She groaned as he caught her hand to pull her up. “Royce, nay. ’Twould please me more to sleep.”
She was tired indeed to let his name slip out, when onlySaxonor a derogatorymilordhad passed her lips before. He was amused. He had never thought to see her quite this way. Exhaustion had felled her guard completely.
“You need only stand for a few minutes,” he told her with a grin. “I will do the rest.”
“Stand?”
“Aye, here.”
He brought her over to the container of water that had been set on his table. There was a folded cloth there, too, a sponge, and a sliver of soap.
“This is not normal,” she said with a frown. “You always wash downstairs.”
“The bathing room will be used by my guests. When we have guests, water is always brought here for me. You are not the only one affected by the heat in a crowded hall, though I imagine ’twas worse for you.”
“You can imagine,” she said. “But the reality is even worse than that.”
“Is our clime really so hard on you, vixen?” he asked as he began to undress her. “It has not dampened your spirit until now.”
He regretted teasing her as soon as he said it, aware that her pride might reassert itself and she would be chagrined, thinking he made light of her suffering. She surprised him by giggling instead.
“You know, if you had not laughed at me when I tore off my sleeves, I think I would have done something foolish, the heat had me in such ill humor. Why did you find the gesture so amusing?” He would not answer, and she grinned. “Did I remind you of a sulky child? ’Tis how I saw myself after I heard you laugh.”
He grunted, for she was too perceptive by far. But he certainly didn’t see her as a sulky child now. No child this, and he had made a grave mistake in thinking to wash her himself. The moment she was completely uncovered he knew it. But she would not do it. Her eyes were closed now. She was done with talking. She was practically asleep on her feet.
He hesitated too long, looking at her. “You do not have to do this, milord.” Her eyes were still closed.
Royce felt challenged now. “I know.”
He reached for the soap, glad that she did not see the way his hands shook. He tried to make quick work of lathering her, and tried to keep his eyes averted from where his hands moved. It was not easy. Nor did it make any difference. What he could not see, he was feeling.
He was mad to put himself through this, when he had no intention of bedding her afterward. And he still would not bed her. The very fact that she would stand there and let him wash her confirmed her exhaustion. And it was his own fault. He had not thought how the extra load today would wear her down. His servants were used to these infrequent burdens. But they were also used to Wessex summers. Kristen was used to neither.
He used the sponge to rinse her, letting the water soak into the discarded clothes at her feet. There was such a look of pleasure on her face as the cool water trickled down her body, that Royce decided his own torment was worth it. He even slowed the rinsing to extend her pleasure.
At last he dried her with the cloth—which, for his own sake, he wrapped around her before leading her back to the bed. He would have carried her there, but that would have been his undoing. As it was, her murmur of contentment as she stretched out on the bed made him groan.
His voice was unintentionally sharp as he threw the thin sheet over her, leaving the cover at the foot of the bed. “You may sleep as long as you want in the morn.”
“You pamper me, milord.”
“Nay, I am simply selfish.”
Her eyes opened partially. “What has that to do with—”
“Go to sleep, wench!”
“You do not come to bed yourself?”
Royce swore violently and turned away from her. He swiped up her clothes from the floor as he left. He would give them to Eda to wash, then he would go to the lake for a cold dunking by himself. But he doubted he would be able to sleep in his own bed tonight at all.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It seemed to Kristen that Lord Eldred had been waiting for her to appear, for no sooner did she reach the cooking area and Eda shoved a bowl of gruel into her hands, than he left his seat across the hall and approached her. She felt no trepidation, seeing him come, and sat down on a stool at the end of the worktable by the window to begin eating.
The hall seemed back to normal, the servants quietly working, several of Royce’s men lounging about. It would have been normal, except for the extra women around Lady Darrelle in her portion of the hall. The female guests. She heard snatches of conversation from them about a hunt, and assumed that was where the King and his nobles had gone—all but Lord Eldred.
“You come late to your work, wench.”
