A tub.
A true bath.
Finally, he could be clean.
So many days in his sickbed, followed by making use of the bowl and pitcher when he had regained his strength enough to make a rough attempt at removing the stink from himself. It had rendered him desperate for clean, warm water surrounding him. Randall and one of the other hell guards had hauled the tub upstairs and filled it.
After his disastrous attempt at dressing the day before, he was ready to begin anew. He could not wait to get inside and wash away the stench of his illness, which he could not help but to feel had been haunting him.Hell, for as long as he lived, he would still recall the scent of the ointment Caro had applied to his wound, and that was to say nothing of the acrid sharpness of his own sweat.
Little wonder he had sent Caro running from the chamber, never to return. Not only had he been naked before her, but he was also a hulking, stinking beast. When he had been abed, he had not realized the full extent of his size and height.
Yesterday, as he had been testing his ability to amble about the chamber, and when she had come rushing to his aid following the spell of dizziness… Well, it had occurred to him afterward that he was a rather large chap. His fists alone were massive, and he could not seem to shake the aches in them, the feeling of them pounding against something.
He sighed and slowly, painstakingly, lowered himself into the bath. His limbs were stiff from lack of use. His wound still pained him, but for the first time, surrounded by the heated, clean water, he felt as if he were well and truly alive. It was a glorious feeling.
So damned glorious that when a knock sounded on his door, he called for the person to enter without having a second thought about what had unfolded the day before. Without supposing it may be Caro on the other end of the portal.
The door creaked open. A face appeared in the crack, and hazel eyes settled upon him, searing him to his soul.
Damnation, she was a gorgeous woman.
“Caro.” He attempted to brace his arms on the tub so he could slide lower beneath the water, but when he moved his wounded arm, pain sank its jaws into him, biting hard. Though he did his best to muffle the oath, the curse that fled his tongue was blistering.
He needn’t have worried that he had offended her, however. Caro came charging into the room, the door closing at her back.
“You must take care, or you will injure yourself further when you are just beginning to heal,” she warned, her tone reminiscent of someone else’s he knew.
At least, he thought it was. The murky mists of his mind were stubborn in their persistent refusal to relinquish his secrets. Oh, how he wished he could remember even the tiniest speck of his past. Anything at all. Still, there was something about a stern reckoning that made him think he had heard it before. Not from Caro Sutton, but from another woman who was dear to him.
A mother?
Surely not a wife?
He did not want to think his heart belonged to another. But the hell of it was, he had no notion. Not the slightest shred of an inkling. Every memory he had once possessed had turned to dust.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself, sir?” Caro asked, averting her gaze as she bustled past him with a tray of more mixtures and elixirs.
If he had to guess, he would say it was yet another of her healing unguents. Each day, it seemed, she brought him a new salve, ointment, poultice, tea. She was forever trying to heal him.
And she was also turning to face him, pinning him with a ferocious glare now, awaiting his response, he supposed.
He found his voice at last. Rough and husky, partially from the desire that simmered in his veins whenever she was in the vicinity, even when he was doused in pain. But there, nonetheless.
“Forgive me, Caro?”
Her dark brow rose. “For?”
“Causing your displeasure.” Indeed, if there was anything he wanted—even more than regaining his memory—it was her pleasure.
In every way. Pity he was in no condition to offer her that just now. And hell, he did not know if he was a skilled lover. He would most certainly like to believe it.
She pursed her lips, her fingers burrowing into the skirt of her gown and twisting. “You do not cause me displeasure. The lack of care you take with yourself, however, does. You must remember the severity of your injuries. Your movements with the wounded arm need to be slow and measured. No pulling at the stitches, or you will ruin my work before you are properly healed and I can remove them.”
“Slow and measured,” he repeated, trying to ignore the sudden rising of his cock below the water. “Of course. I’ll do better, I will.”
They frowned at each other as his words fell between them.
She nodded. “You must, for your own sake.”
