I essayed a restorative deep breath, but the tightness of the whalebone corseting made it come out as a strangled gasp.
Jamie, immersed in a handful of shipping orders, glanced up at the sound and froze, eyes wide. His mouth opened, but he made no sound.
"How do you like it?" Handling the train a bit gingerly, I stepped down into the room, swaying gently as the seamstress had instructed, to show off the filmy gussets of silk plisse let into the overskirt.
Jamie shut his mouth and blinked several times.
"It's… ah… red, isn't it?" he observed.
"Rather." Sang-du-Christ, to be exact. Christ's blood, the most fashionable color of the season, or so I had been given to understand.
"Not every woman could wear it, Madame," the seamstress had declared, speech unhampered by a mouthful of pins. "But you, with that skin! Mother of God, you'll have men crawling under your skirt all night!"
"Not bad, is it?" I asked. "Very visible, at any rate."
He found his voice at last.
"Visible?" he croaked. "Visible? God, I can see every inch of ye, down to the third rib!"
I peered downward.
"No, you can't. That isn't me under the lace, it's a lining of white charmeuse."
"Aye well, it looks like you!"
"I suppose ye'll have to wear it, Sassenach, but for Christ's sake be careful."
"Careful? Of what?"
His mouth twisted in a rueful smile.
"Lord, woman, have ye no notion what ye look like in that gown? It makes me want to commit rape on the spot. And these damned frog-eaters havena got my restraint."