In the bathroom, Elise grabbed a pair of towels off a high shelf. With those in hand, she turned toward us.
“Plenty of water for a bath. That’ll warm you right up.” She nodded at the wood barrel tub.
Kit hesitated. “I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“No trouble at all.” Setting the towels in the sink basin, Elise got a box of matches and set a fire in the tinderbox near the boiler. “Are you all right to share?” she asked.
Kit smiled in response. “Quite.”
Elise cast a glance across us, seeming to assure herself we had everything we needed before adding, “I’ll see what I can do about finding you some fresh clothes. My brother lives a few houses down the lane. He may have something that will fityou,” she told Kit, then turned a lopsided grin on me. “As for you, that’s what belts are for.”
I pressed my palm to my stomach, then hissed at the sting of the glass-scraped skin.
Kit perked at the sound and called after Elise as she started out of the small room.
“If it’s not too much to ask, do you have any bandages or strips of cloth? My husband hurt his hands, and they need tending.”
My head whipped aside, unable to mask my shock while Kit remained perfectly placid. I struggled to focus on Elise as she retrieved a narrow roll of linen fabric and a bottle of vinegar from the cabinet above the sink and rested them atop the towels.
She left quickly, but not quickly enough while my mind churned with something besides terror for the first time since we’d left the mission.
Kit pushed the door closed, then tugged the strap of my satchel over my head and started thumbing through the buttons on the front of my shirt.
I stood, wondering if I was too dazed to be trusted in what I’d heard until I couldn’t help but say, “You called me your husband.”
With my shirt undone, Kit pushed it off down my arms and let it pile on the floor. His skin brushed over mine in a way that raised goosebumps, and I found myself short of breath for a new reason.
He moved next to the sink and emptied it before rolling up his sleeves and pumping the water to wash his hands. I stood back, still dumbstruck, until Kit beckoned for me to come to the basin. Stepping around behind me, he guided my hands under the flow, holding them steady while the water loosened the blood caked in the creases of my palms and the grime up to my elbows.
His voice was soft in my ear as he finally replied, “That’s where this is headed, isn’t it?”
The cuts on my palms stung as Kit rubbed a hunk of soap over them, but I didn’t move until he dabbed them dry with one edge of the towels and turned me to face him. Stepping aside, he grabbed the strips of cloth from atop the towels and began dabbing vinegar onto them. The sour smell mingled with the clinging stink of smoke made my stomach lurch, but I couldn’t look away from Kit’s face.
“Besides,” he added. “I like the way it sounds.”
“I like it too,” I murmured.
His brow furrowed in deep focus as he moved the soaked cloth toward my open hands. “This is going to sting,” he cautioned.
I braced as he dabbed the linen against the cuts, sparking pain that flashed light behind my closed eyelids.
Thoroughly clean but throbbing, I peered out to watch Kit grab the dry cloths and begin wrapping them around my palms. He was so handsome despite how tired he was, gray-smeared and grungy but still gorgeous. Calling me his darling—his husband.
I chewed on my lip, thinking about Eeus and Paneus and Kit and me. But those pleasant thoughts were interrupted by images of licking flames, broken lanterns on bare wood floors, fire climbing up the walls and ceiling.
I shuddered, and Kit paused in his task.
“You all right?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t help put out the fire,” I mumbled. “Didn’t help with much of anything…”
Kit frowned and tied a knot to secure the linen on the back of one hand, then the other.
“You did plenty,” he replied. “You saved the Symbiarch.”
“Youdid that,” I argued. “You got us out.”
“You were managing just fine before I got there. And you were very brave.” Leaning in, he kissed my forehead, then walked over to the tub to start the water running.
