Chapter 51
As the sun slipped below the western horizon, Aila lit a candelabrum on the sideboard, as well as a robust fire in the hearth of Phoebe’s bridal chamber.
She laid out Phoebe’s change of clothes and arranged for a large wooden tub filled with steamy water to be sent up from the kitchen for Phoebe to wash.
Aila added a few drops of bergamot oil to the water and placed a bar of orange blossom pressed soap and fresh folded linens by the side of the tub.
Aila helped Phoebe remove her high-necked day dress with corset stays, underskirts, shift and hose, then left the chamber pulling the door closed behind her.
Phoebe pinned up her hair to avoid it getting wet and stepped into the deliciously warm bath, settling into its bone-melting luxuriousness, some of her earlier stiffness easing.
But then the door to the chamber pushed open.
Phoebe didn’t turn. Her reclined position was far too soothing and comfortable. “Did you forget something, Aila?” Phoebe asked.
When the door bolted shut from the inside without an answer, Phoebe’s heart dropped into her belly, and she jerked around.
Slade stood there, his majestic height almost equaling that of the door.
A dark pained look flashed across his arrestingly handsome features before becoming shuttered.
He was dressed in a long greatcoat and leather riding boots, his warm green gaze darkening to the color of juniper leaves in winter.
Phoebe swallowed back the intense shudder of awareness at her nudity. She forced herself not to shift or make any move to cover herself. She was a wife now.
But as his eyes traversed the length of her in the bath, something inexplicable clouded them. She silently thanked all the saints she hadn’t driven him away with her unforgivable but unavoidable behavior. She vowed to do better.
For some strange reason she didn’t trust the relaxed smile stretching his lips or his banal next words, something was too contained and restrained about his movements.
“How was your day?” he asked as he divested himself of his waistcoat, then unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt, apparently getting comfortable.
His exposed neck created an air of intimacy.
But then again, she was completely naked, under the bath water.
“I tended to the remaining wedding guests most of the day. And bid farewell to Egan, my parents, Lucia and Breena. How was your day?” she said, utterly mesmerized by the graceful way he moved to stand by her tub.
“I spent most of the day conducting training sessions with the guards, part of my duties as new warlord. I also had an unexpected visitor today.”
She straightened with interest. “Oh, who was it?”
“Mistress Willoughby, the mother of my late betrothed, visited this morning to congratulate me on our nuptials,” he said.
Surprise and sympathy contracted her chest. “She is well, I hope?”
Phoebe considered the question ridiculously inadequate. The woman had lost a daughter and her former ‘almost’ son-in-law had moved on with his life.
“She is doing better than previous years. Perhaps coming to peace with what happened,” he said.
The flicker of sadness across his features made her wonder if he still loved Sylvia. But then the sadness was replaced with something else. Heat. “May I assist you in your bath?” he said.
Her mouth went completely dry.
She swallowed back the thickness of trepidation and intrigue. “Oh, ah … of course.”
Slade proceeded to roll up the cuffs of his sleeves, and her eyes fell on the veins of hard toned forearm muscles, fascinated with its sprinkling of dark hair.
He knelt down by the tub. Excitement and fear shot up her spine. She inhaled his masculine scent of leather and cloves as he picked up the soap and small square of linen, dipping them in the water before forming a lather all the while his eyes seared into hers.
Molten heat pooled at her core mingling with anxiousness and anticipation.
He clinically considered the entirety of her body’s position before speaking. “Please sit forward a bit.”
Her body shivered slightly at the smoothness of his tone; it couldn’t be from a chill because she was quite warm.
“May I?” he asked, indicating to the soapy square of linen in his hand.
She edged forward, her fingers digging into her palms beneath the water.
“Ah, yes,” she breathed.
Slade gently stroked the area of her back she offered in slow circles and lazy zigzags.
His touch both calmed her and created chaos in her body.
One second her heart forgot to beat and the next it was speeding while the bedchamber’s temperature rose a notch or two.
All the while her nails dug into her palms forming half-moons.
The contracting of her core caused her to squeeze her knees together sending a shiver down her spine.
“Are you cold?” His voice rasped.
“Ah … no … no,” she breathed.
His hand lifted. “Lean back.”
His command was soft yet laced with steel.
Slade dipped the linen in a measured, almost calculated motion down the valley between her breasts, leaving trails of fire on her wet skin.
Her areolas peaked as he rubbed the linen over each of her breasts in smooth gentle strokes.
His outward appearance continued to be clinical, yet his breathing became audible.
Phoebe’s breath hitched when her gaze landed on the large bulge in his trousers. She breathed through the fear and her own arousal, determined not to panic.
His hand lingered at her stomach.
“Should I continue further down?” His voice was deceptively low, as his eyes speared hers.
Phoebe gulped. “Ahem … yes,” she whispered.
Good. God. This bath was deliciously destroying them both.