that most of the badgers in England have had their backsides plucked bare.”

“That was very unkind of them,” Helen said indignantly.

Rhys chuckled. “It’s the way of boys. Believe me, I behaved no better. After I grew big enough to thrash the lot of them, they didn’t dare say a word.”

The mattress sank beneath his weight as he climbed into bed with her. Oh, God. It was happening now. Helen wrapped her arms tightly around her midriff. Her