It would mean she wouldn’t be seeing Rhys anymore.
No longer would they have anything that bound them.
Except she did feel bound to him.
When had that happened?
Well, there was last night—the kiss.
And tonight…
Oh, that had been so much more than a kiss.
Her body was still alive with it, as if a lightning bolt had fizzed the champagne bubbles in her veins with electrical current.
But there were other ways she felt bound to him, too, beyond the physical.
Which had to be an illusion brought on by them electric champagne bubbles.
Lawks, what was she, a former strumpet and present lady’s maid, to him, a lord?
A tap-tap sounded on the door, followed by a low, “All right in there?”
She had a choice.
She could say yes, that she would be out in a few minutes. Though she would encounter no small amount of protest from her luxuriating muscles in the event she attempted to remove them from this delicious heat and these lavender-scented bubbles. How did a lord have lavender-scented bubbles for the bath, anyway?
It would’ve been that rakish past of his, wouldn’t it?
Better a question left unasked.
Which left her with that other option sitting in her palm.
She could say yes and… “Would you like to come in?”
A slow beat of time ticked past. He was thinking about it. Then… “I would.”
The door opened on silent hinges, and there he was. His coat, cravat, scarf, gloves, and all the rest were gone, and he was down to his bare feet, trousers, and white linen shirt, splayed open in a V down his chest, revealing a dark fuzz of hair and…muscles.
Lawks.
What a sight this man made.
He padded across the marble floor, grabbing a short, three-legged stool along the way, which he placed beside the foot of the bathtub, and lowered, his large body surely testing the stool’s mettle. “Are you enjoying your bath?”
“Aye,” she said, swiping a palmful of bubbles and blowing them in his direction. “And Whitty? Is he all right?”
Rhys snorted. “He’ll be snoozing until noon.”
Tilly’s laugh echoed through the bathroom, bouncing off black-and-white checkered marble, then she said, “I have an impertinent question for you.”
Mischief sparked in his eyes. “My favorite sort.”
“Where does all your blunt come from, anyway?”
“Ah.” His smile turned sheepish. “Well, as a boy, I charmed a great-aunt no end.” He spread his hands wide. “She left me everything.”
All right, now she had another question—one equally impertinent. “Then why did you gamble your pa’s ring?”
