A reluctant smile ghosted across his mouth.
The lady’s frustration only came after her inevitable defeat. She nearly wept—nearly. He abhorred tears and women who wept.
Meghan had responded just as any woman in her position would. To a point. Right until the moment the blindfold slipped loose and she discovered Culross was behind her abduction.
Meghan hadn’t wept or pleaded for her return to Hartwell—the peer she longed to marry for the title and power that came with that union.
“…August…I trust you.”
His lips fell to their usual grim line.
Instead, the moment her expressive eyes alighted on Culross, they had sparkled with dangerously unidentifiable emotions.
She had smiled at Culross.
Teased.
She had…unmoored him.
The damned fool.
Which of them—or both of them—Culross could not say.
Restless, Culross reached for the small bowl next to him and scooped a handful of soap and oils mixed with egg yolk. He began to shampoo her heavy hair, working the blend into a lather.
He regarded her intently.
The lady’s capitulation and seeming contentment at being with him should have felt like victory.
It did not.
As he massaged the soap through the rest of her hair, his jaw worked. She was too bloody trusting. It had been too damned easy. She and her lax kin had made it too easy for him. That—and that alone—accounted for Culross’s listlessness.
Finished with her hair, Culross wiped his hands on the wet towel draped along the side of the tub.
Humming softly to herself, unaware of his upheaval, Meghan trailed a nail over the bathwater. She traced some kind of shape only she knew; the rippled path she drew offered no clue to its design.
His eyes thinned to razors as he considered a new possibility.
She deliberately disarmed him.
The minx was a clever thing.
What made more sense: the lady’s shamefully easy cooperation, or that she was up to something?
Culross reached for the chipped porcelain pitcher.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed, wiping away a froth of bubbles from the corner of her brow. He guided Meghan’s head gently back.
The water poured softly, like the steady drip of a cool tap. He threaded his fingers through curls as untamed as their mistress.
The lady drew her knees in, sending the water lightly sloshing, and leaned forward to aid his efforts. The sleek muscles of her back rippled beneath the movement.
Culross’s body grew hot.
The lady’s sweeping, swan-like shoulders tapered to the downward curve of a slim waist—her shapely hips remained vexingly out of sight.
He was rogue enough to drink in the accidental sight she had granted.
