“A dozen buckets will see you ready, Mrs. Geary,” said Mrs. Cartwright with satisfaction as she shooed the serving girls from the room ahead of her. “You begin to undress, ma’am, and we’ll have the tub filled before you’re ready. Unless, that is, you’d prefer one of the girls to stay and tend to you?”
“Oh, no, thank you, that won’t be necessary,” murmured Jerusa, remembering all too clearly the night she’d had to let Michel act as her lady’s maid. But the lacings on the simple bodice and skirt she wore now weren’t nearly as complicated as her wedding gown, and by the time the last bucket of water had been emptied into the tub, she was waiting in her shift, a ball of Mrs. Cartwright’s lilac soap ready in her hand.
Jerusa sighed with pleasure as she finally sank into the tub of water. The windows to the room were open, and the warm afternoon sun slanting into the room made her welcome the cooling temperature of the water. The heady fragrance of a climbing rose outside the casement mingled with the tangy scent of the Connecticut River a half mile away, and fat-bodied bumblebees buzzed lazily from flower to flower.
Swiftly Jerusa scrubbed away at the grime and sweat of the last week, working the soap from her toes to the ends of her hair until at last she felt clean. With a sigh of blissful contentment, she let herself sink deeper into the lilac-scented water and closed her eyes. She’d grown so accustomed to riding by night and sleeping by day that she felt drowsy here in the afternoon, and while she tried to force herself to plan what to do next, her sleepy, relaxed body shared no such intentions. For just these few moments, it was so easy to forget everything….
From years of habitual practice, Michel opened every door and entered every room as silently as a cat, and as he latched the door to this one behind him, Jerusa didn’t stir. He smiled wryly to himself, thinking what her reaction would be if she knew he stood behind her now. She was sitting so far down in the tub that her long, wet hair hung over one side and onto the floor, and opposite that he had a charming view of her ankles and feet casually crossed and propped up over the edge of the tub. Lilac soap and a warm, wet, beautiful woman. Morbleu, was ever a man more sorely tempted?
He should have left the new clothes he’d bought for her with Mrs. Cartwright and gone on about his business. He still could, and Jerusa would never be the wiser. There wasn’t any real reason for him to see her until supper. Lord knows, he’d seen enough of her this last week.
Though not, perhaps, as much as he was seeing right now.
She sighed and shifted in the water, dangling one hand over the edge. Her fingertips were puckered from soaking so long, dripping water like tiny diamonds in the sun, and he thought of how much he’d like to lift her from the water and carry her to the bed and—
Enough. She was his prisoner, not his mistress, and he’d be ten times a fool to think it would ever be otherwise between them. His mother had demanded to see a virgin Sparhawk bride, and by God, that was what he would bring her.
He walked silently across the room to the bed, intending to leave the new gown and go while she dozed. But as he did, her eyes suddenly flew open and she gasped and started. Automatically he turned toward her in time to see the bathwater sloshing as she tried vainly to shield herself.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded breathlessly, her face scarlet with shame. “How dare you come back to spy on me like this?”
She’d sunk down as far as she could into the soapy water, trying to hide, but there was still more of her than there was water, and though she hugged her bent knees as tightly as she could in the narrow space, her skin still glistened enticingly, pale and perfect with only the beads of water to gild it.
Yet somehow he managed to keep his face impassive as he watched her. He was, after all, a man of experience, a man of the world, and besides, he was French. Such sights shouldn’t faze him. So why was it taking every scrap of self-possession to stand before her like this?
“I didn’t come to spy on you, ma chérie,” he said as dispassionately as he could. “If I’d wished to spy, I would have stayed in the hall and peeped at you through the keyhole.”
She glared at him, unconvinced. He’d tricked her again, and she was as furious with herself for letting it happen as she was at him for doing it. “Mrs. Cartwright thought you were so blessed kind, ordering me a bath, when I know now you did it simply for the chance to see me—to see me—like this!”
“I’m inclined to side with Mrs. Cartwright.”
“Oh, aye, of course you would!” She tossed her head defiantly, scattering water across the floor. “Now, will you leave on your own, or must I scream for help?”
“Scream all you wish, ma chérie. Or do you forget that they believe we’re man and wife?” He tossed his hat onto the bed, reminding her again that he would be expecting to share it with her. “By English law, you’re mine to do with what I will, and short of murder, none can interfere.”
She nearly howled with frustration. “Then must I sit here all day pickling in lilac water until you decide to leave?”
He leaned against the windowsill and smiled slowly, almost as if he were realizing for the first time that she was naked. “I’m not stopping you, Rusa, am I?”
“You’ve no right to call me that!” she snapped. She struck one hand on the water hard, sending a great splash of soapy water over the front of his coat and breeches.
He glanced down at what she’d done, his smile widening. Her sweeping gesture had let him see the full, high curves of her breasts, glistening with soap as they bobbed gently in the water.
“A worthy suggestion, ma belle,” he said, shrugging his shoulders free of his coat and tossing it, too, onto the bed. “Perhaps I could use a bath myself. It does seem a shame to let all that water go to waste.”
“No!” Frantically Jerusa looked around for something to put on. Of course she had no dressing gown, and to her chagrin she remembered that Mrs. Cartwright had taken her only clothes to wash them. At Michel’s orders, no doubt; what better way to keep her here while he went about his business? All she had left was the worn sheet, draped over the back of the chair, that they’d given her to dry herself. “If you won’t leave, then you must turn your back and give me your word that you won’t turn around until I say so.”
“My word?” He hooked a finger into his neckcloth and tugged it free. “I thought by now, ma mie, you’d learned how little that article would be worth from me.”
“Then from common decency?” Her voice squeaked as she considered the consequences of what he was proposing. “You said you didn’t want to spy on me.”
His waistcoat thumped on the bed beside his coat and hat before he leaned against the windowsill long enough to pull off his boots and then his socks. “I’m still not spying. I’m taking a bath.”
In a single, fluid movement he drew his shirt over his head, and she barely stifled her gasp. His shoulders seemed broader, the lean span of his waist more narrow, without the billowy linen shirt to cover them. Dark whorls of gold hair curled across his chest with fascinating symmetry before it tapered low on his belly above the waistband of his breeches. The only flaw to his perfection was a single, long scar along one arm, the kind that came from sword fighting. He looked as hard and strong as she knew he was, his muscles the obvious mark of a man who lived—and would die—physically.
Yet there was still an inborn elegance to him that showed even now, a certain grace that would always separate him from common sailors or dockworkers. In the time he’d been gone, he’d stopped at a barber, for the dark beard that had softened the line of his jaw was gone, and he looked years younger without it. The ribbon that had held his queue had been pulled off with the shirt, and his dark blond hair was as bright as the slanting sunlight that filled the room, bright as a halo for the fallen angel he must be, and, with a little catch in her breathing, she decided that she’d never seen a more beautiful man.
Michel smiled,