Vanity by Jane Feather

said numbly, watching as he dropped a heavy bar across the door and turned an iron key. Impassively, he removed the key from the lock and slipped it into his pocket. He could not be expecting anyone in this house, where he was clearly a friend and honored guest, to break into his room in the night—so the lock was presumably to keep his unwilling guest within.
    “You’ll find a commode and hot water behind the screen.” He indicated a worked screen in the corner of the room. “While you refresh yourself, I’ll prepare the punch.”
    The room was large and well appointed, warmed by a fire and lit, like the parlor, with expensive wax tapers. There was a deep armchair with elbow pieces beside the hearth, and Octavia decided she would sit up there until dawn.
    The highwayman was busy with his punch, considerately removing his attention from her, and she hastened behind the screen, grateful for the amenities it concealed. A freezing visit to an outhouse in the yard was an unappealing prospect at the best of times, let alone in a blizzard.
    When she emerged, her companion was grating nutmeg onto the contents of a silver punch bowl. The air was sweet with the scent of warmed brandy, oranges and lemons, cinnamon and nutmeg. Involuntarily, Octavia yawned, realizing how bone tired she was. Her eyes darted longinglyto the deep feather mattress on the bed. Perhaps the highwayman would be chivalrous enough to allow her the bed and take the chair for himself.
    “Come to the fire.” His smile was inviting as he ladled punch into a goblet. “Taste this and see if it needs any adjustment. There may be a want of nutmeg.”
    It seemed pointless to resist the comforts offered in this cozy prison. Octavia sat in the big chair, curling her toes onto the gleaming brass fender, and took the goblet. “Plenty of nutmeg,” she pronounced after a judicious sip. “But perhaps just a touch of cloves.”
    “Ah, I forgot the cloves.” He unscrewed a twist of wax paper and dropped a pinch of dark ground spice into her goblet. “Better?”
    She sipped and nodded. “It doesn’t taste quite like cloves, though.”
    “Oh, they’re a very rare variety, from the Indies,” he said, drinking deep of his own goblet before taking off his coat and sitting down to remove his boots and stockings.
    When he pulled loose his neck cloth and began to unbutton his shirt, Octavia realized he was undressing for bed … right there in the middle of the chamber … right in front of her eyes. He was unfastening his britches. She stared, mesmerized as he pushed them off his hips. Candlelight flickered on his broad bare chest, and her eye moved inexorably downward, following the trail of dark hair snaking over his belly, down from his navel and into the waist of his woolen drawers that molded his hips and legs and clung tightly to a bulging shape…. She choked on her punch, turning her head away, eyes streaming.
    The highwayman appeared not to notice. He crossed the room to a deep cherrywood armoire. Octavia wiped her eyes with her fingertips, but she couldn’t stop herself from peeping through them, gazing at the hard-muscled shape of his buttocks clearly outlined in the drawers as he stood with his back to her at the armoire. He took out a fur-trimmed dressing gown and slipped it over his bare torso before disappearing behind the commode screen.
    Hell and the devil! Octavia pressed a palm to oneflushed cheek. He hadn’t seemed to give her a thought. He’d undressed as casually if he were in a brothel with a whore. But at least he hadn’t removed his drawers in front of her. It was small comfort. She took another gulp of her punch, and to her astonishment a little giggle developed in her throat. If she was totally honest, she’d enjoyed the spectacle. As fascinated as a rabbit in the eye of the cobra. What on earth was happening to her?
    Another wave of tiredness washed over her, but there was a tingling sensation in her belly, and her toes were curling of