“You should go back to your chamber,” he said as he got out of bed. “I don’t want anyone to accuse me of seducing you.”
She grinned, a hint of mischief in her beautiful blue eyes. “You could simply admitIseducedyou. I came to your bedchamber, after all.” She twisted a strand of her hair around her finger as she watched him dress. “Ifear I’m a total wanton where you are concerned. And I thought we were going to denude your chin of that beard.”
“I regret that there’s no time, at least for you to help me, and as much as I might enjoy that—” he hopped on one foot and tugged on a boot “—perhaps I should leave it until we’re married, and we can do that on our wedding night.”
She shook her head. “I’m going to want to do other things that night, my lord.”
His brow furrowed and he frowned with mock disapproval as he straightened. “You are indeed a very wanton wench.” His eyes shone with a smile. “Much to my delight.”
He glanced at the window and sobered. “But you really must go, Bea. Maloren will have a fit if she discovers you’re not in your bed.”
Bea grimaced. “You’re right,” she agreed as she, too, got out of the bed and smoothed down her disheveled shift.
“God’s wounds, you can’t go back looking like that!” he exclaimed as he tucked his shirt into his breeches.
“Like what?” she asked, starting to run her fingers through her tangled hair. “Has my nose grown hooked? My face haggard?”
He pointed at her shift, and in the first dim light of dawn, she saw what he was looking at—the small streaks of blood that proved she’d been a virgin.
She quickly stripped off her garment and hurried to the basin. There was cold water in the ewer beside it and she poured some into the basin and proceeded to wash out the stains as best she could.
Ranulf came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her naked body, warming her in more ways than one. “I’m sorry.”
“It was to be expected. I think I’ve got most of the blood out.”
“Are you going to wear it wet to your chamber?”
“I’ll carry it and put it in the laundry later, before Maloren sees it.” She slid him a questioning glance. “Should we go to Tregellas with Kiernan? Maloren expects us to, after what happened with Celeste. You could come with us and ask Merrick for permission to marry me.”
“You should go back to Tregellas,” he agreed, “where you’ll be safe, but although I want to marry you with all my heart, I can’t go with you. The people here still don’t trust me, and it might seem to them that I’m putting my own happiness above my duty and the safety of the people of Penterwell if I go to Tregellas before I’ve caught the men responsible for the murders.”
He finished with such a sorrowful sigh, Bea readily, if reluctantly, accepted his decision to remain here until justice was done. “Very well,” she said, turning in his arms to face him.
Then she smiled brightly, and with determination, too. “But in that case, I’m staying, as well. Your larder needs more food. You need some new clothes or—oh!” she cried, her eyes widening. “I promised all your maidservants a new gown for doing a good job. I simply can’t leave here until I’ve kept mypromise to them, can I? Even Maloren won’t argue with me about that, as she’s to get a new gown, too.”
He laughed softly. “Bea, Bea, you continually amaze me. Is there nothing you can’t manage with that clever imagination of yours? But you would be safer in Tregellas.”
She wrapped her arms about him and looked up longingly into his hazel eyes. “I don’t think so. I think I’m perfectly safe right here.”
“Bea,” he warned, trying to resist her persuasive efforts and ignore the fact that she was naked. “You’re distracting, too.”
“Am I?”
“Very.”
“But I can help you if I stay. Don’t the women trust me? Didn’t I already provide good information?”
“That’s true,” he conceded. And there was a full garrison here, and those who had been killed had been in more vulnerable places—at sea or in a secluded house, not a well-manned castle.
“You don’t really want me to go, do you, Ranulf?” she wheedled, pressing her shapely body against him. “Please let me stay and help you, Ranulf. Please?”
He tried to look as if he was giving in under duress. “Oh, very well, my lady. I yield. I do require your able assistance in my investigation, and you absolutely cannot leave Penterwell until you’ve provided all my maidservants with a new gown as you promised—although I’ll pay for them, of course,” he added.
“You will?”
“It seems only right.” He cocked his head and regarded her quizzically. “How did you intend to pay for them?”
She blushed and slid him a coy, incredibly alluring smile. “I hoped I could convince you of the wisdom of rewarding your servants for doing a good job.”
