Peter Lovesey - The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

She accepted the compliment with the slightest tilt of her eyebrows.

“I bought the material in Regent Street, and had my dressmaker put it together. It probably isn’t anything like the authentic Indian dress, but who knows in England? I find it infinitely less constricting than the European fashions.”

A statement he had no difficulty in believing. Isabel crossed the room to draw the curtains from one alcove, and it was evident to Jago’s inexpert eye that foundation garments formed no part of Indian fashion.

“This is where I must measure you,” she told him. “I call it my dressmaking closet. Take off your robe and come over, Henry.”

He obeyed, and when he pushed aside the curtain and stepped into the narrow recess, he had an unpleasant shock.

Isabel was there with a headless woman. In a moment he realized what it was-a dressmaker’s dummy with a dress over it-but the momentary surprise had registered.

“I sometimes startle myself,” Isabel said, smiling. “She’s very lifelike in my new cashmere gown, isn’t she? She was fashioned from the measurements of my own figure.

Underneath she is just wire and sawdust, poor thing-a terrible disappointment to her admirers, I should think.”

“It’s a pretty dress,” ventured Jago, vaguely conscious he was on the brink of a risque conversation.

“It is ready for the end of my year in mourning,” Isabel said. “Now will you stand against the vertical measure on that wall, please?”

This involved making a narrow passage between Isabel and her headless double. She made no attempt to stand back.

He faced the dummy and edged discreetly to the opposite wall. It was only a temporary reprieve from the agony of contact. Isabel was not a short woman, but Jago was over six feet in height. To adjust the sliding arm of the measure above his head, she had to stand almost toe to toe with him; from any farther away the attempt would have resulted in loss of balance and the meeting of unthinkable areas of anatomy.

There was no need to ask him to stand straight. He was braced like a guardsman.

“Six feet and half an inch,” she declared at length.

“Sylvanus will not have much advantage in height. What did you weigh?”

“Twelve stone six,” answered Jago.

“Two pounds less than you arrived with. Sylvanus is considerably heavier, but that is not all muscle. Now if you will extend your arms, I shall measure your reach.” She produced a tape measure and held one end against his armpit.

“Good. If you will keep your arms outstretched, I can take your chest measurement.”

Jago had not heard before of fist fighters being subjected to so comprehensive a physical survey. He tried to relax and submit to science. Somehow two beads of nervous sweat escaped from his right armpit and trailed coldly across his ribs.

“Expand your chest, Henry.”

She was distractingly close. The air was heavy with her perfume; no English flower he had smelt was anything like it.

“Good. You may have lost a little weight, but you have certainly gained in muscularity. Flex this arm and I will measure the bicep.”

“Will you remember the measurements,” asked Jago with a note of desperation in his voice, “or should I fetch pencil and paper for you?”

“Thank you, but I have a faultless memory for such things. Your waist, please.”

He felt her bare forearms take the tape behind his back.

Monstrous thoughts assailed him. Whatever happened, he must keep control. He tried to banish Isabel, sari and scent from his mind. Instead he would concentrate on Sergeant Cribb, that nose and those Piccadilly weepers.

The potency of Cribb’s image lasted for perhaps ten seconds, until Isabel coaxed her tape measure around Jago’s right thigh.

“Is this necessary?” he demanded in an outraged voice.

“Essential,” she murmured, crouching to her task like a bootboy. “Just relax, Henry.”

He looked down. The silk drape had slipped from her shoulder, but she had not attempted to replace it. The bodice gaped. With admirable self-control he averted his eyes at once.

But as he did so, his thigh twitched involuntarily.

She stood up. “You really are far too tense, Henry Jago. You are in no state to fight anyone tomorrow night, least of all Syl-vanus Morgan. You need massage at once. Come with me.”

There was nothing for it but to follow her as she swept aside the curtain and marched purposefully across the sitting room and through a door. It was a relief to escape from the unnatural-or too natural-intimacy of the dressmaking closet. On the way he picked up his bathrobe but immediately decided to replace it on the chair; any display of modesty now seemed like weakness.

Jago was in Isabel’s bedroom and the door was shut behind him before he had time to collect himself.

“Lie face downwards on the ottoman.”

Not the bed, thank heaven! He flattened himself to the velvet upholstery like an infantryman on the order of fire.

The ottoman was upholstered in crimson and positioned at the foot of a brass double bed covered with a satin quilt.

From his restricted viewpoint he could see a half-open wardrobe with a row of Isabel’s boots on the lowest shelf. A mirror on the inside of the door allowed him a glimpse of the dressing table where she was standing behind him. Its top was crowded with jars, cut-glass bottles and silver-backed brushes. She was pouring some liquid into her cupped hand.

Without another word she came to where he was and sat along the edge with her thigh lightly touching his hip. He felt the mild shock of the cool liquid as she pressed it between his shoulders, and then the warmth of the palms and fingers spreading it across his skin. Her hands worked with a sense of symmetry distributing the balm evenly, her fingers probing each band of muscle individually, kneading quite forcefully at first, gradually relenting to a stroking movement, until finally the touch was no more than a caress.

Whatever she was using on his body was distinctly aromatic, with a heady muskiness about it, unlike any branded liniment he knew. And it tingled on the skin like champagne on the palate.

“Good. I can feel you relax now. The muscles are becoming more supple.”

Once or twice her fingertips were raised clear of the skin while she continued to massage with the mounts of her palms. Jago found himself waiting for the sensation of her

fingers coming consecutively back into contact. It was devilishly hard not to luxuriate. For distraction, he turned his head to look through the vertical bars of the bedstead at the picture over the bed. It was an animal study, but no Landseer. A white stallion, eyes rolling in terror, reared in a desperate attempt to throw a tiger from its back. He would never understand Isabel’s taste in art.

He turned elsewhere for inspiration. Every decent influence in his life-parents, two devoted sisters in Gloucester-shire, Lydia-dear Lydia, the vicar, his housemaster, Sergeant Cribb-paraded before his troubled conscience to be ignominiously dismissed. Isabel Vibart dispatched them all with one breath on the nape of his neck.

Her voice was close to his ear. “Are you comfortable?”

What a question! “Extremely so.”

“You feel more relaxed here?”

“Quite so.”

“You find it hard to sleep in that room along the corridor?”

Good God! Did she believe D’Estin’s ravings the previous night?

“On the contrary. It is an excellent room.”

“That is good. Now I must rest a moment. Massage is tiring work.”

“You do it well.”

“I enjoy it.”

She continued to lean over him. Her hair, which had been swathed in a severe Indian style, must have worked loose with her movements, for he now felt its brushing motion across his shoulders. He arched his back a fraction at the sensation and felt his skin touch warm silk at two points.