Part 9 (1/2)
”Now, Robert, I'm going to have your opinion, if you please. Which form would you first think a match? Come on, quickly, lad. The six? Or the seven?”
”Um...er...” the apprentice glanced at Lydia's foot and quickly looked away. ”The seven?”
”Ha! Thought you had half a chance of being right, did you? As if I'd make it that easy for you. The five, Robert. I'd wager your supper on that.” He s.h.i.+fted his hand so that now he was cupping Lydia's heel and she had managed to all but wrap her hands around her leg, pulling her skirts close in an attempt at modesty.
”The Number Five, sir,” Robert said, handing the man a wooden form of a foot-rather well carved, actually. Dear G.o.d, the man had actually carved a set of toes onto the form. Was that dedication, or a fetish?
The boot maker positioned the form alongside Lydia's foot. The two matched in length. ”Do I have an eye, Robert? Yes, I do. You've a pretty foot, miss, I'll say it again. Cla.s.sic.”
Tanner restrained himself from kicking the fellow off his stool, but it was a near-run thing.
Fortunately, Mr. Sly didn't seem to trust his apprentice enough to have him bring the correct boots from the shelves. ”You may put your foot down now, miss,” he told Lydia, and then hauled himself to his feet and hustled to the shelves lining the right wall.
”Enthusiastic, isn't he?” she said, smoothing her skirts as she neatly hid her stockinged foot beneath the hem.
”This may have been a bad idea on my part,” Tanner said quietly. ”Would you rather we left?”
”I'd say yes, except that I do want to go tramping your Malvern Hills...and the boots really are quite lovely. Imagine, Tanner, the man has found a way to measure feet beforehand and make shoes to fit them. How many sizes are there to feet, do you think?”
”An even dozen, miss,” Robert whispered, one eye on his master. ”Mr. Sly, he worked it all out. Five is not all so common. Most of the ladies fall in the higher numbers. We tell them the higher numbers are better, but they're really just bigger. When I open m'own shop, I think I'll use names of flowers or some such, and no numbers.”
”Yes, I can see the point of that,” Lydia said, winking up at Tanner. ”Dear lady, you are a day lily, how exemplary.” Then her smile faded as Mr. Sly returned carrying a pair of boots, ready to take up his seat in front of her once more. She all but slammed her hands down on her skirts.
But Mr. Sly wasn't going to get the chance to touch her again. ”I'll a.s.sist the lady,” Tanner said, neatly s.n.a.t.c.hing the boots from the man's hands and sitting himself down on the low stool. Interestingly, that put his head at knee-height with Lydia. In this position, unless he was careful in lifting her leg, there was a high likelihood of seeing parts of her he shouldn't see. No wonder Mr. Sly seemed such a jolly sort.
”Tanner, you don't have to-”
”If milady would kindly raise her foot?” Tanner said, wondering what fool would think stringing laces top to bottom rather than bottom to top would be anything but a b.l.o.o.d.y nuisance. No wonder if took females so long to dress.
She slowly lifted her leg and Tanner moved the stool forward, gently taking hold of her ankle and resting her heel on his thigh as he continued to labor over loosening the laces.
”Here, now, you're doing it all wrong,” Mr. Sly said, reaching for the boot, but Tanner neatly avoided his hand.
”We know you're busy with your bride boots, Sly. Robert here will a.s.sist us. You may go.”
”I may go, is it? And who do you'd think you'd be, telling me what to do in m'own shop?”
”He's the Duke of Malvern, Mr. Sly,” Lydia told him sweetly. ”I'm certain that when His Grace tells all of his acquaintance of your magnificent shop you will need hire several more able apprentices like Robert.”
”That took him off,” Robert all but crowed when the bootmaker bowed several times before hurrying back behind his curtain. ”A real slyboots he is, if you take my meaning, Your Grace. He would have dropped the boot and bent down low to fetch it, all the while trying to see where he shouldn't ought see, my apologies to your lady. Does it all the time, with the pretty ones. A good Quaker, I am, only apprenticed here because m'father got himself lost in debt. I hold no truck with Mr. Sly's slyboots ways.”
