Page 387 of From Rakes to Riches

The dressmaker soon returned with an armful of gowns and shooed Victoria behind the changing screen. Victoria stood still as the woman helped unhook her gown and replaced it with one only basted together. It felt loose in some places, tight in others.

The dressmaker turned her toward the standing mirror and Victoria tried to look at herself objectively. She saw a blushing woman, but she realized that it was not out of embarrassment.

She was actually…excited to be seen in new garments by Lord Thurlow. He would be looking at her body—and she liked the thought.

Then she was being led out from behind the screen. She stood still as Lord Thurlow’s gaze dwelled on every part of her. Under that pale blue stare, she’d once felt frosted with cold, but instead a warmth started from her chest, where he stared the most, and spread outward at a slow languorous pace. She’d spent so much of her life feeling invisible around men. But now her husband wasn’t looking past her or thinking ahead with distraction to his next appointment. His attention was focused all on her.

And she liked it.

She felt attractive, even…sensual. Though she’d always been considered plump, it was definitely an asset to fill out the dress’s bodice.

Someone bolder seemed to take over her tongue.

“Madame Dupuy, this is a ball gown,” Victoria said. “Will the neckline do?”

Her husband’s startled eyes met hers, then focused back where she wanted them.

And that’s all she’d meant to accomplish, but Madame said, “Ah, I had forgotten. The necklines are lower this season.”

Shocked, Victoria watched as the dressmaker stepped in front of her, folded down the bodice, and pinned it in place, looking amused as she stepped aside. The air that swirled from her movement felt cool against the tops of Victoria’s breasts. She was more exposed that she’d ever been.

And her husband couldn’t stop looking at her.

Maybe “plump” wasn’t such a bad thing to be.

Lord Thurlow finally shifted in his chair and looked away.

Madame Dupuy began to chuckle. “Ah, newlyweds. And we yet have several gowns to try on. This one has your approval,oui, my lord?”

“Oui, madame,” he said, glancing once more at Victoria with a gaze so hot she felt burned.

Victoria tried on four more gowns, all of which met with Lord Thurlow’s approval, though now he betrayed a polite impatience to leave. Victoria had to work hard to withhold a grin. She made arrangements to have these last gowns delivered within the week, and the rest would be sent after a final fitting.

David barely listened to the dressmaker’s last instructions, so consumed was he with the need to leave. He was feeling overly warm, almost smothered in the shop’s confined quarters. To make matters worse, they had to thread through new customersas they headed for the street, and he stood out as the only man there.

Whatever had possessed him to come? Victoria probably would have spent much less of his money and done fine without him. He couldn’t fault her sense of style at all. But it was so hard to trust anyone, when everything concerned with his railway plans had to be perfect.

After he got into the carriage beside his wife, he tried not to study her so obviously, but he found that she wouldn’t leave his thoughts. There was such a calmness about Victoria, a feeling of capability. He knew that she was the one who had kept her family together in the trying times of the last year.

Who had taken care of her?

He had plenty of money to spend on his wife. Had anyone ever done so? Hell, she’d obeyed him and gone to the dressmaker, but she had never even looked at the ribbons on display. He would talk to his steward about her pin money.

He inhaled a hint of perfume, a warmth of woman, and just like that he forgot the rest of the day’s plans. He looked down at her hands loosely clasped together, and wondered what she would do if he took her hand by daylight instead of waiting for the night.

She tilted her head and looked up at him, giving him a glimpse of her magnificent eyes.

“So how do you know so much about the latest fashions, my lord?” she asked.

He found himself wanting to smile down at her. There was strand of hair across her forehead that needed brushing back. Yet he resisted. “I will admit that it has been a while since I studied them.”

“You do have another chance. We could accept Lady Augusta’s invitation to breakfast.”

“You already know my answer to that,” he said dryly.

“My lord, surely as a member of Parliament, you have to attend certain social functions.”

“It is not even worth subjecting ourselves to people like her.”

---