Nicholas stiffened and looked over his shoulder. “Do you not wish to leave before I disrobe, Simone?” he asked gruffly.
Her pulling at the garment was the only answer she gave. The robe slid down Nick’s back. She laid it aside as Nicholas stepped into the tub with two dull plops. She moved away while he seated himself to retrieve a low, three-legged stool. Pulling it to the end of the tub behind Nick, she sat, her body turned slightly toward him, her hands folded in her lap.
Nick sat as still as a statue in the tub, his bare knees drawn up. The firelight to his right cast him in a study of red and black and gold. He stared down at the water.
At first, Simone thought he had coughed. But then a truer chord entered the sound, and she looked up to see his head resting on his forearms, braced across his knees, the sides of his chest heaving. The choking sound came from him again, and Simone knew that Nicholas wept. She let him be for several moments, sitting behind him on her stool while her own tears flowed and the thunder rolled across the stone keep.
Then she wiped at her eyes and rose from the stool, picking up a square of linen and shaking it open. Simone dunked the rag into the water behind Nick and reached for the cake of soap. She began to wash his back—long, soothing passes with first the soap and then the rag, while he shuddered beneath her hands. After a moment Nick quieted, and Simone set the cake and the rag aside, reaching now for the dipper crafted from a hollow gourd.
She filled the dipper and poured it carefully, slowly, over Nick’s back, watching the water ripple and shine across his muscles. Again and again she poured, each time drawing the water higher until his hair was wetted. Simone retrieved the soap once more and lathered Nick’s hair, her nails raking his scalp. She glanced at his face: his eyes were closed, his lashes spiked and wet against his cheeks, the red scrapes from Evelyn’s assault branding him. She looked away to rinse his hair, slick it back from his forehead with her fingers.
Nick looked up at her, water dripping from his nose, his brow, his chin. There was a question in his eyes, one that Simone could not answer.
“Lean back,” she ordered softly.
Once he reclined, she picked up the soap and the rag and began to wash his body, careful not to meet his eyes lest he see the love she held for him. She would not allow him to feel pity for her this night.
She soaped and rinsed his arms, down to his long, thick fingers, the laden cloth sliding easily over his skin. Then his chest, his stomach, her hand swirling through the light crop of hair between his nipples, down the ripples of his abdomen, around his navel. Nick’s breathing was heavier.
Simone felt tiny beads of sweat spring on her brow and upper lip. She dunked the rag again and moved to the end of the tub to attend his feet and legs, and she could feel him watching her through the curtain of steam. He propped first once foot, then the other, on the tub’s rim while she washed him, the only sounds in the room the snapping flames and the splash of water.
He replaced his leg in the tub, and Simone let loose the cloth beneath the water to float away, unseen.
Gaining her feet, she moved to the opposite end of the tub and retrieved a longer length of linen. She held it toward him in both hands like an offering, and Nicholas rose from the tub with a roar of cascading water, his gaze never leaving her face.
He reached for the towel as he stepped from the bath, but Simone moved it out of his reach, rising up on her toes to rub the towel across his arms, back, chest. Down his stomach, around to his sculpted buttocks, his manhood, his legs.
She tossed the damp cloth over the stool and then took Nicholas by the hand once more, leading him to the turned-down bed. He climbed into it obediently, and Simone tucked the furs around him.
He grabbed her hand when she would have moved away.
“Will you stay with me, Simone?” he asked, his voice sounding rusty, tired.
At first she thought Nick was asking if she would stay at Hartmoore, as that was the worry eating at Simone’s own mind, but then she realized he meant only for the night. For the first time, Nicholas was asking for her comfort, and Simone would not deny him.
She gave him a smile and walked to the opposite side of the bed. Removing her kirtle and slippers, she slid in beside Nicholas, wearing only her thin underdress.
He pulled her to him, turning her so that her back was pressed up against his chest. Simone sighed and closed her eyes as his arms came around her.
“Thank you,” he breathed against her hair.
Stupid, stupid Evelyn,Simone thought, willing herself not to cry at the tenderness in his voice.
“You’re welcome,” she replied. She knew that on the morrow, she would be gone, and before she went, Simone wanted Nick to hear what no one had told her after her mother’s and Didier’s deaths. “Handaar’s death was not your fault, Nick.”
He stilled, his mouth against her scalp. “It is…loyal of you to say.”
“Not loyal. True.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Simone,” he began, “Lady Evelyn is my responsibility now. I—”
“I know.” Simone was trying to memorize his scent, the feel of his chest warm through her underdress, the safeness of his arms about her. “We all must do as our honor would persuade us.”
If he thought her answer strange, he said naught of it. He was quiet again, the only sounds in the chamber the crack and hiss of the fire. Then he kissed her shoulder. “I’m glad you came to me tonight. After…after I tend to Handaar on the morn, we will leave for battle.”
But Simone could not entertain such dismal conversation. She would be gone when he returned, on her way back to France. “Let us speak not of it, Nick,” she said gently. “Please.”
She felt him nod.
