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“It’s late. You should let them go to bed.”
“It’s late. You should let me do what I want.” He looked down at her, his blue eyes flashing. “Will life with you always be a challenge?” he asked, although she doubted he wanted an answer to the question.
“Probably,” she said. She was what she was. She doubted that would change.
His house was a small set of rooms, but it was immaculately clean and the f
urniture was big and bulky. She didn’t see much of it, however, as he whisked her down the corridor and into his chambers.
He set her down on the edge of the bed and bent to tug her slippers from her feet. The he slid behind her on the bed and started to unfasten her dress.
His hands were tender but efficient as he stripped her down to nothing but her chemise. In the adjoining room, Claire could hear water splashing into a bath. “Is that for me?” she asked.
“Yes. It will help you relax, I hope. And might even stop the shivering.”
She nodded and let him push her chemise up over her knees, so he could roll her stockings down. Finn kissed the inside of her knee quickly and then tugged her hands until she stood. He moved to pull down her drawers, but she stopped his hands. “I can do it,” she protested.
“Feeling shy?” he asked, his lips touching her temple.
“A little.” Actually, she was terrified. If Finn saw her naked now, he would know about the baby she carried. There was no hiding the faint bump that was the new life within her. He would know that she’d deceived him. That she’d purposefully kept something from him. He’d be angry. She was certain of it. “Could I have some privacy?” she asked as the footman knocked on the door to tell Finn the bath was ready.
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said, and Claire’s heart tripped a beat within her chest.
“Can you talk to me through the door?”
He chuckled. “If you insist.”
Claire padded across the room and slipped into his dressing room. The big tub stood tall at the side of the room. Steam rose from it in gentle waves. Claire tugged her chemise over her head, and then pushed her drawers down to the floor and stepped out of them. She lowered herself into the tub, and the warm water enveloped her better than any blanket ever could.
Claire laid her head back against the edge of the tub. The water rose to the tops of her breasts, and nothing more than her head and her knees stood out of the water.
What on earth was she going to do? If he saw her now, he would know she’d been deceiving him all along. He might hate her for it.
“Feeling better?” Finn called through the door, which he’d opened to a crack.
“Much,” she assured him. Well, the shivering had stopped. “I don’t know why I did that. That has never happened before.”
“It’s a very normal reaction.”
“Has it ever happened to you?”
“In varying stages, yes. There are a lot of emotions that accompany death, particularly when one is relieved it’s not one’s own life that was lost.”
***
Finn leaned his head on the doorjamb. It could have been her. It could have been Claire. If he hadn’t been there to catch her getting into that carriage, she would have gone to that masked ball, and Mayden could have killed her. The fear of losing her settled in his gut and rolled around like a cat in a sack.
“Finn,” Claire called. “Do you have a housemaid who could help me wash this tint from my hair?”
Not at this time of the night. “I’ll come and do it,” he replied as he pushed the door open and walked into the room.
Good God, she was pretty sitting here, her hair curling with the steam of her bath. She’d pulled all the pins from it and draped it over the lip of the tub. She sat forward as he approached, and drew her knees closer to her chest. “Finn!” she cried. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Oh, I promise not to look.” He was lying. But he didn’t feel even the least bit of remorse about it. He planned to look his fill. He planned to take in every dip and curve of her body. He wasn’t sending her home this night. Not a chance in hell.
She’d nearly died, for God’s sake. He’d nearly lost her.
Finn divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and he jerked free his cravat and tugged it off his neck. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and dropped to one knee beside her. Her skin was rosy and pink, her cheeks flushed with the heat of the bath. Tiny tendrils of hair had begun to spiral at her forehead and around her ears. He would be glad when that dreadful tint was gone and her strawberry blond hair would be back.
