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‘Mr Ogilvy tells me you play a good game.’

Greer glanced around the room, smiling broadly. ‘Good enough to have beaten most of the gentlemen present on more than one occasion. He has compelled me to come and defend men everywhere.’ He gave the chalk on his cue tip an efficient blow, looking entirely likeable.

‘Hear, hear,’ came a few cries from the back of the room.

The dratted man was going to steal her crowd if she wasn’t careful. Usually she admired Greer’s ease, how people wanted to cheer for him. She wasn’t admiring that trait at the moment. Beneath his aura of bonhomie he was primed, a veritable powder keg, and the fuse was lit. He was going to ignite this room and she’d get caught in the explosion.

She hadn’t lost the room yet. And she wouldn’t. She’d beat Greer and give these boys a show they wouldn’t soon forget.

Mercedes met Greer’s gaze down the length of the table, eyes wide with secret laughter, her mouth a perfect, discreetly rouged ‘O’. A gentleman or two sighed when she chalked up and raised the cue to her lips in her trademark gesture and blew, knowing Greer would get the unspoken message: game on.

From the fabulous Bronwyn Scott comes a wickedly naughty and sensational new duet

LADIES OF IMPROPRIETY

Breaking Society’s Rules

Practised gambler Mercedes Lockhart takes on the big boys—and the irresistible Captain Barrington—in England’s billiards clubs in

A LADY RISKS ALL

July 2013

Elise Sutton is a lady in a man’s world when she finds herself fighting for her family’s company at London’s Blackwell Docks—but that doesn’t mean she can’t show the roguish privateer Dorian Rowland who’s boss in

A LADY DARES

August 2013

Two scandalously sexy stories.

Two alluringly provocative ladies who dare to flout the rules of the ton—and enjoy it!

Also, don’t miss out on the seductive Lucia Booth, proprietor of Mrs Booth’s Discreet Gentleman’s Club and former spy, in

A LADY SEDUCES

coming July 2013

to Mills & Boon^® Historical Undone!

About the Author

BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages.

Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website,

www.bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog,

www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com—she loves to hear from readers.

Previous novels from Bronwyn Scott:

 PICKPOCKET COUNTESS

 NOTORIOUS RAKE, INNOCENT LADY

 THE VISCOUNT CLAIMS HIS BRIDE

 THE EARL’S FORBIDDEN WARD

 UNTAMED ROGUE, SCANDALOUS MISTRESS

 A THOROUGHLY COMPROMISED LADY

 SECRET LIFE OF A SCANDALOUS DEBUTANTE

 UNBEFITTING A LADY†

 HOW TO DISGRACE A LADY*

 HOW TO RUIN A REPUTATION*

 HOW TO SIN SUCCESSFULLY*

And in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks:

 LIBERTINE LORD, PICKPOCKET MISS

 PLEASURED BY THE ENGLISH SPY

 WICKED EARL, WANTON WIDOW

 ARABIAN NIGHTS WITH A RAKE

 AN ILLICIT INDISCRETION

 HOW TO LIVE INDECENTLY*

†Castonbury Park Regency mini-series

*Rakes Beyond Redemption trilogy

And in M&B:

PRINCE CHARMING IN DISGUISE

(part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages)

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

A Lady Risks All
Bronwyn Scott

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AUTHOR NOTE

Billiards is just about as English as horse racing. References note that by the seventeenth century there wasn’t a village in England that didn’t boast at least one billiards table in an assembly hall or tavern. Here are some fun facts about Greer and Mercedes’s story:

1838 is part of the ‘gateway’ period of billiards as it moves closer to the modern pool game.

John Thurston is a real historical figure and has a cameo appearance early in our story. In 1799 he established the House of Thurston in London, and is credited with new inventions for the table such as his 1835 rubber cushions, the use of warming pans to keep the cushions supple and replacing wood table beds with slate (c.1826). The table Greer mentions from his time in Greece is based on a true story.

1838 also sees the introduction of the ‘run’ style of today’s pool game. The run is first officially mentioned by Game Master Hoyle, in association with ‘the French following game’ in an 1845 edition of game rules. It crosses the Atlantic to America in 1857.

