He frowned. “I think your mother hid them all.”
Briar raised her eyes to the ceiling in a sign of exasperation and promptly sighed at new tracks of blood she hadn’t seen before. She walked into the other room to find her mother packing a bundle of clothes. Three pots of water were already heating on the hearth.
“Five years,” she said. “The sisters won’t believe it’s you.”
She was wearing her habit and veil. Briar had rarely seen her in them since she’d moved to the house on the hill, away from the community, on the grounds of her self-imposed penance. She only put them on when she went outside and there was a chance of someone seeing her.
“Are you sure?” Briar asked. “I can take him to the cottage.”
The woman shook her head.
Briar didn’t know what had convinced her to finally return to the convent, and she had the feeling she would never know. Her mother stepped closer, and for a moment, Briar thought she was going to hug her. She merely patted her daughter on the cheek and smiled.
Briar smiled back. “I’ll see you later.”
And then she truly was alone with Rune.
She carried buckets of water to the wooden tub in the corner of the bedroom. It was small for Rune, but they would manage.
“Take off your clothes and get in,” she said as she guided him to the tub.
He reached out, gripped the edge, and waited.
“We do, of course, have all day,” Briar said sarcastically.
“I was waiting for you to leave.”
“Not this time.” She eyed his blood-smeared chest. “You’re gorier than the Old Testament. You won’t be able to get it all out by yourself.”
A blush spread high on his cheeks. Stitches and blood aside, he was kind of endearing.
“I can’t.”
“I’m not asking you to get out your drawers. Keep those on, obviously.”
“Oh. All right.”
He’d thought she wanted to see him fully naked. Briar bit her lip. Maybe she did.
No, that wasn’t right. What was she doing? She turned away as he undid his trousers, looking around the room and making a plan for later. She would have to clean the floor properly and lay a new set of sheets on the bed. Scrubbing the walls and the ceiling wasn’t an emergency. She could leave that for another day. The room was aired enough, so she closed the window. She heard Rune get into the tub.
“Not too hot?” she asked, reaching for the soap and the washcloth.
“Very hot. Intentional?”
She smirked. “Yes. I’m trying to punish you any way that I can.”
He laughed.
She knelt next to the tub, soaked the cloth and soaped it up. Rune was folded within himself, the tub too small to be comfortable. Briar’s eyes traced the stitches on his back, her hand following the same path as she brushed the washcloth over his skin. He shuddered. She wiped over his shoulders and ran it down one arm. He straightened to give her more space.
“It’s strange,” he said.
“What is?”
“No one has done this for me before.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Seraphina?”
