I touched the candle’s flame to the lone sconce on the wall, where I had installed a fat candle. I set our candle down on the floor near the basket of linens and toiletries I had been keeping here. I turned to face him as he looked around the room.
“Do not ask tonight,” I said, stepping closer. “I will explain later. May I undress you?”
“Edith, I—” he hesitated. “I can bathe myself.”
“Is that what you prefer? I can leave you and collect you in an hour.”
His pain was written on him, the lines in his forehead deep. “It is not what I prefer.”
“Good,” I said and put my hands on his stomach. “I will go slowly so as not to disturb your shoulders any further.” And I lifted the hem of his tunic up.
Hissing, he lifted his arms and allowed for the tunic to be pulled up over his head.
I knelt down, just as he had on the beach, and undid his boots, helping him step out of each one. I peeled off his socks and I stood. “I will allow you the dignity of removing your breeches, but ask if you need help into the water.” And I turned my back to him.
It took him longer than it should have, but I kept turned away, listening to him stifle sounds of pain as he bent to shuck them off of his legs. The splash of water told me he was in the bath and I turned, finding him sitting on the lone step under the lip of the bath, the water only just above his hips. I tied my dress and my shift up around my knees and sat, just above him on the rim of the bath, a bar of soap in my hand and a vial of lavender oil in my lap.
“May I touch you?” I asked.
He nodded.
I worked up a lather with soap and water and then I placed the soap in one of his hands should he like to bathe the parts of him below the water. I rubbed my soapy hands all along his shoulders, arms and chest, around his ears and neck, where grime had lodged itself.
His hand holding the soap remained motionless and I both wanted him to ask me to bathe the rest of him and dreaded it. Eventually, he began to move stiltedly, the soap disappearing below the surface. I paid attention to the rest of him, not looking down, eyes on his cut brow or his shoulders or his chest. He returned the soap to me when he had finished. He let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh when I started to wash his close-cropped hair, my fingers kneading into his scalp.
“Get all the way in, so you can rinse off,” I said when I had finished.
He slipped off the step and dipped himself under. The sconce light glinted off his wet face when he resurfaced, the water only reaching his navel.
“Come back,” I beckoned.
Making a guttural sound, he pulled himself back up to sit on the step.
I sat closer to him, my right knee bent to the side, my left leg splayed out on the other side of me, my torso cradling his head and shoulders. I examined his cut a final time, assessing it as not as deep as I first thought. I poured the lavender oil in my palms and began to work it into the skin along the back of his neck and shoulders.
“That’s good,” he whispered. “That …feels good.”
I put my mouth to his ear and whispered, “You cannot go on like this. You will make a widow of me before I have gotten used to being your wife.”
He leaned his head back into my hands. “I know.”
“I will not tell you what to do, but I will ask that you have a care for yourself,” I said. “It is painful just to watch you put yourself through this.”
“I have to make the right choice,” he said after a bit.
“You mean the next man to be a Procurer?”
“Yes. There is no room for error. Not again.”
“What do you mean again?”
“I mean Nash. I chose Nash and against my better judgment. He was an excellent swordsmen. I overlooked what I did not like about him. Because of that, I failed. I chose Nash and look at what happened.”
He meant Helena. I opened my mouth to try and say something, but he went on.
His next words were sour. “Not only did I choose him. I bound all of your hands in the mist. Your friend was right. Helena did not have a chance in hell.”
I rested my head on top of his and breathed his name out of my mouth.
