Now that they were alone, he did not have to put on a show of strength, and his body appeared completely ragged, the perfect complement to the clothes that hung on his frame.
A moment of trepidation made her hands shake as she approached him. If he looked this poorly in his clothes, how battered would he appear out of them? Adaira feared what she would find when she removed the tattered fabric.
Sawny did not move. He awaited her, as if he too feared what would happen once his body was laid bare to her.
“May I –” she started, then bit it off and touched the low hem of his tunic. Her hesitance puzzled her. They had just shared the most intimate moment in the woods! Did the prospect of removing his clothes worry her that much? Nay, ‘twas the unknown of what lay under them that did. “May I remove this?”
Sawny’s gaze fixed on her face. “Ye can burn it. I’d rather run naked than wear these clothes any longer.”
“Hmm,” she murmured as she lifted the hem up his torso and over his head. “I dinna believe ye will be running anywhere at the moment, but I’ll be glad to burn it.”
The tunic came up and over his head, and she inhaled sharply.
Sawny’s chin dipped as he lowered his gaze, and that one move, a gesture of subjugation, of humiliation, shook Adaira so hard that her fury roared in her ears. Someone brought her bold and brash Sawny to this point.
And if her father or his did not have that villain’s head presented to her on a platter, she would hunt him down and claim it for herself.
He still did not move as he let her take full view of the atrocities he had suffered while he was missing.
His chest which had been full and well-muscled two months ago was bony. Not fully emaciated, thank Mary mother of God, but she could easily count his ribs under his thin, pallid skin, or what she could see of it. His skin was more a patchwork of bruises, scrapes, and hollow shadows. But the scar on his side . . .
That jagged wreck of scarring made her stomach leap into her throat. What had caused such damage?
She reached out to touch it, then jerked her hand back.
“Ye can touch it,” he whispered roughly, keeping his eyes lowered. “And it could have been worse. Much worse.”
He flinched slightly when her cool fingertips caressed the wound. The skin was raw, the scar freshly pink and layered with knots of skin folded over itself around a puckered center.
A burn? But the scar extended past that pucker.
He shivered under her touch as she trailed her fingers over and around the hills and valleys of his suffering, and he swayed. She pulled her hand back.
“Ye are walking filth. Let’s wash the dirt of your adventures off ye, and perchance wash some of those memories away as well.”
“I fear ‘twill be a while before those memories fade. Yet the bath is more than welcome.”
He dropped his braies to the floor to join his tunic. She held his arm as he stepped into the tub one slender leg at a time. Then he sunk low, the water reaching his chest. Letting out a long sigh, he rested his head back along the rim and closed his eyes.
“I had not believed I would feel like this ever again,” he remarked.
Adaira rubbed the pad of soap across her hands, then massaged along his temples and up through his hair. His hair was so limp and grimy, the rich brown looked slick black in the curtained light of her room. Scratching at his scalp, she scrubbed his hair, adding more soap as she worked, and Sawny moaned and grumbled his gratification.
“I fear ye will put me to sleep, my love.” His words were slightly slurred. He was already half asleep, and she did not blame him.
“Rest, then. Let me wash ye, and then we shall get ye to bed.”
“Mmm,” was all he replied as she rinsed his hair and began another round of scrubbing his hair where it matted at the back, then down to his thick scruff of beard.
He was snoring by the time she moved to his body, slipping the soap under the water’s surface to wash his arms, legs, and torso, taking care around his scar. He did not need to be awakened from his slumber as the scar was yet tender.
The water had cooled while she cleansed him, and once she finished with his long-toed feet, she had thought to sit by the bath and let him sleep in it. The prospect of waking him to move him out of the tub knotted her stomach.
She rose to grab her chair when he spoke.
“The water is probably more filthy than I can imagine, but would ye join me?”
Cool and filthy, but in this moment, she would deny him nothing.
