“Oh my,” she breathed finally with something like surprised wonder. “What big shoulders you have.”

“Er . . . aye, well. . .” Richard grimaced. She wouldn’t have been saying that had she seen him six months ago. He’d been a pitiful shadow of a man after the illness he’d suffered. Fortunately, he’d filled out again since then and was probably more fit now than he had been before George had so disrupted his life and nearly ended it.

Richard shook these thoughts away and glanced sharply to Christiana when she suddenly slid her fingers into the front of his breeches. He thought she was going to try to tug them off from the front as she had tried to do earlier from the back, but then realized she had merely taken hold to steady herself as she dropped to her knees before him.

Even with the hold she had on his breeches, she lost her balance and fell forward, banging her head against his groin before steadying herself. Much to his relief she also then removed her hand from his pants. When she then reached for one of his feet and yanked it out from under him, Richard grunted in surprise and grabbed for the window ledge behind him, leaning heavily against it to stay upright as she lifted his foot between them.

“My, what big feet you have, Dicky.”

Richard grimaced. He hated the name Dicky, and would have told her so, but instead grunted again and now held onto the ledge to keep from sliding forward and dropping to his butt as she raised his foot even higher and then rested it against her chest to free her hands so that she could work the buckle of his shoe. Richard simply stared then. His shod foot was nestled between her breasts like a lover’s head and he had the sudden mad thought that he’d rather his face was there.

He was actually disappointed when his shoe slid off, until she resettled his now unshod foot against her chest again to set to work on his stockings.

Richard stayed completely still, hardly breathing as he stared at the way the curves of her breasts cuddled his stockinged foot. He was hard-pressed not to wiggle his toes to feel the flesh surrounding them, but then his attention was drawn to his legs as she slid both his cotton under-stockings and the top silk ones down at the same time, her fingers gliding over his skin in an unintentional caress.

Richard sighed as she raised his foot to remove the stockings entirely, and then she let the foot drop back to the floor. In the next moment, she’d claimed his other foot, however, and rested it where the first had been. Christiana was equally quick about unbuckling and removing this shoe, and then he again suffered through the innocent caress of her breasts around his stockinged foot and the glide of her fingertips down his leg. It was over much too soon for his liking.