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She’d been in this bath before, of course—it was here that she’d cleaned herself up after Mr. Somerset had rescued her from the footpads—but she remembered little of the room. It was small, with dark blue walls, an oval-backed chair on which she’d laid her clothes and her towel, and a waist-high chest of drawers.

A large radiator to one side of the tub kept the bath toasty—God bless these newfangled modernities—and dried her drawers, which she’d washed earlier when she laundered herself before the soak. On the other side of the tub was a stool on which she’d set a glass of cold water. She wetted a handkerchief with the cold water and smoothed the handkerchief over her face so that she wouldn’t become light-headed in all the hot water and steam.

She leaned her head back and sighed as the knotty muscles of her lower back slowly relaxed. This was just what she needed. Not until she had completely immersed herself did she realize how tense she’d been for the past few days.

She’d expected to have dealt with a summons from him already, and had waited, all edges and nerves, to rebuff him, not knowing how he would react to her refusal to meet with him, or how she would respond should he resort to an ultimatum.

But so far, nothing. Four days she’d been in London, and the only interaction they’d had was through her food: She personally cooked him his breakfast, if toasting and buttering bread could be called cooking, and he always finished most of what she left in the holding cabinet for him at night. No summons, no notes, and only one directive conveyed through Mrs. Abercromby about a dinner that he’d host the week after. It was as if he’d submitted to some mad impulse by ordering her to come to London and, once that was done, forgot her entirely.

While she went about on pins and needles, ate too much pudding, and slept ill. While her awareness of him built and built. Every morning from the kitchen window she watched him leave, her eyes fastened to the cuffs of his trousers and the swing of his frock coat, her heart as hungry as a London stray. His valet liked to iron his shirts in the servants’ hall; the scent of clean linen and generous starch filled her with lascivious thoughts of stripping those same shirts off him. And even when she strictly minded her own business, a silly maid like Mavis would bring up the naughty notion of being found by the master in his bathtub.

A frightening, problematic, and awfully arousing thought.

She sank a little deeper into the tub. In her younger years she’d desired kisses and sweet words of endearment. These days what she wouldn’t give for a jolly good shag, a sweaty, screaming, bed-shaking—

Her hand found its way to the troublesome place between her legs and stroked herself. She really shouldn’t be so lustful—she’d pleasured herself as recently as the night before. But lustful she was and her body begged for relief.

Oh, well, if she were to do it, she might as well do it properly. Without lifting the handkerchief from her face, she raised one foot out of the tub and felt for the hot water faucet. There, that would be the one that was still warm. She turned on the faucet with her toes. Wouldn’t want the water to grow cold and distract her, would she?

Stuart returned to a dark and empty house.

He needed some papers from his study. On a different day, a telephone call would have sufficed. But it was a half day and there was no one home to answer the telephone or deliver the papers.

He pulled off his gloves and warmed his hands over the radiator in the study. By habit, he poured himself a measure of whiskey. But a few sips later, he realized that it was not whiskey that he wanted, but a good, sturdy tea, which he’d declined at the office.

He hadn’t eaten much for luncheon. Nor would he have had much dinner at the Reform Club. Between breakfast and midnight, he ate only enough to not be distracted by hunger, saving himself—in a manner that he could only ironically describe as chaste—for when he could be alone with her food again.

The biscuits for tea were kept not in the kitchen, but on the sideboard in the servants’ hall. Mrs. Abercromby’s valiant but ultimately doomed rock biscuits—more rock than biscuits—had been replaced by a small quantity of shortbread. And little wonder the quantity was so limited. The foundations of Heaven must be built of this fresh, buttery sweetness that was a greater testament to the glory and mercy of the Almighty than any cold marble or vulgar gold.

He had the uncivilized urge to eat everything right there in the servants’ hall. But he controlled himself. He would enjoy it more if he were to have the shortbread with a cup of tea, in some comfortable lounging clothes. He set a kettle to boil in the kitchen, and went up the stairs to change.

As he reached his floor, he heard the unmistakable sound of water running in the bath at the far end of the corridor—the one shortcoming of the plumbing in the house was that when the water ran, it ran loud, the pipes groaning and squealing, a duet between a defective organ and a tone-deaf bassoon.

But why would the water turn on by itself? Was there a leak? He walked faster. The bath was only for his use and had no lock. The door opened at his touch.

Steam rushed at him, a foggy roomful of it. For a moment he couldn’t see anything. Then, the shock. There was someone in his tub, a woman. In the rising mist, she sat neck-deep in water, her head tilted back, her face covered by a wet handkerchief, her hair a damp, darkish knot. The tops of her knees barely emerged from the water; her left arm, long and prettily rounded, rested along the rim of the tub.

It could only be Madame Durant, in the flesh. He leaned back against the door, speechless at her transgression.

And her nakedness.

A foot lifted out of the tub, along with a good length of shapely calf. Her skin glistened in the honeyed light, faintly steaming with the heat of the water. His heart instantly beat twice as fast.

