“How long?”
“Long enough that this feels like the most amazing thing ever.”
“Where were ye when ye had the last one?”
The water stilled, and I waited.
“At home,” she said at last, soft enough that I nearly missed it.
“And where is home?” Her silence was my answer. I looked at the wall and smiled without humor. “That question has teeth, does it?”
“Nay.”
“Then answer it.”
“I had a home once,” she said. “That is answer enough. I already told ye, I’ve been gone so long they likely think me dead.”
That answer only made me want to question her more. My desire to know more about her was growing at an alarming pace. I knew the wise thing to do was keep her at a distance, and yet I didn’t want to. But there was something in her tone that kept me from pressing too hard. A door had opened a finger’s width, and if I shoved at it, she would bar it shut.
She had mentioned twice now that the people from her home likely thought her dead. “Do ye have family there?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Had,” she said.
That single word held a world of pain. I turned my head slightly, though not enough to see her. “If yer family is gone, then who is it that thinks ye dead?”
“Do all warriors ask so many questions when women are bathing behind them?”
Only this one, I nearly said. Instead, I let out a quiet breath. “Only when the woman is full of secrets.”
“Mayhap ye’re imagining secrets because ye’re too fond of hearing yerself speak.”
I smiled at that tart retort. “I am fond of many things, lass, but yer evasions are not among them.”
She gave a soft snort, and the sound eased something in me.
Aye, she was still hurting. Aye, she was still hiding more than she admitted. But she was there, in warm water, breathing easier. For the moment, that had to be enough.
The room settled into a fragile quiet. The inn below us groaned and murmured with evening sounds: a distant laugh, the scrape of a bench, the dull thud of a door shut against the night. Rain ticked lightly at the shutter, or mayhap it was the wind rattling loose wood. The fire had burned low, giving off more glow than heat, but steam from the tub softened the room’s sharp edges.
Then Katrine began to hum. At first, it was so quiet I thought I had imagined it, but the melody rose, faint and lilting, a tune that seemed older than both of us. There was sorrow in it, but sweetness too, the sort of song a woman might sing to soothe a frightened child or calm a restless bairn.
The sound slid beneath my ribs. Without warning, an image came to me so clear I stiffened. Katreine stood in a nursery washed in morning light, her hair loose over her shoulders, a bairn tucked against her breast as she sang that same song. Her smile was unguarded, her eyes full of love. The wanting that rose in me then was different from lust, just as before. I knew lust. Lust could be satiated with a quick tumble in the hay. This was worse.
It was the desire for a hearth, a future, a place to belong that did not have to be seized with a sword or bought by obedience to a king, and a woman to share it with. By the gods, why was this woman stirring these things? Why her? Why now? It was inconvenient and unwanted, given what I must do to have any hope of the future I yearned for.
The water sloshed suddenly, and a sharp yelp split the quiet. I turned before thought could stop me. Katreine was naked, her shift crumpled by the tub, her foot sliding. Even as I rushed toward her, I realized her injuries were much worse than I had thought. “God’s blood,” I breathed as I caught her before she could fall. I slid an arm around her back and the other beneath her knees, lifting her from the tub despite her startled cry.
“Put me down!” she insisted.
“Nay,” I replied with force.
“I’m wet!” she protested.
“Aye,” I agreed. “I noticed.”
“James!”
“Be still before ye crack yer skull open.”
