Rascal

November 1881 Boston, Massachusetts If Jack Murphy had to face down another giggling, giddy woman baring herself in nothing but a corset and drawers, he knew he was going to go completely barmy. Eight times in three days was simply too much for any man. Even one so appreciative of the female form as Jack considered himself to be. Ordinarily, he enjoyed women of all kinds, in all sorts of diverse arrays. In the satiny embrace of an evening gown. In the close-fitting hug of an afternoon dress. Or in the altogether, as God--and right-thinking males--preferred. But now, gazing in dismay at the widow Marjorie Lancaster's curvaceous form, adorned with its telltale gussets and lacings and froth of lacy trim, Jack felt his...er, enthusiasm wane. Given his yen for intellectual pursuits, he couldn't help but analyze the situation. The only explanation he could discern was simple. As experiments went, his accidental foray into ladies' unmentionables had turned out disastrously. Not merely because of the aforementioned women, all of whom had waylaid him--one being so bold as to strike in his offices at Boston College--to make clear their admiring status of his sartorial "gifts." But also because, thanks to his unwelcome notoriety, he could scarcely leave home without inspiring gossip and speculation--or inciting women to clamor for samples and, in the case of the brashest, to offer him further "insight" into their most intimate clothing needs. It was true that Jack--a professor by training but an inveterate inventor otherwise--had accidentally created the city's most scandalous ladies'undergarments. But that didn't mean he wanted his whole life turned wrong side up. He refused to stand for it. Which was why he'd come here, determined to enjoy at least one aspect of his day...and his night. Marjorie wriggled on her bedroom's red velvet settee, trying another seductive pose. Her silky dressing gown slid further askew, improving his view of her unmentionables. Her damned, trouble-causing, all too familiar--"Jack? Is something wrong?" Her question drew him to her bewildered frown, then to the alluring pout of her lips. Misgivings assailed him. It wasn't Marjorie's fault that he'd had such a turnaround in his fortunes--nor that he'd been forced to evade several representatives of the Jordan Marsh department store on the way here. They'd been veritable pests of late, ever since the news of his chance invention had gotten round. "Nothing I can't manage," he told Marjorie. At least that much was true, Jack assured himself as he crossed the room, doffing his suit coat in the lamplight. He tossed it to a nearby chair, then loosened his necktie and collar as well. At the end of a long day, all a man wanted was to be comfortable. And maybe, in isolated instances, to be comforted. Which was the other reason he'd come to Marjorie's. "Because if you want to talk about things," she went on, "I'm certainly willing to listen. I know a man like you doesn't require assurance, but perhaps we should catch up on events. Ever since I returned from Philadelphia--" "Shhh. No talking." Kneeling at the edge of the settee, Jack took her face in his hands. He surveyed her familiar features, her dimpled chin, her experienced demeanor. They'd dallied together for years now, whenever either of them felt lonely. "No talking," he repeated sternly, "and no thinking." He kissed her, hungry for exactly that. Marjorie's guffaw disturbed the moment. She leaned back, nearly succeeding in drawing his attention to her damnable undergarments again. Deliberately, Jack concentrated on her face. He didn't see what was so funny--and that was with his Irishman's good humor to aid him, too. "You? 'No thinking'?" Her eyes shone with utterly unsup-pressed mirth. "That will be the day. Aside from which, you haven't said a single thing about my new lingeriePlumley, Lisa is the author of 'Rascal ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373294251 and ISBN 0373294255.