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Cait was too stunned to respond.
“Meet you?” Sabine mumbled. Cait could tell her friend fought off tears. This rebellion was as important to her as it was to any member of the order. Her parents had died fighting the king’s unjust policies—her father was one of the original dissenters who had paid the ultimate price.
“Aye,” Conrad said, taking Cait’s hand. “Within days of learning of our occupation of London, he took all of his provisions to Bramber Castle. Having lost the treasury and Exchequer at Westminster, he had no choice, really. We received letters of safe passage just before I left to come here. We meet with him on the fifteenth of June.”
Cait’s heart raced.
“We,” he repeated. “All of us. I’ve come to escort you all there.”
When Conrad looked to her, Cait knew what this meant. His barely perceptible nod confirmed it. It had been his idea to come for them. To include them.
To include her.
“The men will explain in greater detail. But prepare to ride out in the morn.”
“The men?” Roysa asked. “Why do you keep saying that? Where are you . . .”
She stopped, realizing Conrad’s intent. At the same moment, Cait’s hand was tugged in the direction of the keep. And then he lifted her into his arms, the women bursting into giggles behind them.
“Will you join me for a bath?”
“Is the choice mine?” she asked, pretending not to notice the looks they were getting as they passed through the courtyard.
“Nay,” he admitted. “’Tis not.”
All the way to their chamber, Cait pressed her head to his chest, listening to his heartbeat, assuring herself he was alive and all was well. She felt safe for the first time in days, partly because he was safe.
“Is that smile for me?”
He put her down just before opening the door.
Though there were not as many candles as there’d been the night of their wedding, the servants had arranged the large wooden tub just before the fire, in the very spot where they’d first made love.
Conrad set his sword on the sole table in the room, and Cait’s eyes followed his fingers as he untied the leather belt at his waist. She sighed, actually sighed, when he took off his surcoat and tunic, revealing his sculpted body.
“Yours,” he said, continuing to undress. “This is yours. I am yours. Everything you see is yours, Cait. It has been, always.”
Before she could think of a proper response to words that both dried her throat and made her pulse quicken, her husband was in the tub. Grabbing the soap that sat on a wooden stool next to him, he disappeared into the water. Cait took off her gown and then her shift.
If she had thought Conrad handsome before, he looked even more so as he emerged from the water and slicked back his wet hair. When his eyes found her, Cait’s heartbeat raced even more.
The way he looked at her . . .
Shoulders back, as proud as if she wore the most fashionable gown at court, Cait strode to the tub. Under his gaze, Cait felt more powerful than she ever had in her life. There was no mistaking the hunger in his eyes.
For her.
She did not wait for him to ask. Instead, Cait stepped up onto the wooden stool beside the tub. Conrad reached up to take her hand and guided her into the tub. Though it was nearly as cramped as the first time, it somehow felt right that their reunion should be here.
Without a word, he guided her leg to one side, and she straddled him. This conqueror of kings, very much in Cait’s control, both of them consumed by the same need.
Without a word, Cait leaned down. Conrad’s hand snaked through the hair at the nape of her neck. Grabbing a handful of it, he pulled her down the rest of the way until their lips met. His mouth slanted over hers, covering it completely. Every bit of him demanded. And Cait was happy to meet those demands.
Reaching beneath the water, she tested her special powers and was rewarded with a moan from Conrad that vibrated against her lips. When his hand covered hers, both of them guiding him into her, Cait cursed herself for having waited so long to come to him.
Better to treasure what we have now than bemoan what we’ve lost.
And she did treasure him.
