Chapter Twenty-Six #2
“I am soaked in my own sweat. ’Tis no wonder you do not find me appealing.”
Air caught in his lungs again. “Not appealing?” he fairly shouted.
She still ignored his agitation. “Aye. I would ask to bathe, except I would have to go down to the hall to do it, and ’twould be too obvious to your guests. They would think ’twas your order, that you would not have me as I am. I do have some pride.”
He stared at her in amazement for a second’s breath, then placed a knee on the bed to bend over her. “Woman—” he began.
She planted her hands in the middle of his chest to stop him. “Nay, I must stink as well. How can you?”
He was chuckling now. “I can, with pleasure. But if ’tis a bath you really want, there is a small lake near here.”
Her eyes lit up. “You would take me there?”
“Aye.”
He leaned into the pressure of her hands to snatch a kiss from her, feeling a strange delight in the pleasure of her expression. So he was once again caught by surprise when she groaned.
“Oh, unfair! To tempt me with a swim in cool waters, when I am so tired I can barely lift my hand from this bed!”
“God’s mercy!” he growled, leaning back from her. “You will drive me mad, wench!”
“Why?”
He looked at her through narrowed eyes. Then it struck him that she was not teasing him. She was serious. He saw all of her actions since she had come into the room in a different light now. It was true disappointment that made her cry out in dismay.
“Are you really so tired?”
She smiled faintly. “I fear the heat of your hall has drained my strength away. The work I can do, but ’twas so crowded…” She fell back on the bed again with a sigh. “’Tis well you do not want me now. I do not think we would either of us enjoy the sport.”
He started to say, “Speak for yourself,” but did not. Weeks ago such a brazen statement from her would have shocked him. Perhaps he was getting used to the way she spoke her mind, if not to her inconsistencies.
“Do you still want that bath?”
She closed her eyes, though her lips still smiled. “’Twould be nice, but I still will not go below. I hope you will not make me stir myself to argue about it.”
An annoyed sound came from his throat. She would stir herself to argue, but not to make love.
And he did still want her, regardless of her exhaustion and condition.
But he had to concede that she was undoubtedly right.
He would feel cheated if her response to him was sluggish, when her fiery passion was what he enjoyed most.
Kristen had opened her eyes at the sound he made, enough to look at him beneath her lashes.
Her mind must be as weary as her body. She had made an assumption based on what she was feeling.
It was not what he was feeling, as she could see by the way he was looking down at her with an almost pained expression.
He did in fact want her now. That knowledge did not fire her blood.
She doubted anything could at the moment.
But it did make her feel unaccountably good inside.
“If it pleases you, milord.”
She saw him tense at her offer, but then he relaxed, his features softening too. “Aye, it pleases me, wench, but I will do what pleases you instead. Come, you will have your bath.”
She groaned as he caught her hand to pull her up. “Royce, nay. ’Twould please me more to sleep.”
She was tired indeed to let his name slip out, when only Saxon or a derogatory milord had passed her lips before. He was amused. He had never thought to see her quite this way. Exhaustion had felled her guard completely.
“You need only stand for a few minutes,” he told her with a grin. “I will do the rest.”
“Stand?”
“Aye, here.”
He brought her over to the container of water that had been set on his table. There was a folded cloth there, too, a sponge, and a sliver of soap.
“This is not normal,” she said with a frown. “You always wash downstairs.”
“The bathing room will be used by my guests. When we have guests, water is always brought here for me. You are not the only one affected by the heat in a crowded hall, though I imagine ’twas worse for you.”
“You can imagine,” she said. “But the reality is even worse than that.”
“Is our clime really so hard on you, vixen?” he asked as he began to undress her. “It has not dampened your spirit until now.”
He regretted teasing her as soon as he said it, aware that her pride might reassert itself and she would be chagrined, thinking he made light of her suffering. She surprised him by giggling instead.
“You know, if you had not laughed at me when I tore off my sleeves, I think I would have done something foolish, the heat had me in such ill humor. Why did you find the gesture so amusing?” He would not answer, and she grinned.
“Did I remind you of a sulky child? ’Tis how I saw myself after I heard you laugh. ”
He grunted, for she was too perceptive by far.
But he certainly didn’t see her as a sulky child now.
No child this, and he had made a grave mistake in thinking to wash her himself.
The moment she was completely uncovered he knew it.
But she would not do it. Her eyes were closed now.
She was done with talking. She was practically asleep on her feet.
He hesitated too long, looking at her. “You do not have to do this, milord.” Her eyes were still closed.
Royce felt challenged now. “I know.”
He reached for the soap, glad that she did not see the way his hands shook. He tried to make quick work of lathering her, and tried to keep his eyes averted from where his hands moved. It was not easy. Nor did it make any difference. What he could not see, he was feeling.
He was mad to put himself through this, when he had no intention of bedding her afterward.
And he still would not bed her. The very fact that she would stand there and let him wash her confirmed her exhaustion.
And it was his own fault. He had not thought how the extra load today would wear her down.
His servants were used to these infrequent burdens.
But they were also used to Wessex summers. Kristen was used to neither.
He used the sponge to rinse her, letting the water soak into the discarded clothes at her feet. There was such a look of pleasure on her face as the cool water trickled down her body, that Royce decided his own torment was worth it. He even slowed the rinsing to extend her pleasure.
At last he dried her with the cloth—which, for his own sake, he wrapped around her before leading her back to the bed. He would have carried her there, but that would have been his undoing. As it was, her murmur of contentment as she stretched out on the bed made him groan.
His voice was unintentionally sharp as he threw the thin sheet over her, leaving the cover at the foot of the bed. “You may sleep as long as you want in the morn.”
“You pamper me, milord.”
“Nay, I am simply selfish.”
Her eyes opened partially. “What has that to do with—”
“Go to sleep, wench!”
“You do not come to bed yourself?”
Royce swore violently and turned away from her. He swiped up her clothes from the floor as he left. He would give them to Eda to wash, then he would go to the lake for a cold dunking by himself. But he doubted he would be able to sleep in his own bed tonight at all.