She sighed, her eyes sliding shut, and let the temperature embrace her for a moment.
“Did you find your gift?” she asked, without opening them again. “It was on your pillow.”
“Oh, you’ve chosen which side is mine already?” he teased. “A bottle. With an infinity symbol upon it.”
Her eyes opened, a quick popping sensation that brought he world flooding back into her visual focus. “An eight,” she corrected, glancing over at him.
He was tilting the bottle curiously, flicking the charm with his thumbnail.
“Perhaps both,” he said with a shrug, though that made her eyes narrow. “Is it cologne?”
She nodded. “Ruby made it, at my instruction. It is you, bottled.”
“Is it, indeed?” he said, clearly intrigued. He pulled the stopper away and waved it under his nose while she watched, her breath held. “It is… smoky and… hm.”
“Storm,” she said. “And salt.”
His teeth flashed, his eyes glancing up to meet hers. “That is how you see me? She couldn’t bottle ‘snake’?”
“I already told you,” Hattie said impatiently. “I do not picture a literal snake. It is the—”
“Yes, yes,” he said with a chuckle, tipping the bottle over onto his fingertip and dabbing some of the liquid at his throat and over his heart, his finger parting his dressing gown and revealingthe intriguing shape of his chest and the dark coils of hair beneath the velvet. “The shape of my name. I recall.”
“Then why do you pretend you do not?” she returned, trying to keep her eyes on his face and not his bare chest—his very, very distracting bare chest.
His smile widening, he tipped the bottle again, this time for his pulse behind his wrists. “Because it annoys you so,” he replied. “Aren’t you going to lather yourself for my pleasure?”
“No,” she said, glaring. “I’m going to do it for my cleanliness.”
“C’est blanc bonnet et bonnet blanc,” he said with a shrug, which only irked her more.
“Sometimes something is one thing,” she insisted. “Not many. It is an eight.”
“Fine,” he said with a sigh, re-stoppering the bottle and setting it on the bedside table. “It is an eight.Mea culpa.”
“Oh!” she said, splashing her hand against the water in a pique, which he clearly enjoyed very much.
She snatched up the washcloth and a petal of lavender soap and began to work the lather into the cloth, torn between begrudging amusement and the urge to throttle him. “Did you read the letter?” she snapped, glancing up at him as she began to soap her arms. “At long last?”
His smile slipped and he sighed. “No! Must I?”
She smirked. “You must. You may read it to me while I bathe, if you like.”
“I don’t like,” he declared. “Where is it?”
She nodded toward the same bedside table where he’d just placed the cologne. “There. Once you do it, Elias, it will be done.”
He grimaced at her. “Yes, I understand how verb tense works.”
It was her turn to grin, wide and brilliant. “That is wonderful to hear.”
He pursed his lips, his eyes narrowing at her. “Well played,” he conceded, and then he turned to dig out the envelope with a resigned sigh.
He took his time unfolding it, raising the flame on the lantern next to him and scooting closer so he could read Willa’s tight, narrow text clearly.
“‘To my Elias, the most resistant of my wards,’” he began, hesitating with a dry chuckle. “She’s not wrong.”
Hattie’s smile softened and she turned, draping her arms over the lip of the tub and resting her chin on her wrists to listen.