I should also take a moment to mention Alan Lockhart. He is modelled after the nineteenth-century billiards champion Edwin Kentfield.

I hope you enjoy this first of two stories in my Ladies of Impropriety duet. Stay tuned for Elise Sutton’s story. In the meanwhile, stop by my blog at www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com for forthcoming news.

DEDICATION

This one is for my dad, who kept asking me when was ‘that billiards book’ coming out. Here it is, finally, with much love.

Chapter One

Brighton—March 1837

There was nothing quite as exhilarating as a man who knew how to handle his stick. Mercedes Lockhart put an eye to the discreet peephole for a second glimpse, separate trills of excitement and anxiety vibrating through her. Rumour was right, he did have an amazing crack.

Outside in the billiards hall, that crack would sound like a cannon. But here in the soundproof peeping room, she could only watch and worry about what his presence in her father’s club meant.

There’s someone I want you to meet. The phrase rang through her head for the hundredth time. When fathers said that to their daughters it usually meant one thing: a suitor. But those fathers weren’t billiards great Allen Lockhart. He was more likely to bring home a gem-studded cue than a suitor. Perhaps that was the reason she’d been so surprised by the summons. ‘Come down to the club, there’s someone I want you to watch,’ he’d said. It had been a long time since he’d needed her in that way. She didn’t dare refuse. So, here she was, ensconced in the ‘viewing room’, eye riveted to the peephole, taking in the player at table three.

He was a man she’d have noticed even without her father’s regard. Most women would. He was well built; broad shouldered and lean hipped, an observation made inescapable by the fact he was playing with his coat off. At the moment, he was bent at the waist and levelling his cue for the next shot, a posture that offered her a silhouette of trim waist and tautly curved buttock, framed by muscled thighs that tensed ever so slightly beneath the tight fawn of his breeches.

Her eyes roamed upwards to the strong forearms displayed tan against the rolled back cuffs of his white shirtsleeves, to the taper of lean fingers forming a bridge through which his cue stick slid effortlessly, expertly as he made his shot.

He straightened and turned in her direction, accepting congratulations on the shot. He pushed back the blond hair that had fallen over his face. Mercedes caught a glimpse of startling blue eyes; a deep shade of sapphire she could appreciate even at a distance. He was confident, not cocky in the way he accepted the congratulations of others. There was no doubt he handled his cue with ease, his playing strategy sound but straightforward, his use of the ‘break’ progressive and in line with the new style billiards was starting to take.

But Mercedes could see immediately there wasn’t a lot of finesse in it. It was understandable. A player with his skill likely didn’t see the need for finer machinations. That was something that could be improved upon. Mercedes halted her thoughts right there. Why? Why should she improve him? Is that what her father wanted her opinion for? What interest did the legendary Lockhart want with a handsome young billiards player? The anxiety that had plagued her trilled again. Was he a suitor for her? A protégé for her father?

Neither option sat well with her. She had no intentions to marry although she was aware of her father’s ambition for her to wed a title. It would be the final feather in his cap of self-made glory—Allen Lockhart’s daughter married to a peer of the realm! But she had other goals and neither a suitor nor a protégé was among them.

Mercedes stepped back from the peephole and scribbled a short note to her father, who sat in the main room in plain sight. There was no skulking in private viewing chambers for him, she thought with no small amount of frustration. It hadn’t always been like this: spying through peepholes and pretending she didn’t exist. It used to be that she had the run of the place. But she’d grown up and it was no longer seemly or prudent, as past events had proven, for her to roam the halls of Lockhart’s Billiards Club, no matter how elegant the setting or how skilled the player. The bottom line was that men didn’t like to be beaten by a woman. Thus had ended her career of playing in public. For now.

This was why the thought of a protégé met with her disapproval. If there was to be one, it should be her. She’d honed her own skill at her father’s side. When she’d shown some aptitude for the game, he’d taught her to play as only a professional can. She’d learned his secrets and developed her own until she was on par with the best. Then she’d committed the crime of turning seventeen and her freedoms had been curtailed; in part by society and in part by her own headstrong judgement.

It was something of a curse that the one thing she was good at—no, not merely good at, excellent at—was a talent she did not get to display. These days she practised for herself, alone in the privacy of their home and she waited, forever ready if the chance to prove herself came her way.

