Finnick nodded quickly and headed off to assist the younger ladies. Diara returned to the cabinet where she kept her bathing things, including soap and scrapers, razors, and more. When she’d come to Pembridge, Roi didn’t really have anything other than a comb and a razor, so she’d been generous in lending himher soap. Actually, she’d insisted on it, and he started using it, afraid to smell bad for his new wife. He hadn’t cared much how he smelled for the past fourteen years, but now he did. He had a wife he wanted to be worthy of, and he didn’t want to smell like a stable.
When the servants were gone and the door closed and bolted, Diara set out the soap and oils and scrub brushes on a small table next to the tub and had Roi help her out of her sticky, heavy, damp garments. When they came off, all of them, she slipped into the hot tub and instructed him to do the same. The tub was big enough for them both, even if there wasn’t a lot of room to move around, and he eagerly climbed in with her as she took a pitcher and poured water over them both, several times, before rinsing out the nasty water so she could scrub them both with the soap. As Roi relaxed in the hot water, Diara washed herself first, including her hair, before starting in on him.
He was more than happy to let her.
“I’ve been thinking something,” he murmured, eyes closed as she washed his hair.
“What about?” she asked.
“That mayhap you would like to go to Paris,” he said. “When we were married, I was thinking about taking you on a trip because you seemed so interested in talking to people from different places. Realizing that you’ve probably never been out of England, I thought you might enjoy a trip.”
She stopped washing, forcing him to open his eyes and look at her. She appeared completely surprised.
“Paris?” she repeated. “Oh…couldwe? Do we dare?”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
She shrugged and resumed washing. “Because you have many duties here that require you,” she said. “You could not leave for a long period of time.”
“Why not?”
“Don’tyou have duties that require you?”
He kept his eyes closed while she poured water on his head to rinse the soap out. “I am responsible for the southern border of my father’s property,” he said. “But before Beckett died, Henry had been demanding my return to London.”
“Why?”
He lay back against the tub as she used the scrub brush and began to wash his arms and hands. “That is a question with many answers,” he said. “Up until two years ago, I was in Poitou for the king. He had issues with his French neighbors, to put it mildly. That is where your father was, also.”
She nodded as she used the brush on his dirty nails. “I know,” she said. “I remember when he went there with his army. He came back to tell me that I was betrothed to Beckett.”
“Right,” Roi said. “I returned when your father did, but I remained in London at the head of Henry’s council, along with a few others, while he argued with the Capetians for a while. But my father was having some trouble with a local Welsh lord, so I resigned my post and returned home to command Pembridge and hold the southern border of my father’s property. That’s when I brought Adalia and Dorian home.”
Diara was listening with interest as she continued to wash him. “And Henry wants you to return?”
Roi nodded. “That has been my lot in life,” he said. “A proctor for the king. With the legalities of treaties and such, he needs my knowledge of the laws. While I’ve been here at Pembridge, I’ve also been an itinerant justice. I hold court here about once a month to solve local grievances. I’ve even gone into Hereford to settle cases there as well. Beckett was being trained for the same work.”
In all of the conversations they’d had since their introduction, he’d never really spoken of his work or background. Diara only knew what she’d heard and a fewcursory things he’d told her. She picked up a rag from the nearby table, soaked it, and put it on his face to soften his beard.
“Then you are an important man,” she said. “I had no idea I married a fighting scholar.”
He grinned. “Every man has his strength,” he said. “Some men’s strength is their brute power in battle. For some, it is tactics or warfare. Still others are diplomats and masters at negotiation. For me, it is the law.”
“Do you plan to return to London?”
“At some point,” he said. “I am valuable to Henry, and he pays me well. Service to the king guarantees me a reward at some point—lands, titles, that kind of thing. Things I should like to pass down to our children.”
Diara produced the slimy white soap that smelled of lavender and lathered up his beard. “You will inherit the Earldom of Cheltenham when my father dies,” she said. “It is a wealthy holding.”
“But that will go to one child, our eldest son, should we have one,” he said. “I hope to have other children with you, and I should like to leave them something. And Adalia and Dorian—they must have dowries.”
“You’re ambitious, then?”
“Not ambitious,” he said. “But I find it necessary to plan. I do not want uncertainty for the future.”
At that point, he held stock-still because she was shaving him. His legs had kicked out at some point, and she was kneeling between them, carefully shaving him as he found her thighs. His hands moved up her legs, cupping her buttocks, and pulling her toward him slowly.
She finally snorted.
