His mouth twitched. He did not raise his voice. He did not even sit up. He simply cleared his throat and summoned his authority.
“Everybody out.”
The words drifted through the doorway, and both footmen flinched. They pushed the chest into place so fast that it nearlybumped the wall, then hurried out of the room, the door closing behind them.
Silence ensued.
Emma refused to budge, not even when the steam pressed against her skin.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose that saves me having to explain the wallpaper to an audience. I shall come back when you are in the mood to?—”
“Stop.”
She halted in the middle of turning
“Ye’re nae going anywhere.”
She frowned. “Pardon?”
“Ye heard me right, wife. I didnae ask ye to leave.”
Her heart thumped hard against her ribs. She did not let it show on her face. She stepped fully into the bathing chamber and let the door slide nearer to the frame, leaving a crack.
“We can discuss this room like adults,” she said. “I intend to live in it. That is all.”
Logan shifted in the water, and she watched as droplets slid down his arms.
“Ye intend to live in it,” he repeated. “That is a fine way to put it. Ye have yer own chambers. A bed. A maid. Ye have more than most women who come here.”
“And yet this is the room that reminds me I am married,” she said firmly. “You will forgive me if I grow tired of walking past it and feeling like a stranger.”
He watched her as she spoke, and she hated that she could not tell what he was thinking. His eyes were dark in the candlelight, reflecting only the flames back at her.
“Is that what this is?” he asked quietly. “Ye think I am somehow erasing ye?”
“You sent them away. Every trace of laughter I managed to put into this place. You did not even have the courtesy to be there when it happened.”
His jaw flexed once, then stilled. “I sent the beasts to where beasts belong. The hall is for people.”
“It is a pity you are not often in it, then,” she shot back.
He released a short breath that might have been a laugh if it had contained any humor.Then he rose.
Emma looked away immediately.
He reached for the tartan on a peg, but her eyes remained fixed on a crack in the stone wall. Anything but his glistening skin.
Anything but his naked body.
She cleared her throat, feeling her cheeks burn hotly. Even though she could not see him, she could tell just from his demeanor that he was enjoying this. He was enjoying making her flustered, even if he had to be completely naked to do it.
The thought made her stomach turn.
That bastard.
He wrapped the kilt high around his waist, and when he turned back, his hair was still dripping. She returned her gaze to him, still careful not to look too hard at his arms and chest. She was careful not to notice the droplets that trickled from his shoulder to the edge of the bandage on his side. Or even the hairs on his chest and his erect nipples.
Christ. Emma!
