Читать книгу Compromised Miss - Anne O'Brien, Anne O'Brien - Страница 2

Exasperated, Harriette pulled a knife from her belt and began to use it against the seams—it was ruined anyway.

The shirt of the finest linen, as she had suspected despite the muck and blood that soiled it, gave her no trouble. She had already used his once impeccably starched cravat as an impromptu padding. Her lips curved in contempt. Payment for state secrets must be high.

‘Miss Harriette, I think you should leave.’

‘Just do it, George.’

With a click of tongue against teeth George stripped off the man’s breeches, undergarments and hose. Well, now! Harriette was not ignorant of a degree of male nakedness. On board the cutter, when sailors stripped off their shirts to haul and pull on rope and sails, without embarrassment she had watched the play of smooth, well-defined muscle as arms and backs took the strain. As a member of the crew, she found it an occurrence that no longer disturbed her. A man was a creature of blood and bone and muscle, much like a horse, superbly crafted to carry out a task against the elements.

She had seen a half-naked man before. But nothing like this man, fully naked. Harriette found herself locked in a moment of splendid appreciation.