“It’ll be easier if you untie all the petticoats first and then I step out of them at the same time,” she advised.
“How many are you wearing?” he growled, tugging at a second lot of strings.
Mina thought a moment. “Four.”
He made an exasperated noise in his throat.
“Think yourself lucky,” she told him tartly, “that you are not similarly hampered on a daily basis.”
He yanked her petticoats down over her hips. “Step out,” he advised when he had the stiff fabric down so far as her knees. Mina was forced to set a hand on one burly shoulder before she could follow his advice. He was knelt at her feet with his hands at her waist now, as he frowned over her corset fastenings.
“Let me do it,” Mina cautioned, her fingers flying to the hook and eyes down the front. “If you mess with those laces, it’ll take me an age to get them right again.” Demonstrating her own familiarity with her underpinnings, she was soon out of her stays and hanging them on the back of the chair.
Nye rose back up to his feet. “Let me get a good look at you,” he said, placing his hands on his hips and planting his feet as his eyes roamed over the picture she made. Mina stilled, glad of the excuse not to have to strip further. All she had left on her now was her cotton chemise, drawers, black stockings and ankle boots.
It seemed an odd request for him to make, then suddenly, she remembered one of her old pupils, Miss Arabella Plimpton, telling the other girls about her brother’s French picture postcards. She had listened along with the others in astonished silence to hear that Bella’s brother kept a collection of well-thumbed photographs depicting women clad only in their undergarments.
Mina glanced down; doubtful her own appearance would be as alluring. She felt horribly aware that her underclothes were plain and functional without a frill or furbelow in sight. Even her garters were plain white elastic. She could see no reason for him to dwell with pleasure on the picture she made. They weren’t even a nice crisp laundered white these days.
“I’m afraid the black dye of my dresses rather rubs off on things,” she said lamely. Looking up, she saw Nye wasn’t attending her. His eyes were fixed on her legs, she thought with surprise and wondered why. She looked back down, suddenly wondering if there was a hole in her stocking.
“Take down your hair,” he said in a gravelly voice.
A refusal trembled on her lips, but it seemed silly to cavil after she’d stripped off her clothing at his request. Instead, she reached up hesitant fingers and removed her hairpins, unravelling the roll of hair from her nape. She shook her head and ran her fingers through it, until her hair lay loose over her shoulders.
“Turn around,” he said in a gravelly voice.
“Nye—” she started to object, but he interrupted her.
“Indulge me.”
She tutted and turned in a slow circle. “I know for a fact I look nothing like a French dancing girl.”
“Like a what?”
“You know,” Mina retorted, blushing. “Like one of those picture postcards of women in their drawers.”
Nye’s expression wavered for a moment. “When did you ever see such a thing?” he asked, holding his hand out to her. He looked a little disconcerted.
“I haven’t precisely,” she admitted, placing her hand in his. “But I know they exist.”
He drew her up against him, one hand resting with great familiarity against her bottom. “How do you know you don’t look like one, then?” he asked in a low voice. She thought a thread of amusement ran through his words and looked up sharply at him.
“I just know,” she said, her gaze sliding away evasively as her chest rose and fell. Ironically, she felt a good deal more breathless since her corset had been removed.
“I don’t think you do,” he said, placing his other hand at her waist. His fingers flipped up the edge of her chemise, so his hand slid against her bare skin there, making her jump and bite back an exclamation. He stroked a thumb against the indentation of her waist in a leisurely fashion. Mina shivered.
“Let’s get these boots off you and lay you on the bed,” he said, and she felt unspeakably relieved he didn’t expect her to strip naked. At his urging, she sat on the edge of the mattress as he sat on his haunches and untied her laces, casting the ankle boots aside. He hesitated over her stockings, running his palm up and down her calf. “How do you feel about keeping these on?”
Mina stared at him a moment. “My stockings?”
He nodded. “These need to come off, though,” he said, tugging at her white cotton drawers.
Mina’s face flamed. Really? “Can I take them off under the covers?” she asked stiffly. He shook his head. “Why not?”
“Because I want to do something to you here and now.”
“Do something to me?” she echoed croakily. He nodded slowly, his eyes glinting up at her wickedly. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Very well.”
He reached up and loosened the strings at her waist. “Lift up,” he ordered. Mina lifted her hips off the bed, and he tugged her white drawers down to her ankles, then whisked them off her altogether. Mina forgot to breathe for a moment. She didn’t dare look Nye in the face. She was mortified that he was squatting down like that, at eye level with her most private place. She had never even taken a good look down there herself! His hands were on her knees, urging
