She knew a moment of guilt at her deliberate fib. “I may have dismissed her in the hope that someone else might wash my hair for me instead.”
“Oh? Have I a competitor for this role?” He settled the soap and cloth in his lap and then began rolling up the sleeves of his dressing gown, one by one. “Perhaps I need to challenge someone to pistols at dawn.”
She lifted a hand from the bath, water dripping from her fingertips, and flicked a hint of spray in his direction playfully. “No duels over me, if you please. There is only one man I want to wash my hair.”
The second sleeve was rolled to his elbow, putting his comely forearms on display. It was a part of a man that was so oft hidden from view, and Miranda had never been particularly bothered by it either way. But one look at Rhys’s forearms made her understand why men were meant to wear sleeves for the sake of propriety. His forearms were, like the rest of him, disturbingly attractive.
“The man in question had better be me,” Rhys said with mock warning before taking up the soap and cloth and dunking both into the water. “Now, where shall I begin, my queen?”
She giggled at his silliness. “I didn’t know that pages are tasked with bathing their queens.”
“This one is. I take my duties very seriously.” He shifted, scooting his stool to the foot of the tub. “I believe I’ll work from bottom to the top.” Rhys held out one hand, palm up. “Your foot, oh queen.”
She bit her lip to keep another giggle from falling from her lips at his ridiculous insistence upon pretending she was a queen and he her loyal vassal and lifted her right foot. He took itand began soaping up the sole, the abrasion of the cloth on her sensitive skin making her jump.
“Ah,” he drawled, as if he had just made an immense discovery, casting a glance in her direction. “My queen is ticklish.”
“Only with light touches,” she said as he made another pass of the soapy cloth along her arch, and she flinched again, her reaction instinctive.
“This is information that could prove most useful to me. A word of warning, kitten, you must never allow me to have the upper hand. I’ll be shameless at exploiting it.”
He finished washing her foot, then worked his way up her ankle and along her calf, taking his time, his fingers gently exploring along with the soap and cloth. She had no doubt his warning was complete truth. The Duke of Whitby was a man who unrepentantly seized whatever he wanted, using any means necessary. He had certainly done so with her. And yet, as she soaked in the bliss of the hot bath and he tended to her, Miranda couldn’t summon even a modicum of outrage.
“I also kick when tickled to excess,” she cautioned him as he finished with one leg, having washed her thigh whilst avoiding moving too high. “My younger sisters dearly loved to tickle my feet whilst I was sleeping. You can imagine what happened when they stood too near one morning.”
He chuckled as he soaped her left foot. “Never say you kicked the poor girls.”
“I caught Daisy in the nose,” Miranda confirmed. “And I managed to get dear Elizabeth in the middle before I woke fully. Daisy was wretched, blood dripping everywhere. I hadn’t known a nose could bleed so much until that morning.”
“I shall endeavor to keep my nose far from your dainty feet, in that case.”
“And to keep from tickling me,” she added pointedly.
“I’m afraid I can make no such promises on that account.” At his words, he trailed his forefinger lightly over her sole, making her jerk.
He was saved from a kick by his other hand, which was wrapped firmly about her ankle, holding her still.
“Two can play at this game, you know.” She flicked another spray of water in his direction, leaving damp spots on the black silk of his dressing gown. “I shall discover where you are ticklish and get even.”
“I’m afraid you’ll be doomed to failure.” He worked the cloth over her shin, up to her knee, soaping as he went. “I am not ticklish in the slightest.”
“Nowhere?”
“Not anywhere,” he confirmed, sounding smug.
“Vexing man,” she muttered, her evil plans suitably dashed.
“I pride myself upon it.” Partially rising, he shuffled his stool toward the middle of the tub with one foot, the soap and cloth still in hand. “Are there any other sensitive areas of which I should be made aware, darling?”
His question was wicked. He was, in fact, quite near to an extraordinarily sensitive place. A place that was desperate for his touch. A place where she was not at all ticklish.
She slid her bottom along the tub, propping herself up into a sitting position, taking care to cover her breasts with one arm as they bobbed at the water’s surface. The other, she extended toward him. “I can bathe myself, you know. I daresay I don’t need your help.”
“But I want to help. I like taking care of you. Let me, Miranda.”
There was something so very earnest in his gaze, in his voice. He wasn’t demanding, and he wasn’t quite asking either. But she believed him when he said he liked taking care of her, that he wanted to do so. And she liked it too. Liked it far too much.
“Very well,” she relented, lowering her hand so that it was below the surface of the water again, surrounded by warmth.
