‘Thank you, Waters. I would like some breakfast very much. I expect you have been very busy with all the survivors brought here.’
‘Yes, miss. None of the ladies had trousers though, miss.’
‘Er, no, probably not. But I had to wear something, you see.’ There was a knock at the door and Averil made a hasty retreat behind the screens in the corner while thumps and the sound of pouring water heralded the arrival of the bath.
When she looked out there was another maid spreading a nightgown on the bed while Waters tucked items away in the dresser. ‘Here you are, miss. You’ll need some help with your hair, I expect.’
Averil shed her damp, sandy clothing with a sigh of relief. ‘Can these
be washed and returned to Captain d’Aunay’s man, Ferris? He was sent to the kitchens for some food, but I don’t know where he’ll be now.’
‘Oh, yes, miss.’ Waters waited while Averil settled with a sigh of blissful relief in the warm water, then produced soap and a sponge and left Averil to wash herself while she poured water over her hair and knelt to try to rinse out sand, salt and tangles.
It was pure bliss, despite the frequent tugs and tweaks at her hair. Averil lathered up the sponge and washed her hands and arms slowly, luxuriously, as she relaxed. And then she reached her body. The scented bubbles slid down the curves of her bosom and she looked at them as they crested the rosy nipples that peaked at the touch of the suds, ran over the slight swell of her belly, down to the point where the water veiled the dark curls. Her thighs rose above the surface, smooth and pink, marred with bruises and abrasions, and the innocent pleasure she was taking in the bath turned into something else entirely.
While she had been unconscious Luc had washed her naked body. His hands had lathered the strong soap that she had smelt on her skin, his eyes had rested on her breasts as his fingers had washed away the salt and the sand and cleaned her cuts. When she had woken she had felt clean—all over, so his attentions had not stopped with limbs and breasts—and yet, somehow, everything else that had happened, the shock and the grief and the fear, had stopped her thinking about the intimacy of the way he had cared for her.
She could feel the blush colouring her face and hoped the maid patiently working on her hair had not noticed. The realisation should have been mortifying, yet it was not, and she wondered why. Because she had come to trust him? Because she knew with a deep certainty that he had nursed her with integrity and not to gain gratification from her helpless body?
It was more than that, Averil realised as she started to stroke the sponge over her legs. It was erotic, and just thinking about Luc’s hands on her body, slick with soap, was arousing her. It had never occurred to her that bathing might be part of lovemaking, but the thought of him kneeling here, beside the tub, produced a soft moan.
‘Oh, I am sorry, Miss Heydon! It is such a tangle I don’t know that I can do it without pulling a bit.’
‘Don’t worry, Waters, it was not you. I have so many bruises, I knocked one, that is all.’ I must stop thinking about him bathing me, she thought as the maid, reassured, went back to tugging the comb thorough her hair. She made an effort and the phantom touch of Luc’s hands ceased. What would it be like to bathe him? Oh, my goodness! Averil made a grab for her toes and washed them with quite unnecessary vigour. It did not diminish the image of his naked body under her hands, slick with water and soap.
What would it feel like to run her hands into the dark hair on his chest, to follow it down as it arrowed into the water? Would he like it if she touched him there? Of course he would, he was a man. Very much a man.
And I am straying into very dangerous waters. Averil dropped the sponge and wriggled her toes to rinse them. Luc d’Aunay was not for her and Andrew, Lord Bradon, was waiting for her in London. Or, more accurately, he was mourning her; she must send a message as soon as possible
‘There, miss. All clean and no tangles. We’d better be getting you dry and into bed before the food arrives.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Averil got to her feet, dripping, and reached for the towel the maid held out. She had washed Luc from her life as she had rinsed the last traces of soap from her skin. She was going to be Lady Bradon and she was going to start thinking like a viscountess from this moment on. Her throat tightened. It was not going to be as easy as arriving on his doorstep to universal relief that she was not drowned.
Chapter Twelve
‘If you feel sufficiently revived, perhaps we should discuss our tactics, Miss Heydon.’ The Governor put down his tea cup and the atmosphere in the drawing room changed subtly.
She had slept until woken in the early evening, dressed in her borrowed gown of dusky pink, had her hair coiffed and had walked in Miss Gordon’s silk slippers down to join the party for dinner.
Her reception had been gratifying. Lady Olivia nodded approval, Miss Gordon beamed at her and Sir George enquired kindly if she had slept well and felt rested. Luc had looked at her, expressionless, then bowed over her hand with what she could not help but feel was excessive politeness for a small family dinner. She had been entertaining the fantasy that he would be bowled over by the sight of her, elegantly gowned, her hair up, her femininity restored.
But of course, he needed no prompting to think of her as female. He knew, none better, that she was a woman. But it was galling, despite her resolution, to be treated to such comprehensive indifference. Obviously, dressed and respectable, she was no longer attractive to him.
Now she felt them all looking at her. ‘Tactics, Sir George?’
‘For mitigating the consequences of your belated rescue,’ he said.
‘I have been thinking about it,’ she said with perfect truth. She had thought of nothing else since she had woken and very uncomfortable her reflections had been.
‘Indeed,’ he said before she could continue. ‘And Lady Olivia and I think the best thing would be for us to say nothing publicly about the time you have been … missing. I can write to Lord Bradon regretting that the fact that I was unaware of your betrothal. We will tell him that you have been unconscious for several days being cared for in a house elsewhere in the Isles. Both those statements are perfectly true and will give the impression that you have been with some respectable family all the time. What do you say to that?’
He was so obviously pleased with his solution, and so positive about it, that Averil found herself nodding her head before she realised what she was doing. Then her conscience caught up with her.
‘No! I am sorry, Sir George, but I cannot lie by omission and I cannot involve you and others in your household in a deception.’
‘Well, in that case,’ Lady Olivia said, ‘there is only one thing to be done. Captain d’Aunay must marry you.’
Luc’s ‘Non’ beat her own emphatic ‘No!’ by a breath. The other three stared at them.