It was a ragged, several-inch line that Louise had never once noticed or remarked on. Not in all their years together.
“Trouble with a tree branch.” When Thea rose up on her toes to rain kisses over the puckered and drawn skin, the rest escaped without forethought. “The day my brother died.”
How easily the confession slipped out—physically and emotionally. Part of Daniel wanted to question why it was that touching Thea seemed to loosen his mouth, to make the words come easier. The rest of him simply marveled at the flash of compassion in her expression when she leaned back to stare into his eyes.
“Climbing,” he explained. “We were eight.”
“Both of you?” She grasped the significance immediately. “He was your twin? Oh, Lord Tremayne…”
The soft sympathy was nearly his undoing.
Daniel, dammit! He wanted her to use his name.
But then her gaze and the light graze of her fingers moved to his lips.
“What about this? How did you scar your mouth?”
Instead of tightening as they always did when he thought of that day, Daniel found his lips opening, confiding, “My father.”
“He did this? On purpose?”
He jerked a hard nod and his hands flexed on her waist. How long had he been holding her?
Rather than drop to her feet or back away, she came closer, blessing him with her tranquil presence. Like a man addicted to drink, he craved more.
“I can tell the memory pains you.” Her voice became a whisper. “Shall I kiss it away?”
Too stunned to speak, he nodded.
This beautiful, bedraggled woman then began searching out every mark and blemish his exposed body possessed, kissing each, murmuring words of comfort and solace…incredibly, not shying away from his “fierce and fearsome” self.
He was tempted to tell her the truth. All of it. His dreadful difficulties with speech. His—
Don’t be stupid! You’ve known her less than a week.
But still, he was tempted…
Do you want her to think you a fool before you’ve had time to convince her otherwise?
And still her kisses and caresses continued, up his chest, across his shoulders, down his arms…
It felt as though she were courting him. Courting his mind as she wove a spell over his body. Her unabashed acceptance made him want to give her something in return. He wanted to buy her jewelry and furs, maybe a dainty horse and—
His mind backtracked. Jewelry and furs. “A coat,” he interrupted her journey over his raw knuckles to ask. “Have you one?”
“Nay. And my gloves slipped away today I’m afraid.”
“Slipped away?”
“On the heels—or should I say fingers?—of an unhelpful beggar…” Once again, she tried to laugh off her troubling excursion.
They hadn’t known each other long, but Daniel didn’t think Thea was a female given to vapors. She’d obviously had a trying day, and after what she’d just done for him, replaced past hurts with present approval, putting aside his selfish wants was the least he could do.
His entire body tingling from her exploration, he grasped both her hands and brought her fingertips to his mouth. It was his turn to cherish her.
He’d help her bathe. Then he’d take his leave. Let her sleep.
She deserved no less.
“Let me wash your hair.” He led her to the basin where the no-longer-steamy (but suitably warm, a quick dip of his finger told him) water waited. There was an empty pail for rinsing as well.
Thinking through his words, he guided her to kneel. “You’ve had a harrowing…day. I shall…” Tuck you in bed and bid you adieu with a kiss. Dream of you all night long. “Finish here and leave you…to rest.”
Giving in to the pressure of his hands, she ducked her head over the basin so he could dampen the mass.
“By all accounts”—the words were muffled by her position—“I should be exhausted but I’m not.” When the warm water streamed over her scalp, she made a low murmur that had his body tightening. “Likely it’ll all catch up with me tomorrow. For now I’m quite awake.”
Thea barely hid her astonishment. He was washing her hair!
A man, a marquis, was patiently working soap over her scalp and rinsing the suds away. He was brushing through tangled strands with his strong fingers and massaging her head long after the water ran clear.
Who knew one’s scalp was so susceptible to stimulation? Brushing her own hair was a calming experience; having her mother brush it when she was a child, a very pleasurable one. But this?
This was beyond fantastical.
With every touch, shards of lightning struck from the tips of his fingers and blazed a path straight to her stomach, and lower.
From the moment she’d seen him standing on her doorstep, she’d felt invigorated. Now she just felt aroused.
Thea yearned to swing her head back as he blotted the length with a towel, yearned to grasp his muscled arms, pull his chest to hers and assuage the heavy ache in her breasts. The ache his thorough hair washing had created.
And he planned to leave her to rest?
Not when the soothing stroke of his hands had energized and enlivened every particle of her body. Not when she wanted him to kiss her and not stop.
Not when she wanted him.
“There now,” he said as though the task was finished, giving one last squeeze to her hair. And giving her the sense he was about to make good on his promise and depart.
Removing the towel from his grip, she faced him squarely.
After inspecting his body earlier, trying to look dispassionately at each of the imperfections carved into his skin and instead only seeing the man beneath the hurts, she hardly registered the swollen eye or bruised side anymore. What she saw before her was a spectacular specimen of masculinity.
What she wanted was every square inch pressed against her.
Seeing his look of steely determination tempered with a frown of self-denial recalled to mind Sarah’s curious words in the carriage. All Thea could think was how he’d