Mercedes folded the note and sent it out to her father. She bent her eye to the peephole one last time, a thought occurring to her as she watched the man pot his final ball. Maybe he was her chance. Her earlier excitement started to hum again. She’d been waiting five years for her opportunity, alert for any possibility. In all that time, she’d never thought her chance would come in the form of a handsome Englishman—she’d had her fill of those. But if her father could use him, perhaps she could too.

Slow down, she cautioned herself. A good gambler always assessed the risk and there was risk here. If her father intended him to be a protégé and she assisted with that, she could effectively cut herself out of the picture altogether. She would have to go carefully. On the other hand, it would be a chance to show her father what she could do in a situation where he would be unable to deny her talent.

It was a venture that could see her exiled or elevated, but she was nothing if not her father’s daughter; a gambler at heart who knew the risks and rules of any engagement and chose to play anyway.

Gamblers of any successful repute generally acknowledged the secret to luck resided in knowing three things: the rules, the stakes and when to quit. No one knew this better than English billiards legend, Allen Lockhart. He couldn’t remember a time when the stakes hadn’t been high—they always were when all one had to risk was a reputation. As for quitting—if there was a time to quit, he hadn’t discovered it yet, which was why the usual ritual of a brandy with long-time friend and partner, Kendall Carlisle, did not fill him with the usual satisfaction on this dreary March afternoon.

Normally this time of day was his favourite. It was a time when he could sit back in one of the club’s deep chairs and savour his domain. His domain. Carlisle managed the place, but it had been his billiards money that had built this and more.

Across from him, oblivious to his restless observations, Carlisle took a swallow of brandy followed by a contented sigh. ‘This is the life, Allen. Not bad for two junior boot boys.’

Allen smiled in response. It was a well-loved reminiscence of his. The two of them had done well over the years kowtowing to the rich gentlemen in the subscription rooms of Bath for shillings. They’d watched and they’d learned, eventually establishing their own small empire. Now they were the rich gentlemen. Now they ran the subscription rooms, not in Bath, but in more lucrative Brighton. They earned much more than shillings from customers these days. At the age of forty-seven, Allen Lockhart took great pride in having used the rules of billiards to rise above his poor beginnings.

From their grouping of chairs by the fire, Allen could hear the quiet snick of ivory balls on baize, the unmistakable sounds of lazy-afternoon billiard games going on in the room beyond him. Later in the evening, the club would be crowded with officers and gentlemen, the tables loud with the intensity of money games.

Allen felt his hand twitch in anticipation of the games to come. He didn’t play in public often anymore, not wanting to tarnish his image by making himself vulnerable to defeat. A legend couldn’t be beaten too often without damaging the illusion of being untouchable. But the desire was still there. Billiards was in his blood. He was the legendary Allen Lockhart, after all. He’d built this club on his fame. People came here to play, of course, but also to see him. It wasn’t enough to be good at billiards; one also had to be a showman.

He knew the power of a well-placed word here, a timely stroke tip there. It was heady stuff to think people would talk about a single sentence from him for months in London. ‘Lockhart says you have to hit the ball from the side’ or ‘Lockhart recommends African ivory for balls’. But lately, the usual thrill had faded. Such excitement had become de rigueur. He was restless.

The resounding crack of a hard break shattered the laconic atmosphere of the room. Allen briefly acknowledged it with a swift glance towards table three where a young officer played before turning back to Kendall.

‘I hope you’re coming up to the house tomorrow for the party.’

‘I wouldn’t miss it. I’m looking forward to seeing the new table.’ Carlisle raised his glass in a toast. ‘I hear Thurston has outdone himself this time.’

Lockhart grinned broadly like a proud first-time father. ‘Slate tables with rubber bumpers are the way of the future. They’re fast, Kendall.’ Another loud break from table three interrupted. This time Lockhart spared the table more than a passing glance. ‘Good Lord, that lad’s got some power.’ He chanced a look in the direction of the secret viewing room and wondered what Mercedes would make of it. Kendall hadn’t lied when he’d said the lad could play.

