if I tell you I won’t do this new work assignment without your help?” Brett asked in an insolent way he knew would annoy her.
Hands on her hips, Charlotte regarded him without flinching. “Then I’ll ask you to pack your bags and vacate the premises immediately,” she said coolly.
He couldn’t stop her from unmasking Sterling from afar, Brett thought. He sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound, and he was in this up to his neck. “All right, all right. Starting tomorrow, I’ll get the mower up and running and cut the darn grass, but when I’m done,” he warned silkily, “I’ll expect to be amply compensated.”
“With what?” Charlotte asked with an impertinent toss of her dark hair. “Another kiss?”
So, Brett thought with satisfaction, she hadn’t forgotten their embrace, either. “Maybe,” he said.
“Dream on,” she retorted haughtily. “You caught me by surprise once. Not ever again.”
Brett grinned. He’d felt her response to his embrace. She had to be yearning for another kiss every bit as much as he was. “Should we bet on that?”
* * *
“I DON’T SEE WHY I have to wear the chemise, the corset and the petticoat for the fitting,” Charlotte grumbled the following afternoon. She held on to the bedpost with both hands, as Paige laced her up so tight her breasts spilled from the top of the lacy white linen chemise.
“It’s the only efficient way to measure you.” Paige frowned and gave the strings on the corset another tug. “Can you still breathe?”
“No!”
“Good, then that’s probably tight enough,” Paige decided. She stepped back to admire her handiwork as Charlotte let go of the bedpost. “You know, I think we whittled a good two inches off your waist with that corset.”
“It feels like it, too,” Charlotte grumbled. “Now loosen those strings, Paige.”
Paige propped both her manicured hands on her hips. She was dressed in street clothes, since she had already had her fitting. “Do you want to look like an authentic antebellum Southern belle or not?” Paige demanded.
“I’d rather be comfortable,” Charlotte admitted matter-of-factly. When Paige refused to help her, she reached around and tried to get at the double-knotted laces herself.
Paige slapped her hand away. “Stop that, Charlotte, and quit your complaining! I went to a great deal of trouble to find and borrow these corsets for us.”
“Maybe it would help if the person you borrowed the corsets from had been a size or two larger.” And her chemise cut a little more modestly, Charlotte thought.
Paige went to the mirror and primped, needlessly adjusting her perfectly coiffed hair. “You look fine.”
Charlotte stepped up to the mirror, next to Paige. Layers of lacy petticoat fell from her waist to just above her ankles. Her corset was wrapped snugly around her midriff, to just below her breasts. The chemise was above that. She looked ridiculous, like Scarlett O’Hara getting ready for the barbecue and ball at Twelve Oaks.
“You look wonderful,” Paige said, smiling encouragement at Charlotte.
“Primed to seduce someone, you mean,” Charlotte corrected. And with that thought, the only person who came to mind was Brett Forrest.
Just because he had kissed her once, fed her strawberries drenched in whipped cream and went out of his way to annoy her did not mean Brett was interested in her, or vice versa. Sure, there was plenty of chemistry between them, but that did not change the fact that he wasn’t her type. She liked men who knew exactly what they wanted out of life and had no qualms about going after it. Not men who napped on sofas, played at writing a thesis on farming and skulked around eavesdropping on other people’s private conversations.
As for the way she had responded to his kiss, well, that had been due to the surprise of his embrace, Charlotte told herself firmly. And the fact she hadn’t been kissed like that in a long time. Actually, she had never been kissed quite like that, which was another reason to stay as far away from Brett as possible.
The sound of a car broke the silence of the spring afternoon. Paige rushed to the window. “There’s the seamstress now. I’ll go down and get her.” She pointed a finger at Charlotte. “Don’t you go anywhere. And don’t unlace those stays!”
* * *
BRETT STOPPED in the doorway of Charlotte’s bedroom, stunned by what he saw. She was standing in a chemise, corset and petticoats. Her dark hair tumbled down around her shoulders in wild, tousled curls. Her breasts spilled from the lacy top in very alluring fashion.
Green eyes flashing, she whirled to face him. Blushing, she reached for a stack of midnight-blue damask curtains on the bed and held one in front of her like a shield. “What are you doing in here?”
Pretending a nonchalance he couldn’t begin to feel, Brett smiled and sauntered closer. He didn’t know what it was about this place, but it was damn near magical. And so was Charlotte. “You know, you look like you stepped right out of another time,” he said softly. Having closed the distance between them, he twined a lock of her silky hair around his fingertip.
“It’s the clothes,” she said stubbornly as their eyes met and held.
“No,” Brett disagreed wickedly. “It’s not even the lack of them, Miss Charlotte. It’s you, plain and simple.”
Charlotte shook her head at him. Hand on his chest, she pushed him away. “You’re sinful, Brett Forrest.”
Her petticoat made soft swishing noises as she glided away from him. Brett followed. “Want to find out just how much?” he taunted playfully, only half kidding.
Charlotte whirled toward him in a drift of lilac perfume. “No, thank you,” she said haughtily.
Just as he had suspected. Brett grinned, not the least bit anxious to leave. He glanced at the four tall windows that illuminated the corner bedroom. “Why did you tear all the curtains down in here?” he asked. The only thing she’d left were the translucent white sheers.
Charlotte blushed. “That is none of your business!”
Uh-huh, Brett thought, taking in her increasingly guilty expression. She was definitely up to something. What exactly, he couldn’t quite imagine. Unless she was going to stand in front of those sheer white curtains at night and drive him crazy with the silhouette of her undressing piece by piece….
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Charlotte demanded, beginning to panic as she darted around the end of the four-poster bed.
“No reason,” Brett fibbed, making absolutely no effort to erase the mischievous grin from his face as he lazily traced her path. It had been a long time since he had chased a girl at recess. It pleased him to realize he hadn’t forgotten how, because Charlotte was one delectable Southern belle who absolutely begged to be chased, even if she didn’t know it!
“Well, then, why did you come up here?” Having gotten herself stuck in a corner next to the bureau, Charlotte turned and regarded him impatiently.
