LITMIR.BIZ

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       He has not come to his present age in a perpetual state of nakedness. He has simply forgotten all his old life. How am I even to begin?

      “Show me,” he said.

      Her eyes flew open again. “I beg your pardon?”

      “Remove—” He pointed to her walking dress. “Remove that.”

      She nearly choked. “Ash!”

      “Did I speak incorrectly?”

      He spoke beautifully. Breathtakingly. For a man who hadn’t been able to talk less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d become downright verbose.

      “That is quite unnecessary,” she said, knowing that outrage would do no good and possibly much harm. “One does not remove one’s clothing in the presence of others.”

      “Never?”

      The one exception flooded her mind with fantastical images that sprang unbidden from her imagination. “Not in society,” she said as steadily as she could.

      “This is wrong?”

      His gesture and glance down at himself made his meaning exceedingly plain. In vain she made another attempt to shut her wanton thoughts away.

      “It is not polite,” she said. “You must dress.” She held the trousers up against her body with shaking hands. “You put them on, so. Step into one leg, then the other. The buttons are here.”

      “Do they not make it difficult to run?”

      Laughter burst out before she could think to forestall it. “Gentlemen seldom find occasion to run.”

      “Am I a gentleman?”

      Very good, Mariah. A fine beginning. “You will not need to run,” she said. “Can you put them on, Ash?”

      “You wish it,” he said, as serious as the monk he most decidedly was not.

      “I wish it very much.”

      He held out his hand. Half turned away, she passed the trousers through the bars. The mad beating of her heart almost drowned out the sound of his movements. She counted to herself, waiting for him to gather up the garment, put it on, fasten the buttons over his … his burgeoning masculinity. If the buttons would close at all.

       If the dowager could see what’s in your mind, Mariah …

      “I am finished.”

      Her skirts hardly rustled as she moved, stiff as an automaton, to face him.

      Dressed he was not. But at least he wore the trousers, half-buttoned. She should have been grateful that they weren’t on backward, though they were much more snug than she had bargained for. He was still quite … noticeable.

      “A shirt,” she said, before her imagination could run away with her again. Just as gingerly as before, she placed the shirt at the foot of the bars. He took it, frowned, turned it about, then snorted with something very like disgust.

      “You put it over your arms,” she said, pantomiming the action.

      “Show me.”

      She was beginning to feel more than a little as if he were making sport of her. But had he a sense of humor? The mad might laugh, but seldom with any kind of understanding. If Ash were mocking her, it was a peculiarly subtle form of mockery. Thus far he had been far from subtle.

      Despite the generous cut of the garment, made for a broad-shouldered, muscular man, Mariah had to struggle to pull the shirt over her snug sleeves and tight bodice. It belled out over her bustle, but she was able to fasten the buttons.

      “There,” she said. “You see?” She pirouetted to show him every angle. “Simple as pie.”

      “Pie?”

      “Something very good to eat.”

      “Is it simple?”

      It took a moment for her to grasp his meaning. “Well … my mother always found it—”

      “Your mother?”

      Mariah blinked and faced Ash squarely. “Let us return to the subject at hand.” She unbuttoned the shirt and pulled it off, prepared to give it to him. Ash had fixed his gaze at the point where her gathered overskirt flared over the bustle.

      “What is that?” he asked.

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Is that where you keep your tail?”

      Another shock raced from the soles of her shoes to the very tips of her hair. “My … my tail?”

      “You do not have one?”

      Oh. This was so much worse than she had feared, even when her doubts had been greatest. “People do not have tails, Ash,” she said.

      “No,” Ash said, unaware of her inner turmoil. “Mine is gone, too.”

      Flight seemed the better part of valor until Mariah realized what she was seeing in Ash’s black, sparkling eyes. He was teasing her. Teasing her, for heaven’s sake.

      Relief eased the pressure within her chest. “It is a very good thing, too,” she said, “or you would look quite out of place in the world.”

      “The world.” He looked over her shoulder at the door leading to the antechamber. “Outside.”

      “Yes.” How long since he had seen anything but these whitewashed stone walls?

      “We shall go outside,” she said. “When you are ready.”

      “Now.”

      It was a command, not a request, not a plea. She better understood what she faced now; she must firmly remind him who held command, or he would never become manageable.

      “Not yet,” she said. “First you must learn to dress, converse …”

      And remember. That most of all.

      With a deep sigh that further revealed the complexity of his emotions, Ash took the shirt from her and shrugged into it, the handsomely formed muscles of his chest and shoulders rippling with the easy motion. He buttoned it without the slightest difficulty, letting the tail hang over his trousers. Mariah knew she must choose her battles, and asking him to tuck in his shirt was the very least of them.

      She had not remembered to bring braces, but that was a complication she didn’t need at the moment. Garters were also out of the question. But stockings, even if they would not stay in place, were a necessity. She presented them to Ash.

      “These go over your feet,” she said.

      He looked at his feet, then at the stockings. “I don’t like them.”

      Just like a child … in that particular way, at least. And it was much easier to view him so, she decided. “You will get used to them,” she said. “You must have worn them in the past.”

      “Never.”

      At least he understood the concepts of past and present, which could not be said of many lunatics. “It is not in the least difficult.” She sat in the chair and unlaced her boot. “I am taking off my shoe. This is my stocking.”

      Blushing would be ridiculous now, in light of all she had already witnessed. She lifted her skirts to her ankle and pointed. “Stocking,” she said.

      His unfortunate habit of staring at her would likely be very difficult to break, but in this case she could forgive it. She replaced her boot self-consciously and returned to stand before the cage. “Let me see you do it,” she encouraged.

      He took the stockings, sat down on the floor—doubtless dirtying his otherwise spotless trousers—and pulled the stockings over his long, very handsome feet.

      

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