Page 17 of Frankly, My Dear

“She claims to lie bare-assed in the sun?” Fergus asked James with a grin.

“So she says.”

“For what reason?”

“Will you two stop talking about me as if I’m not here?”

James walked over to a large mahogany armoire that could bring a fortune some day at Christie’s. He began to throw some of his jackets and shirts onto the Persian carpet on the floor. “You’d better hide in here,” he told her. “I’ll see if I can forestall the guard until Fergus can get some forged documents.”

“Argh! Will you listen to me? I can prove I’m white.”

He glared at her, hands on hips. “How?”

Selene darted a glance at Fergus, who was leaning against the wall, clearly amused. “Make him step outside.”

James hesitated, then told Fergus, “Wait in the hall, and knock if you see the guard coming.”

He turned back to Selene, folding his arms across his chest. “Well?”

“I don’t suppose you’d just accept my word.”

He tapped his foot impatiently.

Selene turned her back on him, leaned down to raise her skirts, then removed her panty hose. She turned around and carefully raised the hem of the ballgown, starting at her right ankle, being sure to expose only the outer side of her leg up to her hip bone.

“See,” she said, “I was wearing a teensy bikini bottom. The skin is white right here where the strap went up to the hips.”

James squinted at her exposed skin, as if he couldn’t see clearly. Then, before she had a chance to protest, he put both hands on her waist, lifted her off the floor, and walked the short distance to the bed. With a whoosh of skirts, he threw her onto her back on the soft mattress and, quick as a wink, tossed her skirts up to her waist.

“You bastard!” Selene shrieked and tried to get up, but he held his left palm on her chest, holding her down firmly.

With the forefinger of his right hand, he traced the band of her pale skin from hip bone to pubic bone and back to the other hip bone. He shook his head back and forth in wonder. “You really are white.”

“No kidding. Let me up now.”

His eyes locked with hers in challenge. “Perhaps I should examine all of your body. Just to make sure.”

Selene felt her face flame with humiliation at his perusal of her most intimate body parts. And it didn’t help matters to see the sensual parting of his sculpted lips or the erotic hazing of his blue eyes.

“Please…don’t.”

He held her eyes for a few tortuous moments longer, his palm lying hotly against her stomach, like a brand. Then he moved away from her abruptly, leaving her to adjust her clothing.

Opening the door for Fergus, he announced flatly, “She’s lily white.”

Astonished, Fergus stared at her as she stood by the bed adjusting her gown.

“I’ll go to the guard headquarters at the Calaboso and explain that she lived in the Caribee for years where even the white women sometimes live like the natives,” James said.

Unconvinced, Fergus raised a bushy red eyebrow.

“If Atwood insists on proof, I’ll have his wife examine her,” James continued. “I think she lives with him in separate quarters at the jail.”

“Well, you’d better hide her in the meantime. If Victor comes by and finds her alone, he won’t care if she’s white, black, or purple.”

“Where’s your wife?” James asked.

“Still in bed. Female complaints.”