“I don’t believe you,” he said flatly. “You cared little what people thought of you two years ago.”
“Believe what you wish. Now may I finish this chore so that I may sleep? I have to bake in the morning.”
“For my estate again?”
“For the bailiff and his family on my parents’ estate.”
She put her hands on his shirt, and suddenly her ministrations seemed too intimate.
“You are naive, Roselyn, or you do not understand the way the world of the nobility works.”
“I understand well enough how little a woman matters to men,” she said, with only a hint of bitterness.
She unwrapped the bandages from his chest. Though the tugging was painful, Spencer didn’t complain. He search her face for a clue to her real feelings.
“Like you, I had no say in the marriage,” he said.
“You made that perfectly clear the eve of the wedding.”
He watched her fingers rub a smelly salve into his skin. He remembered little of that night. He’d been drinking with his friends beforehand, and he hadn’t stopped drinking at the party. Since he barely remembered meeting her, what could he have said or done wrong?
As Roselyn leaned over him, he smelled the brine of sea water. “Did you go swimming in your clothes?”
“I’d rather smell of salt than your odor.”
“Then I guess ’tis time for another bath. The last one showed you what you missed by not wedding me.”
“I only discovered howlittleI missed.”
She coolly stood up and turned away, leaving him speechless. He was used to women giggling at his outrageous talk, not shooting it back at him.
Clenching his jaw, he watched her climb up into the loft. Only a few moments later she came back down, carrying clothing over her arm. Without looking at him, she went outside and closed the door behind her.
Roselyn marched around the cottage to the bake house, where she’d earlier put water on to boil. Seething over Thornton’s rude comments, she added hot and cold water to the half barrel she used to bathe in during the summer. Thornton’s presence wasn’t enough to stop her; the salt was itching her skin and scalp too badly.
From a crate, she stepped down into the barrel and submerged herself, knees close to her chest, sighing with pleasure. It didn’t last long. Though the stars above usually made her think peaceful thoughts, tonight they only reminded her of the glitter of Thornton’s dark eyes. She even felt ill at ease being alone outside, somehow.
Roselyn scrubbed herself hard, seething with anger. How dare he make rude comments about the wedding night they’d never had?
And why had his words made her remember his naked body beneath her hands as she’d washed him? What was wrong with her, that she could think of him as a man, when he’d behaved like a monster, calling her a whore just because she’d followed love?
When she was finished bathing, she donned her smock and dressing gown in the dark bake house. After walking to the cottage door, she took a deep breath to fortify herself, then stepped inside.
She had hoped Thornton would be asleep, but in the low light of the dying fire, she could see him propped against his cushion, watching her. Since it was a warm summer evening, he’d removed his shirt, and his white bandages glowed against his dark skin.
Ignoring him, Roselyn laid more wood on the fire and headed for her loft.
“I heard a lot of splashing outside,” he said.
She froze halfway up the ladder, suddenly remembering the window overlooking the bake house.
“Don’t worry yourself; I didn’t look. I wasn’t even tempted.”
She climbed up into the loft, ignoring the tightness in her chest.
~oOo~
Roselyn made sure she kept herself occupied all morning, disregarding the cold silence between her and Thornton. For dinner she left the plate of ham, bread and fresh-picked peaches beside him, while she ate her own meal at a wooden table in the courtyard.
