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“I think I should like a bath,” he said calmly.
“Yes, I should too!”
“I do not believe that there would be enough room for the both of us, more’s the pity.”
She stared at him, her tongue at half-mast.
He said nothing more, rose, and stretched. She found herself unwillingly looking at him. He was a magnificent specimen, but of course he knew it. Her eyes dropped to her hands, but she saw him with blinding clarity, striding out of the loch, his muscular body dripping water.
She gulped. He was her husband. There could be no more running away. She would bear it. “Will you visit me?” she asked.
That brought him up short, and he blinked. A direct assault, he thought, smiling to himself. Perhaps, just perhaps she was still in the throes of her experience of the afternoon. With the assistance of the brandy, perhaps, just perhaps ...
“I shall think about it, Frances,” he said. He offered her a brief nod and took himself out of the room. His body was throbbing with lust, and he feared that he would ravish her on the drawing-room carpet if he remained.
Frances stared at the embers in the fireplace. Her mind felt sluggish and quite at ease. Her body felt languid. She rose, doused the candles, keeping but one to take upstairs.
Agnes had her bath prepared, and steaming, scented heat reached Frances’ nose as she came into her bedchamber. “His lordship told me you’d want a bath, my lady,” Agnes said matter-of-factly.
“How kind of him,” Frances said vaguely.
It didn’t take Agnes many moments to realize that her mistress was tipsy. She smiled, thinking that her ladyship was going to enjoy herself this night. She g
ave a delicious little shudder remembering the gleam in the earl’s eyes when he had given her instructions. She frowned a bit, seeing that Frances was on the point of sleep in the bathtub.
“My lady,” she said softly, gently shaking her mistress’ shoulder.
“Am I become a prune yet?” Frances said, grinning hazily up at her maid.
“Very nearly. Come now, let me dry you off.”
Frances was a pliant creature, but when Agnes refused to braid her hair, she merely giggled. “I lost at piquet,” she said.
“No wonder,” said Agnes in a starchy voice.
“I did not play as I usually play,” Frances continued, frowning down at her bare toes.
“Probably not, my lady,” said Agnes. “Come, let me help you into bed.”
Frances was on the point of climbing into her bed when she stopped and spun about. “I am hungry, Agnes.”
Agnes sent her eyes heavenward.
“Yes,” continued Frances thoughtfully, her greed growing, “I believe I shall visit the kitchen. Surely Cook has left something about.”
Agnes sent an agonized look toward the adjoining door. She temporized. “If you wish, I can have something sent up to you, my lady.”
“No,” Frances announced, searching for her slippers, “I wish to forage for my own food.”
To Agnes’ utter relief, there came a light knock on the adjoining door. She rushed to open it, saying when she saw the earl, “Her ladyship is hungry.”
Hawk grinned at his wife, who was endeavoring with great concentration to put her right slipper on her left foot. He nodded dismissal to Agnes. “I shall see to her,” he said, and didn’t move until Agnes closed the bedchamber door behind her.
“I understand from Agnes, my dear, that you are hungry?” he asked, coming toward her.
“Why won’t this idiot slipper do what it’s supposed to?”
He watched her sit on the floor, stick her foot out, and try to fit the recalcitrant slipper. “There,” she said with triumphant. “But it looks so very odd. My toes are in the wrong direction.”
