She shook her head at him. “I want to bathe first. I am covered with dirt and gore.”
“Then I shall have water sent up to you.”
The situation was decided. Toby couldn’t think of another argument so she nodded her head as she turned for the distant stairs. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said as she passed him. “I shall not forget it.”
Stephen watched her walk away, not saying what he was thinking. The more time he spent around her, the more enamored he became with her. He was not oblivious to the fact that Tate felt the same way. Turning back to his medicaments, he realized that he was going to have to do something about it if he was going to stake his claim before Tate did.
Stephen didn’t simply send up water; he sent up a giant copper pot and two male servants, including Althel, to fill it with hot water. Stephen himself carried the pot into the room because it was beyond the strength of the servants. Stephen was an enormous man, taller than Tate by a head, with bulging arms to match his size. He set the pot down near the hearth as the servants went to work filling it.
He noticed that Toby had stripped the bed of the dusty coverlet and cast it into the corner along with the dust pile that Ailsa had created two days ago. Toby’s trunks were open and linens that had covered the beds at thegarçonnairenow covered the bed in the master’s chamber. It was much cleaner than what had been there previously but the room was still grossly dusty. Still, Stephen suspected that would be remedied shortly. If he had learned one thing about Toby, it was that she wouldn’t lie around when there was work to be done.
The fire in the hearth was burning brightly, radiating a good deal of heat into the room as Toby bustled back and forth between her open trunks, rummaging through what Tate and her sister had managed to pack. She managed to find several things that she was grateful for, including a luxurious sleeping shift that she had purchased on a trip to Leeds. It had been wadded up in a ball and she knew Ailsa had packed it that way.When she unrolled the ball, she hugged the shift to her, feeling her sister’s touch. The tears came again, this time silently, but she forced herself to work through them.
Stephen and the servants were busy filling her bath, although she wasn’t exactly sure why Stephen was still there. He had brought up the pot but lingered. Toby didn’t give him too much thought as she continued to inventory the contents of both trunks, thankfully coming across some soap, a comb and other vanity items that Ailsa had apparently haphazardly thrown into the trunk. She inhaled deeply of the soap that smelled of lavender and lemon rind, thankful to have something to wash with. She was positive that the whole of Harbottle Castle had nothing even remotely useful for cleaning.
Stephen was loitering near the door as Althel picked up the last of the buckets and quit the chamber. He watched Toby stand over the pot and swirl her hand around in the water.
“Is it too hot?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Not at all,” she shook out her wet hand and looked at him. “Thank you for bringing this up to the room. I am very grateful.”
Stephen took a step into the room, his cornflower eyes intense. “Will there be anything else, mistress?”
Toby was unnerved by the look in his eye; there was something strong and suggestive there. “Nay,” she said. “I think I can do for myself.”
“I shall be outside if you require anything.”
“No need.”
It wasn’t Toby who had answered him; it was Tate, entering the room and gazing at his knight with an unreadable expression. Stephen turned to his liege and the two of them exchanged equally stony expressions. But there was no mistaking the tension that suddenly filled the room.
“You are needed in the hall,” he said to Stephen. “I will take care of Mistress Toby.”
Stephen almost opened his mouth to refute him but thought better of it. Tate was, in fact, his commander. And Stephen never disobeyed an order. Still, with a woman involved, there was something of an instinct to stand his ground. Casting a lingering glance at Toby, he quit the room in silence.
It had been an odd exit. Toby wasn’t ignorant to the strain between Tate and Stephen and she was uncomfortable with it. She wasn’t quite sure why things were so strained but she had a suspicion. When Stephen was gone, Toby smiled timidly at Tate.
“I did not want to bother you,” she said, perhaps to explain the other knight’s presence. “Stephen brought up a bath so that I could wash this dirt and blood away.”
Tate gazed at her a moment; dirty and disheveled after the hellish past few days, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“I am glad to see you have decided to retire,” he said. “I will therefore leave you to your bath and sleep. But I wanted to make sure you did not require anything further.”
She shook her head at him, her eyes never leaving his. “All I require is to see you before I go to sleep,” she said, lowering her eyes coyly as she did so. “Since you have shown yourself, I require nothing further.”
It was a charming thing to say. Tate smiled as he moved towards her. “You just wanted to see me?”
She nodded sharply, averting her eyes. “Aye.”
He stopped right in front of her, dipping his head down to look at her lowered face. “Nothing else?”
Her cheeks were turning a deep shade of pink as she avoided his probing gaze. “Nothing.”
“Not even a kiss?”
She looked up at him, preparing to reply, when he suddenly pulled her into his arms and, with a wicked grin, kissed her deeply. Toby ended up weak and boneless as he sucked the strength right out of her. When his lips finally released her own, the storm cloud eyes gazed at her half-lidded.
“I was right.”
