“Such humility about your amatory skills.” Abigail crossed the room and turned her back to him. She expected to feel deft fingers undoing her hooks, but nothing happened.

“My lord?”

“I am marshaling my self-control. If a stray bit of tinder were to land on my imagination right now, the Great Fire would be a mere glowing coal by comparison.”

Something was afoot with all this prolixity. Not shyness, exactly, but self-consciousness, perhaps?

“My hooks, Stephen, and my stays. Be about it, please, or we will have to go shopping when we could be cavorting instead.”

She barely felt his fingers brushing at her nape as he undid the back of her dress. Her stays loosened without any of the usual tugging.

“You have the hands of a safecracker,” she said, turning. “Allow me to reciprocate.” To stand around in loosened stays and an undone dress in the middle of the day was peculiar and naughty. Abigail liked the daring of it, and made a production out of removing Stephen’s cravat pin and sleeve buttons, then his watch and fob.

“Why do you wear silk cravats?” Most men preferred starched linen, though the silk was exquisite to the touch.

“Several frolicsome relationships ago, the other party had a taste for being bound when I used my mouth…” He tipped his chin up, as if consulting with the dragon on the ceiling. “She liked to have her hands tied during certain intimate acts. I could not countenance rope against a lady’s wrists, so I took to wearing silk cravats.”

Abigail drew the cravat from around his neck. “I see.”

“You don’t, but if the Deity is merciful to a man about to sin as boldly and joyously as he possibly can, you will soon.”

She unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt, and pushed his coat from his shoulders. “I should take off your boots.”

A frisson of wariness flickered in his eyes. “We should take off our boots, unless you’d like to be rogered while you wear stockings and boots.”

Abigail considered it. “Not this time.” She pulled the draperies closed on both windows, then shimmied out of her dress and laid it across the desk. Next, she sat on the sofa and unlaced her boots. All the while, Stephen merely watched her, and she ignored the bulge displacing the line of his falls.

“What?” she asked.

“You, sashaying around my study in your shift, boots, and stockings. You are very bold.”

She bent to unlace her boots. “And you are shy.”

He shrugged out of his waistcoat and pulled his shirt over his head. “Me, shy? My family would be overcome with hilarity to hear that description.”