“Something is troubling you,” he observed.
“Nothing is troubling me. Your water shall cool if we tarry any longer.” She dunked the pitcher into the tub, allowing it to fill. “I’ll need to wet your hair so I can wash it.”
He allowed her to move him, positioning his body more toward the middle of the tub, then guiding his head back so his handsome face was upside down before her. Even from such a silly angle, he was broodingly beautiful. Those knowing eyes of his sought hers.
“What is everything you hold dear?” he asked suddenly.
Their positions meant she could not help but stare at the fullness of his lower lip, the lip she had once bitten hard enough to draw blood. But his question took her aback despite her preoccupation. Or perhaps because of it.
“My family,” she answered truthfully. “Why do you ask?”
“You once told me the world has taken everything you hold dear from you.” He paused to sigh in delight when she began working the shampoo into his hair, massaging his scalp as she did so. “I have not forgotten.”
And so she had, a lifetime ago, it seemed, when she had been Jane Palliser, and she had kissed him with wild abandon. How strange to think she was now his wife. Washing his hair as if it were a commonplace occurrence, tending to him on his sickbed as if he were a loved one in truth rather than the man she’d been forced to marry to save herself.
She said nothing, focusing all her attention on washing his hair. Bridget was starting to discover she liked taking care of him in this fashion. She enjoyed having the big, strapping Duke of Carlisle, so powerful and dangerous, at her mercy. She liked touching him. Washing him. Looking after him. It struck her then that he was a man who had no one. He spent his days and his nights so engrossed in his work he did not sleep. He had an army of servants, but no one else here in London with the rest of his family in the country.
“Have you no family left other than the Duchess of Trent and O’Malley?” he asked as she began rinsing his hair.
Suspicion pricked her. Was he using this truce and their temporary détente as a means of extracting more information from her?
It was entirely possible. He was quite cunning.
“None. What of you? Is your only family Mr. Ludlow, his wife and the young duke, and Mrs. Ludlow?”
His full lips compressed into a grim line. “The only family I care for, yes. The woman who birthed me is on the Continent, and she can bloody well remain there.”
There was bitterness in his tone and shadows in his eyes, and both pricked at her heart, though she knew they should not. “You do not love your mother?”
Although hers had not been perfect, she had tried her best for Bridget and Cullen, and Bridget had mourned her when she had died far too young. Years had passed, and she missed her still. The absence of a life did not lessen one’s longing for it, but time served to dull the anguish it caused.
“The dowager Duchess of Carlisle? No.” He said it with finality.
She filled the pitcher once more to give his hair a second rinsing, and the wide chocolate-brown eyes of the golden duchess returned to her, along with a jab of something unpleasant. “Do you have someone else in London? A lady you love, perhaps?”
“I have a wife I cannot trust.” His tone was wry.
“You are trusting me now,” she reminded him as she gently worked her fingers through his hair with one hand while pouring water from the pitcher with the other.
“On account of our truce and my gratitude to you for nursing me back to health.”
She was not sure she liked his answer. “There was a very concerned duchess here on the day you took ill. A beautiful woman. The Duchess of Ashelford, I believe it was.”
He stiffened, the tenseness returning to his jaw. “I have no inkling why she would come here.”
“Haven’t you?” Bridget was not convinced.
“No.” Again, he was cool. Concise.
“She wanted me to convey her sincere apologies to you,” she pressed, though she knew it was wrong. Carlisle’s past was none of her concern. Nor, truly, was his present or future. He had just reminded her of the fragility of their union. Of how it would necessarily end. And did she not remind herself of the selfsame truth often?
His lips curved, but since he remained upside down, she could not discern the sort of smile it was. “What else did she say?”
Intriguing response. She was not certain she liked it. In fact, she was more certain she did not. Was he interested in the Duchess of Ashelford?
Of course he would be.
The woman was a veritable goddess.
