There was something in his voice that sounded critical. “No, I have not,” she said fiercely. “But neither has any other woman of my acquaintance.”
“I was just offering to help.”
Now he’d made her feel guilty for snapping at him. After all, what difference did it make? He’d seen her naked more times than she could count. And she could see tar clumping her hair powder. The itch was beginning to drive her mad. “All right. But I’m going to bathe in my chemise.”
He shrugged. “I like to be really clean myself but I know many ladies aren’t like that. One only has to walk into a ballroom in July to realize it.”
“I am clean!” she snapped.
“Your choice,” he said kindly. “It certainly doesn’t matter to me what you wear in the bath. I might as well say it again, but that part of our marriage is over.”
It was all quite embarrassing. Poppy started trying to untie her gown and realized that she couldn’t unhook her sash by herself so it was just as well Fletch was there. He was working at the little hooks when she remembered what Jemma had said and started giggling.
“Thinking happy thoughts about Loudan again?”
He sounded rather unfriendly. “Jemma told me that men could come in quite handy on carriage trips,” she said, feeling the laughter bubble up inside her again. “She was right.”
He pulled her dress backward, off her shoulders and arms, and she stepped out of it. This par ticular dress had three separate petticoats sewn into it and it weighed quite a lot. Her stays laced behind, so Fletch started working on them and cursing a little under his breath. He certainly wasn’t very handy. Poppy started thinking about the possum in the Ashmolean again.
“Those opposable thumbs are very important,” she told him.
There was a ripping noise and her stays fell away. She spun around to find him holding up bits of lacing.
“They wouldn’t come apart,” he said with a silly grin.
Poppy put her hands on her hips. “Now what am I going to do without laces?”
“Well, you can’t wear that gown again anyway.” He turned it over with his toe and Poppy could see black marks on the sides. When she raised her eyes, Fletch was staring right at her chest. She looked down too and realized that she was wearing a chemise so light that the line of her breast could be seen through it. She even saw the pink tip of one of her nipples.
But before she could wrap her arms around her chest, his eyes slid away as if there was nothing interesting there and he said, “You get in the bath, and I’ll try to wash out that tar.”
Of course he wasn’t attracted to her body anymore. After all, he’d had four years to sate himself on her, and that was more than enough. Plus, Poppy knew quite well that many women had really large bosoms compared to hers.
She lifted the hem of her chemise and stepped into the bath. She cast a quick glance at Fletch, but he was over on the other side of the room, looking out the window.
“It’s snowing,” he said. “A proper snowfall.”
She could just see a blur of white over his shoulder. It made the room seem even smaller and more private.
“I’d like snow for Christmas,” she said. She sat down in the water, thinking about what would happen to her chemise when it got wet.
Not that it would matter to him, anyway.
The wet cloth looked as fine as netting where it clung to her legs. She tugged it over her knees, but where it fell between her legs she could even see golden hair through the tissue-thin cloth. Quickly she brought her knees up to her chest, splashing water on the floor.
“Are you ready?” he said from the window.
“No!” If she wrapped her arms around her chest and kept her knees up, she was covered. Not decent, but covered.