Their chairs were angled to take in the expanse of the elegant club if they chose. Both men fell silent, focusing on the game, looking out into the well-appointed billiards floor. Long windows let in enormous amounts of light for quality shots. Subtle forest-green wallpapering with matching floor-to-ceiling curtains gave the room the air of a sophisticated drawing room. This was no mean gambling hall. This was a place meant to invite a higher class of gentleman to engage in the noble sport of billiards and right now table three was heavily engaged.

The ‘lad’ in question was not a boy at all, but a blond-haired officer with the broad-shouldered build of a handsomely put-together man. A confident man too, Lockhart noted. Effortless charm and affability poured off him as he potted the third ball and proceeded to run the table. Affable and yet without any feigned humility.

‘He reminds me of you back in our salad days,’ Carlisle murmured after the officer made a particularly difficult corner shot.

‘How old do you think he is?’ Kendall would know. Information gathering was Kendall’s gift. His own was using it. The combined talent had been invaluable to them both over the years.

‘Mid-twenties. He’s been in a few times. His name’s Barrington. Captain Barrington,’ Kendall supplied as Lockhart had known he would.

At that age, he and Kendall had been living on the road, Lockhart thought wistfully. They’d played any money game they could find in just about every assembly hall between Manchester and London. They’d run just about every ‘angle’ too—plucking peacocks, two friends and a stranger and a hundred more.

‘He’s bought a subscription,’ Kendall volunteered.

‘On half-pay?’ Any officer in town these days with time for billiards was on half-pay. But on that salary, a subscription to his fine establishment was a luxury unless one had other resources.

Kendall shrugged. ‘I cut him a fair deal. He’s good for business. People like to play him.’

‘For a while.’ Lockhart shrugged. Barrington would have to be managed. If he was too good, players would tire of getting beaten and that would be just as bad for business. He didn’t want that to happen too quickly.

‘With the big championship coming up in July, I thought he might generate some additional interest,’ Carlisle began, but Lockhart’s mind was already steps ahead. Perhaps the Captain could be taught when to lose, perhaps he could be taught a lot of things. Carlisle was right. The young man could be very useful in the months leading up to the All England Billiards Championship. The old thrill began to course.

‘Thinking about taking a protégé?’ Kendall joked.

‘Maybe.’ He was thinking about taking more than a protégé. He was thinking about taking a trip. For what reason, he wasn’t sure yet. Perhaps the urge was nothing more than a desire to walk down memory lane one more time and relive the nostalgia of the old days. Perhaps he wanted more? His intuition suggested his restlessness was more than nostalgic desire. There were bigger questions to answer. At forty-seven, did he still have it? Could the legend make a comeback or was the ‘new’ game beyond him?

‘Is that all you’re thinking?’ He felt Kendall’s shrewd gaze on him and kept his own eyes on the game. It would be best not to give too much away, even to his best friend, if this was going to work. A footman approached with a folded note. Ah, Mercedes had announced her verdict.

Lockhart rose, flicking a cursory glance at the simple content of Mercedes’s note and made his excuses, careful to school his features. Kendall knew him too well. ‘I’ve got to go and see about some business.’ Then he paused as if an inspiration had struck suddenly. ‘Invite our young man up to the house tomorrow night. It might be fun for him to see the new table and I want him to meet Mercedes.’

If he was going to try this madcap venture at all, he would need her help. She’d already consented to the first bit by coming down today. The hard part would be convincing her to try it all on. She could be deuced stubborn when she put her mind to it. With any luck, he wouldn’t have to do the convincing. He’d leave that to a certain officer’s good looks, extraordinary talent with a billiards cue and a little moonlit magic. He knew his daughter. If there was anything Mercedes couldn’t resist it was a challenge.

Chapter Two

Captain Greer Barrington of the Eleventh Devonshire had seen enough of the world in his ten years of military service to know when the game was afoot. It was definitely afoot tonight, and it had been ever since Kendall Carlisle had offered him an invitation to the Lockhart party. There seemed little obvious logic in a man of Lockhart’s celebrity inviting an anonymous officer to dine.

Greer surveyed the small assemblage with a quick gaze as Allen Lockhart greeted him and drew him into the group of men near the fireplace, a tall elegant affair topped with a mantel of carved walnut. Suspicions confirmed. First, the small size of the gathering meant this was a special, intimate cohort of friends and professional acquaintances. Second, Allen Lockhart lived finely in one of the forty-two large town houses that comprised Brunswick Terrace. Greer had not been wrong in taking the effort to arrive polished to perfection for the evening, and now the buttons on his uniform gleamed appreciably under the light of expensive brass-and-glass chandeliers.

