Page 125 of A Story of Love

He looked amused by the gesture and, after giving her sex a light squeeze, released her. “It is very early and I should not have woken you, but I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?” she repeated stupidly.

He pointed across the room.

Lori pushed up onto her elbows and squinted. “Oooh! Where did that come from?” she demanded, looking from the huge steaming copper tub to the man beside her. “I have been dying for a bath!”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” He made a sweeping gesture with one hand toward the bath.

Lori shoved back the sheet and quickly, before she could lose her nerve, scrambled out of the bed and quickly strode naked across the room, telling herself to ignore the view she must be giving him. Why should she care if he saw her bountiful bottom? He had seen it before, after all.

Lori paused just long enough to dip a toe in the water and then groaned. “It’s perfect,” she said, and then eased first one leg and then the other, into the water before lowering slowly. Only then did she look up at him.

“Why didn’t I know you had this tub?” Lori demanded, greedily surveying his body as he stripped off his shirt and breeches and eased himself in on the opposite end.

“I don’t want to give away all my secrets,” Fast said.

The tub had clearly been built for two people, but probably not with a man of Fast’s dimensions in mind. That meant only Lori could completely stretch, her feet resting on his chest while his knees poked above the water.

It was heaven.

Lori had a sudden sense of unreality. Here she was, lying in a bathtub in a brothel with a man who’d taken her prisoner. She should be angry—she’d certainly raged against her situation enough at the beginning of her captivity—but she couldn’t honestly say she regretted this experience. How could she? Not only had the last twelve hours been among the most enjoyable of her life, but the week before had been one of the most productive seven days of her career.

While the novel that had all but flowed out of her fingers onto the page was not yet fit for print, it was as solid a first draft as any she had ever made. And in only a fraction of the time! Lori did not think she flattered herself that it was better than anything else she had written. The first thing she was going to do when she left The King’s Purse was march into David Parker’s office and demand her manuscript back.

The second thing she was going to do was polish up the book and then submit it herself rather than—

“What are you grinning about over there?” he asked, gently rubbing a soapy cloth between her smallest and second smallest toe.

“You never told me how you got your name?” she said, not wanting to talk about her book.

He cocked his head. “Why do I think that is not what you were thinking about?”

“It wasn’t, but…I don’t want to say what I was thinking about. Don’t worry, it didn’t have to do with you.”

He clutched his heart. “I am crushed.”

She snorted. “You were going to tell me about your name.”

“We were named after a set of twins on my mother’s side.” He smiled. “Puritans, as I’m sure you’ve surmised.”

“So, your mother’s family are Puritans? They must have fought with the Roundheads?”

“I’m sure the first Stand Fast and his brother would have fought with Cromwell had they remained in England, but they’d fled England several years before the war started. My mother was always fascinated by her radical nonconformist ancestors, hence the names.” He moved to the next toe and glanced up at her. “I visited them when I was in Massachusetts, you know.”

Lori frowned. “Them?”

“The descendants of the original Stand Fast and Perseverance. They thrived in America and Makepeace furniture is highly sought after.”

“You are related to those Makepeaces?”

He nodded. “Indeed, I am.”

“Even I—ignoramus though I am in all matters of fashion, sartorial or décor, have heard of them.”

“I am proud to say their goods fill the cargo holds of several of my ships.

“Wait a moment—several? You have several ships?”