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She smiled, and he forgot to be vexed with himself.
“I can call for more warm water for you. It won’t do to take a chill, especially after that nasty wound you suffered.” Lady Emma dipped the cloth into his bath water and then rubbed the small disc of Winter’s soap on it, creating a froth that smelled like a garden.
“I told the lads to stop ordering that damned Winter’s soap,” he growled, for while the Winter family and the Suttons had laid their rivalry to rest, Hart had not forgotten the days when Suttons and Winters had been enemies. Devereaux Winter may have built his papa’s wealth into an untold fortune with his soap, but that didn’t mean Hart Sutton wanted to bleeding smell like a rosebush.
“It smells so lovely,” Lady Emma decreed, inhaling deeply of the scent.
Hart found himself suddenly, acutely jealous of the damned soap.
He gripped the lip of the tub. “Not partial to it myself.”
“It is the only soap I see,” she said.
“Hmm.” He extended his hand, feeling unaccountably surly.
“I will wash you,” she volunteered softly, ignoring his dislike of the soap and his extended hand as she ran the dampened cloth over the Winter’s soap in her palm.
Her hands on him? His cock, which had gone rather limp in the cooling water and his distraction over thoughts of the Winters, woke back up.
“Not necessary.” His voice was thick with lust he did not bother to hide.
If she insisted on washing him, he was going to bloody well bed her all night long. He was going to spend every moment making up for the time they had lost when he had been unexpectedly called away to vanquish Bradleys. But he wasn’t meant to do that. The gin was supposed to have been a curative.
“Hush,” she said, her sweet voice matter-of-fact, and then she began soaping his arms and chest.
He held still for her ministrations. Painfully so, for he was acutely aware of her regard as it traveled over his bare flesh, leaving a new trail of fire everywhere it went. Her nails scraped lightly over his clavicle and he nearly jumped out of his bleeding skin. The burning in his wound ceased to matter, supplanted by the roaring need to claim this woman once and for all.
Do not do it.
Think of Loge.
Tomorrow, he had decided, was the day he would contact Lady Emma’s father to arrange the game he knew no gambler could resist. The stakes would be incredibly high, the chance for reward enough of a lure to bring him to The Sinner’s Palace. And when he was just where Hart wanted him, the trap would be sprung.
And what he was going to do would likely make Lady Emma despise him.
He took the cloth from her abruptly. “I’ll do for myself. Go and make yourself comfortable. Have you supped?”
She rose to her feet, and he did his utmost to ignore the hurt on her expressive features. For there would be far more pain etched on her beautiful face before he was through with her.
“Yes,” she said quietly, and then did as he asked, moving across the room, blessedly out of reach.
He could not be tempted to haul her into the tub with him, then. Nor to dissuade himself from his course of action. Bringing her here to The Sinner’s Palace with him had never been about lust. He had never intended to bed her. Hell, he had never even thought about her as anything other than a faceless, spoiled aristocrat. She had always been a means to an end.
Until he had seen her. Touched her. Kissed her. Tasted her.
Grinding his jaw, Hart made quick work of soaping himself, washing the grime of the street battle from his tired body. He tried to ignore the cool silence that had fallen between himself and Lady Emma, the feeling of her gaze on him as she watched him bathe. He soaped his hair next, but when he moved to dip his head beneath the water, the manner in which he needed to twist himself gave his stitches another test.
He must have made an outward show of his pain, for she was on her feet again, padding toward him in the no-nonsense fashion of a governess taking on her unruly charge. She sighed, and the sound settled over him like a siren’s lure.
“Let me help you,” she said.
“Suit yourself,” he allowed, knowing he was behaving like an arse whilst she was only being the angel she was.
And look at you, vile bastard that you are, willing to use an innocent who has only ever looked upon you and touched you with tender caring and concern.
She cupped water in her hands and ladled it over his head, then ran her fingers through the strands. The soft massaging of her fingertips on his scalp was bleeding divine. She seemed to know just where to touch him, finding the knots of tension at the base of his skull he had not even known were there until she had tenderly untangled them. She was not just performing the simple task of ablutions. She was caressing him. Touching him to give him pleasure because—unless he was mistaken—the act gave her pleasure as well.
