“Yes,” he snapped.
Louvaen’s response softened his. “He needs a barbering. If you can get a knife and strop, I’ll reheat the water in the basin. You can wash his hair while I strop the blade. We’ll be finished quicker that way.”
They dried the floors with extra drying cloths. Only when the door closed behind Magda did he open his eyes and search out Louvaen. She stood by the fire, scooping more rocks into the refilled basin. They’d refitted the board across the tub, and she made a second trip, setting the bowl on the plank along with the cake of soap. Her shift hung wet from knee to hem.
“Hold your temper,” she warned. “I don’t relish getting any wetter cleaning up your messes, and you’ve only one cloth left to dry off.”
“I saw your face,” he said. “You wanted to stay. Don’t deny it, Louvaen.”
She hovered just out of reach. The space between her eyebrows creased in a frown and she shook her head. “I deny nothing.” She held his gaze. “I’m not in the habit of bedding men on a whim, de Sauveterre. Were I to lay with you now, I won’t do so to bargain an accord. You’d have more of me than my body. I don’t know if I’m ready to give that to another man.”
Her revelation rocked him. She hadn’t said it outright, but he’d be a brainless idiot not to understand what she implied. Robbed of words, he could only gape at her. She offered an apologetic shrug. “I didn’t mean to tease. The moment took me, made me foolish. I beg your forgiveness.”
Somehow she’d knocked him off his mooring and sent him flying off a precipice. Her apology only made him tumble faster. “That’s twice you’ve apologized for touching me. Why?”
Her cheeks went scarlet. “I don’t know. There’s something about you.” She spread her hands in a puzzled gesture. “Captivating yet forbidden. I feel as if I’m corrupting an anchorite but can’t help myself.”
His jaw dropped. An anchorite? Before his enforced ascetic existence, he’d lived the life of a typical warlord. Fighting, whoring and scheming for more land, more wealth, more power. The idea that she perceived him as some hermetic pilgrim in search of greater faith through deprivation was almost insulting. He scowled at her. “Woman, I’ve waded through blood up to my ankles on battlefields and tupped whores at the king’s court, including the king’s sister. Whatever purity you think I possess doesn’t exist.”
She laughed, a full throaty sound that made Ballard forget his indignation. “And did you find the king’s sister a satisfying bedmate?”
He shrugged. “Her royal blood was her greatest attraction.”
“There’s no hope for me then. I haven’t a drop of royal blood.”
“I could spend days listing those things most attractive about you, Mistress Duenda.”
Louvaen’s grin faded a little. She blinked at him, clearly baffled by his praise. “I’m not Cinnia.”
“No, you’re not.” She was as different from her dazzling sister as night was to day. Ballard found it difficult to look at the younger girl for more than a moment at a time. Beauty such as hers blinded him, like looking directly at the sun. Louvaen though—he could happily drown in the dark Louvaen.
Magda barged in a second time with strop and knife clutched in her hands. She glanced first at Ballard, then at Louvaen. “If you don’t want interruptions, lock the damn door.”
Louvaen took the strop and knife and set to work sharpening the edge. “We were discussing his lordship’s many frolics at court, including a royal sibling.”
“Oh, her.” The housekeeper rolled her eyes as she plucked the rocks out of the basin and dumped the warm water over Ballard’s head. “That woman would frig a stallion if left alone with it too long.” She soaped his hair, tugging through the tangles and scrubbing so hard he thought she might wrench his head from his shoulders.
He flattened one of her hands against his hair. “You evil bat. Quit trying to rip the hair out of my head.”
She thumped him on the top of his head with two fingers and continued with her scrubbing and diatribe. “There wasn’t a squire, stable lad or half-washed peasant safe from her.” She favored Ballard with a cunning look. His narrowed eyes warned her to watch her tongue. “Speaking of stallions, she was much impressed with the size of thedominus’s—”
“Magda.”
“Quiet.” She thumped him again and rinsed his hair with more water. “There aren’t any innocent virgins here to faint over such talk. And I doubt Louvaen ever fainted, even when she was a maiden.”
“Not a habit of mine.” Louvaen laughed as she approached him, light from the hearth making the wide, curved blade she held twinkle. “Of course this is the first time I’ve been privy to gossip about royal bed-hopping and the extra privileges accorded not only to the king but his family as well. My delicate sensibilities might be overwhelmed.”
Ballard eyed the knife, then her. “As long as your delicate hands remain unshaken, I’ll worry about your sensibilities later.”
“I promised I wouldn’t cut your throat.”
“Don’t geld me either.”
Magda lathered his face and neck before abandoning him to Louvaen’s care. She stood behind him and lifted his chin until his throat lay exposed to her mercy. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint the horse-loving princess.” Her hand glided under his soapy jaw while the other balanced the knife between her fingers. Her upper thigh pillowed his head, and he stared into her eyes, the color of ash. “Now hold still and pray.”
He hardly dared breathe for fear she’d slip and bleed him out in the bath. She had steady hands that were deft with the blade, and she held to her promise, shaving over his numerous scars as if his face was unblemished as a young boy’s. Such acknowledgement didn’t comfort him. Then again, there were worse things than dying with your head resting between a beautiful woman’s thighs. She finished sooner than he liked and wiped away the stray ribbons of lather on his cheeks and neck.
“I’ve made you handsome once more.”
