Unusually for her, she was wearing a dress, a shortish number with a flippy skirt, and she found the air on her bare legs distracting. But not quite as distracting as trying to keep her knees pressed together while she played. Because Lydia was not wearing any knickers. In the week since she had accompanied von Ritter back to his hotel room, he had taken up the habit of setting her little tasks for each day. Although he had professed to want to take things slowly, Lydia felt that she was in the middle of some kind of sensual waltz, being whirled around the dance floor until her head spun. She had gone to an equestrian tack shop the day before and bought a riding crop, with which von Ritter had promised to whip her on the backs of her thighs if she didn’t practice her violin playing to his satisfaction. Buying the item had been embarrassing, because she’d been sure the assistant had known that it would never be used on a horse, but it had thrilled her all the same. And now she faced the prospect of going back to von Ritter’s hotel room and being tested on her violin playing.