”Yes, thank you, Robert,” Tanner said, watching as Lydia blushed. ”You can get back to your duties. I have all in hand here.”
And, to prove his words, he slid his hand further beneath Lydia's skirts and cupped her calf in order to hold her steady as he prepared to slide the boot over her toes.
”Tanner?”
”Forgive me,” he said, his fingers feeling on fire as he felt the silk of her stocking, the sleek firmness of her calf. His imagination was beginning to run rampant. ”But it's me or Mr. Slyboots.”
”Nicole would say that I should be happy to have men at my feet,” Lydia said, her voice rather breathless. ”But I don't think she ever envisioned anything like this. Shall I push?”
It took Tanner a moment to understand what she meant. ”Uh, no, I can manage it. It's these d.a.m.ned upside-down laces.”
”Oh, but only think, Tanner. How could I bear to not have Mr. Sly's cunning little bows visible beneath the hem of my gown? Here, let me help.”
She pointed her toes-she did have a wonderfully high arch; an eminently kissable arch. Nearly as kissable as her slim ankle, the curve of her calf that he could feel, longed to see.
He should let Robert take over. The boy could be no more than fifteen, and a Quaker into the bargain. Quakers probably didn't harbor licentious thoughts. Or if they did, they didn't act on them.
Tightening his grip on Lydia's calf, Tanner managed to slide the boot up and over her foot, and then rested her heel on his thigh once more, her knee bent as he used both hands to pull the boot fully up and on.
He controlled his breathing with some effort, or else Lydia might think he was breathless from exertion, rather than the truth, which was that he was manfully struggling to divorce himself from the knowledge that one feigned slip of a hand would have that hand at knee-height. Inches above that would be Lydia's garter, and then beyond that...beyond that lay madness.
With the boot fully on, Lydia leaned forward to see how it looked on her foot. Which put her head a scant foot from Tanner's. Tanner, who still had both hands a good five inches beneath her skirts, and with his gaze now exactly at bosom level.
He'd never been in danger of forgetting that Lydia had b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Then again, he'd never remembered her gowns revealing so much of them. When they were married, he'd insist on serving as her ladies' maid whenever she wished to wear boots. He wouldn't mind having her wear these particular boots, as a matter of fact, and the devil with her clothing entirely.
The thought of those fine leather heels digging into his bare back had him s.h.i.+fting rather uncomfortably on the stool. Her heel slipped as he moved and he instinctively grabbed at her leg, his hands sliding upward on the sleek silk stockings. The sole of her boot was now mere inches from his crotch, his betraying bulge.
”Oh...” Lydia said, looking down at her skirts as if she could see his hands beneath the sprigged muslin and petticoats. And then she looked at him, and he couldn't glance away, pretend what had just happened hadn't happened.
She was looking at him strangely. But not in panic. Not in loathing. He saw an unspoken question in her eyes. And he didn't know the answer.
But he hoped he did.
”You feel like nothing else in the world,” Tanner heard himself saying quietly. He s.h.i.+fted his right hand higher, until his fingertips encountered her lace-edged garter. With her knee bent, he knew that her thighs had to be slightly parted. Her soft inner thigh was only a whisper away. He thought he might explode.
Lydia wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, an act born of nervousness, he was sure, but no less powerful for all of that.
They were only a few steps off Regent Street, with a slyboots no more than twenty feet away and a young Quaker soon to be corrupted unless Tanner got a grip on himself.
”Forgive me,” he said, withdrawing his hands and allowing her to lower her leg. ”I shouldn't have...”
”No, no, it was my fault. My foot slipped. I...I think the boot fits very well,” she told him as he floundered to apologize without saying what he was apologizing for, which would have only made things worse.
They were both very quiet on the way back to Grosvenor Square. Two people with so much on their minds, and so little that could be said. But a step had been taken. They both knew it.
Only, where would that step lead?
CHAPTER NINE.
”TANNER BOUGHT YOU a pair of boots? What an odd gift,” Charlotte said as she settled herself into a chair in Lydia's bedchamber. ”And they were already made, and fit your foot? Let me see.”