Unlacing the Innocent Miss by Margaret McPhee

touch wassoothing and pleasurable. She knew she should not look, but she could not help herself. Her eyes moved to the strong hands that worked upon her feet.
    His fingers were tanned beside the pallor of her ankles, his skin rough ened in contrast to her smooth ness and, for all their days on the road, his nails were short and clean. He worked deftly and when he touched her, where he touched her, her skin tingled. She watched those hands first on one foot and then the other, and everything in his movement was gentle yet with a strength and competence that were undeniable. He knew what he was doing. At last he tucked the end of the binding in and she thought he was finished, but he was not. He lifted her stocking.
    Rosalind’s heart gave a somersault. She knew she should draw her foot back, but it was as if she were entranced. She just sat there, with her foot within his hand, and waited, waited, her breath holding tight in her lungs, her blood thrumming with anticipation. Slowly, carefully, he eased her foot into the silken case of her stocking, so that the binding was not dislodged. The silk pooled around her ankle, his fingers resting above it on the nakedness of her skin. And still she sat, unable to move, as if cast as a statue, her lower leg exposed before him. He hesitated.
    A breath in, and out.
    Her skin burned beneath the touch of his fingers. She moved her eyes to his, but his focus was fixed upon her ankle, at where his hands cupped around her leg.
    He was still, unnaturally so, and tense; she could feel it even through the feather-light touch of his hands. Slowly, as if against his will, he raised his gaze to hers.
    His eyes smouldered a deep smoky grey, and they were filled not with anger or loathing or mockery, but with something that she had never seen in any man’s eyes.She looked and could not look away. something in her seemed to open, some need that she did not understand. She felt his thumb flicker against her skin, an infinitesimal movement—so small as to barely exist at all, and yet a caress all the same. And still their gazes held, locked, caught in some strange new world in which only the two of them existed. She could not move, could not breathe. The pulse in her throat throbbed, her heart thumping wildly, her blood rushing madly. She was acutely conscious of where his hand lingered and of his very proximity. Her skin burned beneath his touch.
    She gasped as she felt the caress of his fingers against the skin of her calf.
    His face came nearer.
    Rosalind leaned towards him, the tiniest motion, but enough.
    His mouth moved closer so that she could feel the warmth of his breath upon her cheek.
    ‘Wolf,’ she whispered, and not once did the intensity of their gaze waver.
    His lips parted.
    She closed her eyes.
    A knock sounded on the door.
    She started with fright, gasping, the spell shattered in an instant.
    The doorknob turned and Pete Kempster appeared in the doorway. But Wolf was already on his feet, facing Kempster, standing so that he partially blocked Rosalind from the footman’s view.
    ‘everything all right, Mr Wolversley?’ His dark gaze slid from Wolf to Rosalind. ‘breakfasts are ready and on the table. Mr Campbell sent me to fetch you.’
    ‘We’ll be down directly,’ Wolf said to him. An effectivedismissal, yet the footman lingered, his gaze turned towards her, so that she could see the surprise within it.
    ‘Kempster,’ said Wolf in low warning.
    She could not see Wolf’s face but Kempster could, and what he saw there made him give a grudging nod of acknowledge ment before turning on his heel and beating a hasty retreat.
    Rosalind and Wolf were alone again. The footsteps died away and there was only silence.
    She did not know what to do, what to say, what to think even. What had just happened, what they had come so close to doing…The incredulity of it lay thick and awkward between them.
    Wolf turned then, and she saw that the shock in his eyes mirrored that in her heart,