Page 43 of Once More, My Darling Rogue
She gave him a tentative smile. “I’m here to wash your back.”
“Right.” He shoved himself up, waited as she settled behind him.
“I was listening at the door, trying to hear you getting into the water. I felt rather perverted. Perhaps we should get a bell for you to ring when you’re ready for me.”
No need when this would be the last time she’d ever touch him. Not that he was going to tell her that. He simply held his silence and anticipated the first caress of those gentle fingers.
She reached around him for the soap, and cotton brushed up against his skin. The frill of her apron or the cotton-covered swell of her breast. All the blood drained from his head, went elsewhere, and for a second he was hot and dizzy, grateful the bathwater was not as heated as he was accustomed to.
The water made a slight splashing as she dipped her hands into it. He heard a sharp hiss, twisted in time to see her grimace.
“Sorry,” she said. Biting her lower lip, she rubbed her hands over the soap, flinched.
“What the devil?” He grabbed her hand. The soap plopped into the water, but he barely noticed as he gazed at the red, raw blisters on her palms. He cursed soundly, imagining her carrying the buckets of water, the handles digging into her soft flesh, rubbing, scoring, tearing the satiny skin.
“It’s all right,” she said, fighting to wrench free while he refused to let go. “I can see to my chore here.”
“Like hell you can. Go into my bedchamber and wait for me.”
Finally managing to break free of his grip, she glared at him. “You can’t order me about.”
“Of course I can. I’m your employer.”
She blinked as though she’d forgotten that, and he realized that in anger she was more the Ophelia he knew. Best not to anger her until he was ready to deliver her to her brother’s doorstep, lest her memory come roaring back. He had a feeling his life would be in danger if it came back while she was here.
The thought almost had him laughing, welcoming her fury directed at him. He’d never realized how much her fire could appeal, excite. Damnation, but he didn’t want to like her, yet he was seeing shades to her that put her in a different light. If they could be friends, he thought they might very well enjoy each other. But as they weren’t, and she was hurt, he needed to tend to her. “Go. To. My. Bedchamber,” he repeated.
If looks could kill ... well, hers might wound him, but it wasn’t going to be the death of him. She punctuated it with a little huff before shoving herself to her feet and disappearing through the threshold and slamming the door behind her.
He couldn’t help it. He chuckled at her pique. God, it was a damned good thing that she wasn’t his servant in truth, because she would drive to him to madness. Searching the bottom of the tub, he located the soap and scrubbed up as quickly as possible.
It wasn’t until he was drying off that he realized he hadn’t brought in any clothes, but then he never did. He washed up in here, then strode as naked as he pleased into his bedchamber to dress. Why should he change his habits for her?
Because the choices were the uncomfortable chair or the bed, she chose the bed, sitting on its corner on top of the rumpled blankets, a pillow at her back. A pillow upon which he’d slept and upon which she would sleep later. A pillow that smelled of him. She knew because she’d buried her face in it before placing it behind her back.
She cursed her hands and her inability to hide the discomfort. She had so wanted to wash his back again, to glory in it. She’d been too self-conscious the day before to enjoy it as much as she might and she had planned to rectify that mistake today.
While he was a mixture of kind and curt, she suspected there was more to their relationship than was proper. The clothes he’d brought her today fit her as though they’d been made for no other, as though he knew her precise measurements. She didn’t want to consider that he had spent so much time in the company of women that he had an eye for sizing them up, although that was probably the truth of it. She was probably no more than a servant.
But why the novels? Why the silver brush? Why the concern over her hands?
He strode out of the bathing room with a towel around his hips, held firmly in place at his waist by one hand clutching it. Without a word, he snatched up the trousers and shirt that were draped over the chair and disappeared back into the bathing room.
When he again emerged, the shirt was tucked into his breeches but not buttoned. He set an assortment of items on the table beside the bed, before sitting down on the edge of the mattress. He took her hands, turned them palms up, and scowled at them. While she found herself staring in wonder at how small her hands were when compared with his. His were rough and lined with faint scars that must have been part of him for an eternity.
“How did you come to have the scars?” she asked.
His scowl deepened before he released his hold on her hands and reached for a jar. “They’re from when I was a lad.”
She hadn’t thought he’d answer. He was always surprising her. No more so than when he gently applied the salve on her broken skin. She imagined those fingers gliding over all of her, with such reverence and care. “You would think my hands would be tougher,” she said, “accustomed to carting pails of water.”
“I usually prepare my own bath.”
“I thought you said I prepare it.” Had he? Or was her memory faulty on that score? Perhaps her brain had somehow been damaged. Would she constantly be confused and forget things?
“If I did, I misspoke. You’re not to do it again.”
“You’re angry with me.”
