Page 25 of The Lord's Compass
“Yes, I have,” she said. “But not for an extended amount of time. Usually just for a night when stopping while travelling.”
“Perhaps with your charm, we will be invited to stay at the estate,” he said with a grin, and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him, knowing that, if anything, it would be he who would gain them entrance.
There was a knock at the door a few minutes later, and two men appeared with a large washbasin, followed by maids with boiling buckets of water. It took a few trips, but eventually, a steaming bath awaited Faith. She had never been so grateful for a tub of water before.
“I’ll wait outside,” Eric said, and she nodded her thanks before he left the room, likely to look over the courtyard below.
Faith undressed and then sunk into the water, closing her eyes at the bliss that enveloped her. After a few moments of languidness, she leaned out to pick up her soap but found that it was too far from her reach.
“Blast it,” she said, trying to stretch her arm out as far as she could to where it sat on the table. If she pushed off enough, she could reach farther and perhaps… “ah!” she couldn’t stop herself from crying out when her foot slipped and she splashed back down into the tub, water sloshing over the sides as her head dipped under its surface.
When she came up sputtering a few moments later, she rubbed her eyes, wiped the water off of her face – and found two very brown, very concerned eyes staring back at her.
* * *
Eric had been standing outsideof the room, looking over the balcony at all of the activity occurring in the courtyard below, which never disappointed. Hopefully, he and Faith would be able to sleep.
Although, come to think of it, he had been sleeping rather well with Faith by his side.
He hadn’t even considered providing the innkeeper with another story regarding their travelling situation. The only other way they could do so without causing scandal was to name themselves brother and sister, but he would rather not.
Not that it mattered for no one had any awareness of their identity here – which made their current story all the more plausible.
Truth be told, he had been trying to distract himself from picturing his fake wife inside, her naked body dipping beneath the warm water, her hands lathing soap over her soft skin.
He hadn’t been faring very well in his endeavour when he had heard her shout followed by the splash, and he had pushed into the room to check on her without even thinking.
When he had seen her fully submerged beneath the water, he had dashed over to the tub and was just about to reach in when she surfaced.
“Eric!” she cried out when she opened her eyes to find him there. “What are you doing?”
“The better question is what areyoudoing?” He knew he shouldn’t be taking such an angry tone with her, but his worry for her had overtaken all rational thought. “I thought you were drowning!”
“In a bathtub?” she asked in disbelief, droplets of water dripping from her eyelashes, which made him all the more irate.
“Yes, in a bathtub! People frequently drown in bathtubs. You could have hit your head and slipped underwater. How would I have known?”
“Well, I am fine,” she said. “I am also not exactly… decent.”
It was only then that he realized he could see her shape through the water. He couldn’t exactly see details but it was very easy to imagine them. And the way the tops of her breasts were bobbing overtop of the water…
“Eric!”
He hadn’t been discreet in his perusal.
“I am sorry. I truly am,” he said, backing away. “I never meant… it’s just that you… I couldn’t help?—”
She surprised him with the laugh that emerged. “I am not sure that I have ever known you to be without words before. Perhaps the stories are not true, if this is what a naked woman does to you.”
He couldn’t meet her eyes then, for it was not as though the stories were false, it was just that none of the other naked women were her. A naked Faith was an altogether different story.
Besides that, he knew what to expect from other women. With Faith…
He cleared his throat. “Now that I see you are just fine, I will leave you. Again. Do not scare me like that, please.”
As much as everything within him was begging him to stay, he turned around and made for the door as fast as he could, before he did something he shouldn’t – something he was very certain he would regret.
“Eric?”
