She rubbed soap on the cloth and went at it.
He sighed, leaning more forward.
“Do you want me to wash your hair?”
“No, that’s all right. I’ll do it. Thank you. That was wonderful.”
He held out his hand and she dropped the wet cloth into it. Then he started washing himself.
“Men have no modesty.”
“Well, if you wish to watch, there’s little I can do to stop you.”
“You’re right,” she said, sighed, and went to sit in a chair across the room. She sighed again, stood up, and pushed the chair much closer, not more than three feet away from him in his tub. James grinned, went underwater, and then washed his hair.
He knew she was watching him and that felt good, actually. Surely she must like him, surely she’d forgive him if he asked her just right.
“It won’t be like that again, Corrie.”
“Rinse the soap out of your hair.”
He went underwater again, then came up, and shook his head. Dear God, he was so unutterably beautiful, it hurt.
“I promise you it won’t. I am very sorry about your first time. It was ill-done of me.”
“It was rather fast, James, rather rough, truth be told. You didn’t kiss my knees.”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “I swear I’ll take excellent care of your knees next time. Do you still hurt? Did you bleed?”
Frank speaking indeed, she thought, and shook her head, staring down at the toes of her slippers.
“I thought you’d left me.”
That brought her head up. “Leave you? That never occurred to me. You and I have been through many adventures together, James. I consider this one more, not a pleasant one, but-”
James rose. What could he say to that? “Could you hand me that towel?”
She simply couldn’t move, couldn’t look away from him, standing there naked and wet, and she wanted to lick every drop of water off him. She gulped, tried to get hold of herself, and threw him the towel. Then she watched him dry himself. How could one gain such pleasure from so mundane a thing?
He knotted the towel at his waist. “When you take your bath later, do allow me to wash your back.”
The thought of that nearly sent Corrie whimpering to the floor. “All right,” she said, and then slapped her hand over her mouth.
James laughed. “Allow me to dress and we can eat our dinner.”
It was over dinner that James, seeing that Corrie was staring into her soup, said, “Please don’t fret, Corrie. We’ll get everything right, trust me.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that, James. I was thinking about my new father-in-law. I can’t help but be worried.”
“I know,” James said, and took a bite of cold mutton. “Jason is going to do everything but sleep in Father’s bed to keep him safe. Also, there are more men than you can imagine trying to trace the Cadoudal children. All we know so far is that they’re no longer in France, haven’t been in quite some time.”
“And there was their aunt, you know, their mother’s sister. I wonder what happened to her.” She was stirring her fork through the applesauce beside her pork kniver.
“I still have trouble believing it’s Georges Cadoudal’s son, since he and my father parted friends.”
“You said that your father rescued Janine Cadoudal. Surely she couldn’t have hated him, couldn’t have taught her children to hate him. He saved her.”
“Yes, and evidently she offered herself to him. But father was coming back to a new bride, namely my mother, and so he refused. When she discovered she was pregnant, she told Cadoudal that my father had forced her, and the child was his.”
“Oh dear, I can see that such a story would make Cadoudal furious.”
“Yes. Cadoudal kidnapped my mother, as revenge, took her to France, and when my father and Uncle Tony found her, she was miscarrying a babe. In any case, Janine confessed the truth to Georges, Father and Mother returned to England, and that was the last time he ever saw Cadoudal.”
“So she had a child.”
“My father said he heard something about the child dying, then there was nothing more.”
“I’ve always loved mysteries,” she said, her fork set on her plate now, as she leaned forward toward him, her chin resting on her clasped hands, “but I don’t like one that could hurt my new family. We’ll figure it out, James. We must find the son.”
“Yes.”
“James, you’re looking at me again.”
“Well, yes, you’re my dinner companion.”
“No, you’re looking dangerous and determined. You were wearing the same look before you ripped my clothes off.” She lowered her voice, leaned over the remains of her pork kniver. “It’s lust, isn’t it?”
Slowly, James rose, tossed his napkin on the table, and held out his hand. “How do you feel?”
“Full and-”
“Corrie, between your legs, are you still sore?”
She picked up an apple, polished it on her sleeve, took a tiny bite, then smiled at him. “I think,” she said, “that I’m ready for my bath. You said you would wash my back for me.”
He nearly shook and shuddered himself out of the small private parlor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
JASON LOOKED INTO Judith McCrae’s dark eyes, felt himself fill with an odd mix of contentment and an excitement so powerful he wondered how a man could bear it. “Your eyes are darker than mine, at least at this moment.”
“Perhaps,” she whispered.
“My brother was just wed.”
“Yes.”
“I remember looking up-was it the Ranleagh ball?-and there you were, staring at me all the while waving that fan, and my heart fell into my shoes.”
She drew back, but her hands still clutched at his arms. “Really? Is your heart still there? In your shoes?”
He grinned down at her. “My heart even collapses into my boots when I wear them.”
“I am nearly twenty. Did you know that, Jason?”
“You do not look your age.”
A giggle escaped.
“Does this mean you’re near to the back of the shelf?”
“Your wit-well, I never thought of it like that, you know, being unacceptable to a gentleman because I was no longer as young as say, Corrie. I never considered that I would move in London society. The thought of going to London with the express reason of finding a husband, it simply never occurred to me. But then Aunt Arbuckle swooped into my life, brought me here, and introduced me to everyone.”
“Why didn’t you assume your aunt would introduce you into society?”
“There were fallings out, I guess you could call them, amongst everyone in my family. But no longer, thank God. I will tell you something, Jason. I was rather bored, I admit it, until I saw you-yes, it was the Ranleagh ball. I’m not an heiress like Corrie.”
“Why would that matter to me?”
“Well, you are a second son, Jason, no matter that you were born minutes after James.”
“I’m rich,” he said abruptly. “My legacy from my grandfather will keep me from penury. I can support a wife. I am thinking of breeding horses, Judith. It is something that suits me; unlike estate management, which suits James quite well. When the gods were casting the die, everything seems to have sorted out properly.”
