Lady Myddelton's Lover by Evangeline Holland

at it until it loosened. She took a deep breath, her torso expanding slight within the busk and the gap between the laces widened. He reached for them and began to work them through the grommets, blinking hard and swaying slightly on his knees with the repetitious in-and-out and in-and-out, growing lightheaded as the laces wiggled like tiny, slippery garden snakes in his hands. He closed his eyes to dispel the sensation, hearing a distant cry as the room tilted and crashed to the ground.
     
    ***
     
    Aline fell to her knees beside him, her hands fluttering over him as she checked for any possible injuries. She leaped back when he twitched, his entire body shuddering before his chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. Her mouth dropped open when he began to snore, deep, zig-zagging snores that filled her entire room. She leaned close and in her rapidly receding panic, suddenly got a great big whiff of alcohol.
    “Why you wretch!” She slapped his unresponsive form. “You are drunk.”
    He merely snored in response, his hand flopping away from his chest to rest on her thigh. She gingerly lifted his hand away from her thigh and allowed it to drop on the floor. Even when unconscious he would use any means to touch her. Aline stood and looked down at his supine body, utterly aggravated. She cast a look at the speaking tube with which she could call for Truscott and James to carry him back into his own room, but thought better of it, nothing wishing to disturb their sleep (though she knew the unflappable Truscott would nonetheless rouse he and the footman to do their duty). She could not pick him up by herself and pull him all the way to his bedroom, but she also did not want him lying here in her room, on the floor.
    She rounded his body and paused to ascertain the physicality of her idea, then worked her hands beneath his shoulders, grasping him beneath the armpits and tugging him up, inch by inch. She gritted her teeth with the effort, but eventually managed to pull his upper body vertical. His head lolled to his chest, disrupting the snores (Hallelujah), and his arms dangled in front of him. She began to pull, tug, and jerk him across the floor, thankful for her loosened corset because he was heavy against her chest, and the strain of dragging him to the other twin mattress of which comprised her half-tester bed quite winded her.
    Aline managed to get him parallel to the mattress and with one strong heave, she fell backwards on the bed with him in her arms. She let out a long breath of air and grimaced at the ceiling, partially trapped beneath his body and his head resting on her stomach. He groaned in his sleep and rolled onto his side, and she used this movement to wriggle from beneath him and slide off the mattress. She stood in the small space between the twin beds and wrenched her corset around so she could unlace it and slide it over her head. She sat back on the other bed and dropped her corset on the mattress, unfastening her earrings and removing the aigrette from her hair as she swung her legs over the edge and bounced off the bed. She placed the earrings and aigrette on her dressing table and then fetched her dressing gown, sliding her arms into the sleeves and cinching the belt tightly about her waist.
    She quietly clicked off the lamp at the dressing table and sighed, walking to the light fixtures on her wall to reach up and turn them down. The faint glow from the fireplace cast eerie shadows about the bedroom, and she felt her way to the plush sofa pushed against the edge of both beds, freezing at the sharp intake of Richard’s breath, fearing he had awoken. His breathing evened, but she walked to bend over him nonetheless, feeling a sudden pensiveness as she stared down at his face, his strong features almost boyish and harmless in repose. She reached out a hand to smooth his hair away from his brow before she could stop herself, the silky burnished strands still too long for fashion.
    Aline felt surer touching