He’d never before been susceptible to the general male mania over the female foot, the pathetic longing for a peek of a trim ankle, or the breathlessness generated by a saucy boot with bits of leather cut away to reveal the stocking underneath. But now he, too, ran the risk of being enslaved by a beautiful high arch and clean pink toes.

She shut off the faucet with those clean, pink toes and lowered her foot. Given the respite, he tried to collect himself and think beyond his immediate reaction of marvel and lust. She was a servant who had intruded upon his privacy and used facilities reserved for him without so much as a by-your-leave—a grave infraction by any measure.

Had it been anyone else, he’d have a word with Mrs. Abercromby, who would in turn give the woman what-for, or perhaps even let her go if she had been unsatisfactory in other tasks. But the offender here was the mysterious, salacious, sublime Madame Durant, whose food he couldn’t stop eating, and whose unseen presence was a silent hunger that smoldered within him, a hunger made greater by every bite of her food—so much so that he’d postponed summoning her time and again, for fear that he might be blind to his own weakness, that though on the surface of his mind his reason was Bertie, underneath swam a beast of lust that awaited only the most meager of opportunities to snap him in its jaws.

It was best that he left immediately. He was already staring too hard at her throat, her arm, and those knees that hovered just beneath the water. What action he would take in light of her offense, he could decide later—after his mental faculties had a chance to recover from their current stunned ineptitude.

He reached behind him for the door handle. She emitted a small sigh and it was a lick to his groin. He stilled abruptly. What was it? The sound came again and it was another hot, hungry lick.

He looked back at her. The right arm that was submerged, to which he’d given no thought other than that it blocked what could have been a delightful view of her breasts…there was the barest motion at the top of her right arm. She whimpered again. And he was as hard as a bobby’s nightstick.

At last his mind registered what his body had in stinctively known: Her whimpers were whimpers of pleasure. And she was—she was—

Perhaps Bertie had been right about him being a prude. He could scarcely bring himself to even think of that word in connection with a woman, though he understood perfectly well now what she was doing, with out a stitch, without a shred of shame.

What was he about to do? Leave? He couldn’t move a single muscle.

Well, he could, but in the wrong direction—
toward
her, his footfalls muffled by the thick rug that had been laid down for winter.

The water hid little beneath its clear ripples, not her skin, not her pink nipples, not her hand, placed directly over her pudenda. He couldn’t see exactly what she was doing—damn the shadows cast by the edge of the tub and her raised knee. Why, oh, why had he never installed a chandelier directly over the tub?

She raised one foot out of the water, and then another, and braced the balls of her feet against the edge of the tub. And suddenly he saw much better, so well that he was light-headed with incredulity and lust.

Long fingers stroked pretty pink parts—stroked, rubbed, petted. Her toes flexed. Beneath the handkerchief, her lips parted in another sigh. Her motion quickened. There was now a new tension to her arm and her wrist. Her fingers pressed hard. He was afraid she would hurt herself, but her pleasure only seemed to heighten: her hips gyrated, the fingers of her other hand splayed open, the moans that emerged from her throat became louder, more blatant.

He wanted to rip off the handkerchief and feast on the sensuality of her face. He wanted to use his hand for a small measure of relief—he hurt, intensely, with the force of his desire. He wanted to launch himself into the tub and replace her hand with some part of himself—any part of himself. But he dared not move. He dared not even breathe.

Don’t stop. For God’s sake, don’t stop.

She didn’t. She pushed herself farther and farther up that steep slope of pleasure. Her feet slid back into the tub to brace against where the tub curved up. Her left hand gripped the edge of the tub. Her pelvis lifted—her entire torso lifted. Water lapped at her pointed nipples.

His heart hammered. The rest of him was on fire—perhaps he’d already burned to cinders, he wouldn’t know. And didn’t care.

Her breath caught. And caught again. She expelled air in fits and gasps, her torso stretched taut. A bit of the handkerchief caught between her clenched teeth. He grasped on to the chest of drawers, his knees weak, all the blood in his body now pooled in one place and one place only.

He wanted her. He had to have her. Now.
Now!

He tasted blood on his lip. His hands shook. His will broke piece by piece as she writhed and panted in the final throes of her self-induced passion.

Then she cried out—and he very nearly lost control. Her ardor, her flushed skin, her peaked nipples lifting high with the arch of her back. God, what had he done to deserve such temptation?

God.

In her fantasy, Verity was in Mr. Somerset’s bed, her legs splayed wide, her person thoroughly impaled.

It had started in the tub, of course. Imagining him coming through the lockless door of the bath had been a fearsome thrill, so much so she almost lifted the handkerchief from her face to make sure that he hadn’t really come.

But she’d resisted, because that would have been a silly thing to do—and because the sight of an empty bath would have drained her fantasy of much of its startling power. Instead, she shut her eyes tighter.