‘You know Kendall Carlisle already from the club, of course.’ Allen Lockhart made the necessary introductions with the ease of a practised host. ‘This is John Thurston, the man behind the manufacture of the new table.’ Greer nodded in the man’s direction. He knew of Thurston. The man ran a billiards works in London and a billiards hall off St James’s.

‘John,’ Lockhart said with great familiarity, ‘this is Captain Greer Barrington.’ Lockhart had a fatherly hand at his shoulder and Greer did not miss the reference. Either Lockhart was a quick study of military uniforms or he’d done his research. ‘The Captain has a blistering break—sounds like a cannon going off in the club every time. He ran the table on Elias Pole yesterday.’

Ah, Greer thought. So Lockhart had been watching. He’d thought he’d sensed the other man’s interest in his game. Appreciative murmurs followed with more introductions.

Talk turned to billiards until a young woman materialised at Lockhart’s side, stopping all conversation—something she would have done without saying a word. ‘Father, dinner will be served shortly.’

This gorgeous creature was Lockhart’s daughter? Whatever game was afoot, Greer mused, he’d gladly play it and see where it went if she was involved. There was no arguing her beauty. It was bold and forthright like the flash of a smile she threw his direction.

‘Captain, you haven’t met my daughter, Mercedes,’ Lockhart said affably. ‘Perhaps I could persuade you to take her in to dinner? I believe she’s seated you with her at the one end.’

‘It would be my pleasure, Miss Lockhart.’ Yet another pleasant addition to the evening. This invitation was turning out splendidly. Mercedes Lockhart was a stunning young woman with dark hair and wide grey eyes framed with long lashes. But there was an icy quality to that perfection. Beautiful and cold, Greer noted. Greer was confident he could change that. He smiled one of his charming smiles, the one that usually made women feel as if they’d known him much longer than they had.

She was less than charmed. Her own smile did not move from that of practised politeness, her sharp grey eyes conducting a judicious perusal of their own. Greer stepped back discreetly from the group, drawing her with him until he had space for a conversation of his own.

‘Do I pass?’ Greer queried, determined to make this haughty beauty accountable for her actions.

‘Pass what?’

‘Inspection is what we call it in the military.’

She blushed a little at his bluntness and he took the small victory. She looked warmer when she blushed, prettier too if that was possible, the untouchable coldness of her earlier hauteur melting into more feminine features.

‘I must admit more than a passing curiosity to see the man who beat Elias Pole. My father talked of nothing else at supper last night.’

There was a fleeting bitterness in her tone, some of her hard elegance returning. Provoked by what? Jealousy? The defeat of her champion? Elias Pole was a man of middle years, not unattractive for his age, but certainly he wasn’t the type to capture the attentions of a young woman.

Greer shrugged easily. ‘I am flattered I aroused your curiosity. But it was just a game.’

Her eyebrows shot up at that, challenge and mild disbelief evident in her voice. ‘Just a game? Not to these men. It would be very dangerous to think otherwise, Captain.’

Ah. Illumination at last, Greer thought with satisfaction. Now he had a better idea of why he was here. This was about billiards.

Dinner was announced and he took the lovely Mercedes into supper, her hand polite and formal on the sleeve of his coat. The dining room was impressive with its long polished table set with china and crystal, surrounded by the accoutrements of a man who lived well and expensively: silver on the matching sideboards and decanter sets no doubt blown in Venice.

Greer recognised the subtle signs of affluence and he knew what they meant. Allen Lockhart aspired to be a gentleman. Of course, Lockhart wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Lockhart was a billiards player, a famous billiards player. But fame could only advance a man so far.

That was the difference between Lockhart’s shiny prosperity and the time-worn elegance of Greer’s family estate. Greer’s father might not be wealthy by the exorbitant standards of the ton, but he’d always be a gentleman and so would his sons. No amount of money could change that. Nevertheless, Greer knew his mother and sisters would be pea-green with envy to see him sitting down to supper in this fine room. He made a mental note to send them a letter describing the evening sans its circumstances. His father would be furious to think any son of his had sat down to supper with a gambler, even if the son in question wasn’t the heir.

