Page 49 of Til Death Duke Us Part
“You are a bit.” He followed her.
“Not a bit. A lot. And that tub”—her eyes narrowed as she stabbed a finger toward the tub in question—“is mine. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“I do not think you do. What I mean is that if you were ever to sell this house, you could not sell that tub. It does not belong to you. Not anymore.”
He nodded. “It’s yours.”
“Yes. Now turn the water on.”
He’d never thought to see her again, but here she was. In his house. And she’d come to him. Well, she’d come to his tub, but what did that matter? He’d never sell the damn thing, not if it conjured Persephone. He felt light as a feather, less doom and gloom than he’d felt since that ill-fated night in Manchester.
He turned on the water, wishing for an alchemist to heat the pipes—maybe soon—and turned it off when the tub was full. She still stood behind him in the doorway, and she moved farther into the room as he left it. He went downstairs and gathered the eternal coals from the drawing room, moving them with a shovel into the fireplace of his bedchamber, the one shared by the tiled bathing room. He stopped by his wardrobe before going to her.
He found her, finally, submerged in the tub. She rested her head against the back of it, opening her slender neck. Her breasts were submerged but flirted with the top of the water, offering tantalizing creamy glimpses. She piled her sweaty, tangled hair high atop her head and anchored it with a quill pen she must have found somewhere in his belongings. Her eyes were closed, but she must have sensed him.
“Go,” she said. “I don’t want an audience. And I’ll know if you’re watching from the other room.”
He draped the banyan he’d retrieved from the wardrobe across the back of a chair and moved to leave.
“Wait.” Her face had softened, and she peeped on eye open. “Conjure a fire?”
“There’re coals in the grate to warm you. Conjured flames would be of no use at all. They’re fake.”
“But they’re soothing.”
Without even a wave of his hand, flames leapt above the coals, around them, swallowing them.
She sighed as if real heat were caressing her skin and sank more deeply into the water.
His Persephone did like her luxuries. He glamoured the quill in her hair so it was a gold-and-amethyst hairpin. She couldn’t see it, but he liked to know it was there. He glamoured his ratty old banyan until it was a warm, velvet wrapper the same spring green as her eyes. None of it real, but she never seemed to care.
“Victor.” His name a warning on her kissable lips.
“Going.” He left, but he didn’t go far, sitting on the edge of his bed that faced away from the fireplace. After a short period of time punctuated by splashes and scrubbing, he heard the water drain, then the tap turn on, filling the tub once more. After some time, it turned off.
“Victor?”
He closed his eyes. He was being so soft, so silent. Too much so for him. But… he was afraid he’d scare her off. “Yes?”
“Join me.”
He stripped in the amount of time it had taken her to say those two words. He crossed the room, flung open the door to the tiled bathing room, and slipped into the chilly water behind her, cradling her between his legs and pulling her tight against his chest. Her head rolled onto his shoulder and her lips brushed the skin of his neck.
The water was cold, but they could make their own heat. If she wanted to. He did. Without a doubt. As his skin settled against hers, he slipped his hands up her thighs and rested them on her knees.
“Difficult night?” he ventured.
“Not at all.”
“Of course not. Apologies for presuming.”
“It is only I remembered that I have this tub.”
He squeezed her knees. “And you thought to make good use of it.”
“Precisely.” She sighed, and her warm breath tickled his neck.
