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Maria clearly wasn’t buying it. Not at all. She shook her head slowly, flaring her nostrils.
“You can’t fool me.” She took a glass bottle of verbena oil from the shelf, and dropped a few droplets into the water above me. I watched the oil disperse the surface of the water, shimmering in a tiny rainbow in the colorful light from the small blue glass window that illuminated the bath chamber.
“Come on. Why would I…what was the word you said? Swoon over a man who barely has the time or interest to even look at me?”
“I’ve got a theory about all this,” Maria said, taking a seat on the stool beside the tub, with a brush in her hand. She smoothed my hair over the back of the tub and then gathered it up in one fist, to begin working on the tangles near the ends. “I think he’s the one leaving all these gifts for you.”
I turned to look at her, making the water splash side to side in the tub. “Oh please.”
She tugged at a few tangles. I felt the pinch on my scalp and winced. But she was always gentle about it, and patiently worked out the knots with a boar-bristle brush…. Which, come to think of it, had also been a secret gift. It had arrived with a bouquet of deep red roses, which were my very favorite of all the flowers.
“I’m serious,” she said, untangling the length of my hair slowly. “Who else could it be?”
I blew out a breath and turned away, doing my best to sound exasperated. Not once had such a ridiculous idea crossed my mind. But now that Maria had mentioned it, I found it wildly erotic. All those gifts left by my bedside, by him?
I even saw that ridiculous blue dress in a new light. Lacework drawing attention to my breasts? Because he wanted to emphasize them.
No.
Surely not?
“Gifts are left for us all the time,” I argued, trying to convince myself. “I don’t even like the gifts.”
“Oh shut up, you,” Maria said, laughing. “You can fool other people, but you can’t fool me. The crossbow? That mare you keep hidden and won’t tell me where?” She narrowed her eyes and I fought the beginnings of a grin. She had no idea about the stables in the woods, and nor would she if I had my way. She dropped my hair and stood up. Then grabbed a glass bottle from the shelf nearby, and gave it a shake. “This?” She said, unscrewing it and drizzling the viscous liquid down into the water.
The room was filled with the most wonderful scent of lavender, and as I wiggled my legs, it foamed up marvelously, into heaps of bubbles, so that in an instant, it was as if I was sitting inside a cloud.
Maria stood in front of me, hand on her hip.
I didn’t know what to say, but I knew for sure I was blushing. And so I sucked in a big breath and submerged myself beneath the waterline.
The sound of Maria’s wonderful giggle was muted through the water, and I found myself giggling too, in a stream of soapy bubbles. Being underwater gave me just a little privacy and some room to think.
What if it had been him? What if all this time, Maksim had been my secret admirer, who seemed to know exactly what I would like and exactly what would surprise me?
The crossbow, the dress, all the jewelry. Cherries in summer, oranges in winter. Chocolates filled with caramel. Only someone who really knew me could’ve known how much I’d love all of that. What if, all this time, all that hard cruelty was…just for show?
My heart thumped in my chest at the thought. A knock at the door made it nearly shoot up into my throat. I popped up from the water just as Maria rose to see who it was.
“Anika!” Snapped a voice from the other side of the door. “What in heaven’s name are you doing taking a bath now?”
With a groan, I slipped back down beneath the water. It was my mother, the queen. The last person in the world I wanted to see.
She entered with an entourage as usual. Trailing behind her were a seamstress, with a gown over her arm, and the woman who always did my mother’s hair and makeup.
No Eyrie, at least. I should be grateful for not having my eyes pecked out by that bird.
“Get up, get up,” my mother said, making a shooing gesture with both hands at Maria, like she was trying to get a wayward cat out of the kitchens.
“I’m in the bath,” I said, only coming up out of the water far enough to say the words. My chin was still submerged in bubbles, just like the rest of me. “As you can see.”