Greer pushed thoughts of family and home out of his mind. Those thoughts would only make him cross. Tonight he wanted to enjoy his surroundings without guilt. He had delicious food on his plate, excellent wine in his goblet, interesting conversation and a beautiful woman in need of wooing beside him. He meant to make the most of it. Life in the military had taught him such pleasures were fleeting and few, so best to savour them to the fullest when they crossed one’s path. Life had been hard these past ten years and Greer intended to do a lot of savouring now that he was back in England.

‘Where were you stationed, Captain?’ A man to his right asked as the fish course was served.

‘Corfu, although we moved up and down the peninsula with some regularity,’ Greer answered.

Corfu caught John Thurston’s attention. ‘Then you may have played on the table we made for the mess hall there.’

Greer laughed, struck by the coincidence. ‘Yes, indeed I did. That table was for the 42nd Royal Hussars. I wasn’t with that regiment, but I did have the good fortune of visiting a few times. The new rubber bumpers made it the fastest game to be had in Greece.’

John Thurston raised his glass good-naturedly. ‘What a marvellously modern world we live in. To think I’d actually be sitting down to supper with a man who played on one of my tables a thousand miles away. It’s quite miraculous what technology has allowed us to do. To a smaller world, gentlemen.’

‘My sentiments exactly.’ Greer drank to the toast and applied himself to the fish, content to let the conversation flow around him. One learned a lot of interesting things when one listened and observed. Mercedes Lockhart must think the same thing. She was studying him once more. He could feel her gaze returning to him time and again. He looked in her direction, hoping to make her blush once more.

This time she was ready for him. She met his gaze evenly, giving every indication she’d meant to be caught staring. ‘They’re wondering if they can take you, you know,’ she murmured without preamble. ‘There will be games after dinner.’

Was that all they wanted? A game against the man who had beaten Elias Pole? Greer managed a nonchalant lift of his shoulders. ‘Elias Pole isn’t an extraordinary player.’

‘No, but he’s a consistent player, never scratches, never makes mistakes,’ Mercedes countered.

He raised a brow at the remark as if to say ‘is that so?’. The observation was insightful and not the sort of comment the women he knew made. The gently reared English women of his experience were not versed in the nuances of billiards. But Mercedes was right. He knew the type of player she referred to. They played like ice. Never cracking, just wearing down the opponent, letting the opponent beat himself in a moment of sloppy play. Yesterday that particular strategy hadn’t been enough to ensure Pole victory.

‘And now they know your measure. Pole has become the stick against which you are now gauged,’ she went on softly.

‘And you? Do you have my measure now?’ Greer gave her a private smile to let her understand he knew her game. ‘Is that your job tonight—to vet me for your father?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ She gave him a sharp look over the rim of her goblet. ‘The great Allen Lockhart doesn’t need an agent to preview half-pay officers with shallow pockets for a money game.’

There was no sense in being hurt. The statement was true enough. There was no advantage to fleecing an officer. He had no source of funds to fleece. Even his subscription to the club had been bought on skill and a politely offered discount from Kendall Carlisle. Lockhart had to know. Whatever someone at this table managed to win from him would hardly be more than pocket change.

Greer dared a little boldness. ‘Then perhaps you’re in business for yourself.’

‘Again, don’t flatter yourself.’ Mercedes took another sip of wine. To cover her interest? Most likely. She was not as indifferent to him as she suggested. He knew these discreet signs: the sharp comments meant to push him away in short order; the pulse at the base of her bare neck, quickening when his gaze lingered overlong as it did now.

This room displayed her to perfection. Greer wondered how premeditated this show had been. In the drawing room, she’d merely looked like a lovely woman. In the dining room, she might have been posed for a portrait. Her blue gown was a shade darker than the light blue of the walls. The ivory ribbon trimming her bodice, a complement to the off-white wainscoting and moulding of the room, acted as an ideal foil for the rich hues of her hair, which lay artfully coiled at her neck. Greer’s hand twitched with manly curiosity to give the coil a gentle tug and let its length spill down her back.