Wonderful (21 page)

Laughter was good, she thought. Safe.

Very slowly she spread her fingers and peered out.

The great Red Lion was in the road on his backside; he looked like a drowned cat.

Roger leaned an arm casually on his saddle pommel and grinned down at Merrick, who sat in a large puddle of water. More water dripped from his long nose and clenched jaw and rolled down from his wet hair into his eyes.

“Didn’t Hereford teach you, Merrick, that you cannot swim in only a barrel of water?”

Merrick cursed under his breath. He was getting bloody tired of hearing his own words thrown back at him.

With all the dramatic flair of the lead actor in a miracle play, Roger flung his arm out toward the bay beyond. “There’s a whole bay out there for water play.” Then he laughed even harder.

Merrick stood up. His cape was so heavy with water that it almost choked him. He jerked the silver lion brooch loose and tore off the heavy wet cape. He began to wring it out, twisting it with vicious motions while he looked straight at Clio’s white neck.

From somewhere she found the good sense to truly look worried. He gave the cape another hard twist, then tossed it over his saddle.

He turned back to Clio. “Get down. You will ride with me.

To his amazement, she quietly obeyed him and stepped around the barrel. He mounted his horse, slid his boot into a stirrup, and held out a hand to her. “Give me your hand.”

She stood there staring at him as if she did not trust him.

“Do not fret, woman. I will not cut it off.”

His challenge worked. That chin of hers shot up and she placed her hand in his. He did not smile, but the urge to do so passed over him. Perhaps she was controllable after all.

“Stand on my foot. I’ll pull you up.”

She did as he asked, with more obedience than he’d seen from her since he’d stared at her bowed head that first day and foolishly assumed she was convent shy.

He clamped an arm around her and pulled her back against his chest. She gasped slightly. Her breasts were soft and heavy against the top of his forearm, and he could feel the pressure of her small ribs as he kept her pressed against him. He could feel the water, cool and wet against his skin, and knew she, too, was getting wet.

The sun shone high in the sky, and despite the coast breeze he was not cold. There was heat between their bodies, and not a mild warmth but a hot feeling that could almost have turned the air around them steamy.

He looked down to see her face was aflush, and she shifted as if she was trying to put some distance between their bodies.

“Hold still or you’ll fall off.” He pulled her tighter until she froze, and her soft bottom pressed against him.

He looked at Roger, who was still jesting with his men. “You will take the wagon back.”

Roger stopped laughing so swiftly it was almost as if his voice had been snatched away. His expression turned sick when he looked at Old Gladdys.

The Welshwoman stroked back her hair with her hands as if it were a mane of luscious youthful hair instead of white woolly frizz. She scooted over and patted the wooden seat next to her, grinning at Sir Roger like a dewy-eyed dairymaid.

Roger looked as if he wanted to turn and ride away. He gazed at Merrick in disbelief. “You are jesting.”

Merrick turned to his troops. “Three silver coins to the man who knows what Sir Roger likes!”

The men all shouted merrily, “He likes his ale strong, his saints fallen, and his women willing!”

Merrick cast a pointed glance at the old woman, who was eyeing Roger with a hungry look. He turned back to his friend and said, “She surely looks willing to me.”

Ignoring Roger’s pithy curses, he pulled Clio even tighter against him and spurred his horse toward Camrose.

Chapter 23

There was no moon in the black sky the night they returned to the castle. They rode through the gates to the flickering glimmer of torchlight and the long and empty sound of the watch guard’s blow horn.

Merrick released her only long enough to dismount, then swept her up into his arms, carried her into the keep and up the stairs to her chamber, shouting orders to the servants for food, dry clothes, and hot water.

“I’m too tired to bathe,” Clio muttered against his shoulder.

He just gave her one of those looks of his that said he was the one giving the orders not she, and he kicked open the door.

She was too tired and sore from the hard ride to argue. He dropped her on the bed, none too gently, and she opened her eyes planning to scowl up at him. He told Dulcie to get her out of those clothes and he strode from the room.

She was too tired to care if she slept in the dust from their ride. “Dulcie, please. I’ll sleep like this. I’m just so very tired.” She could hear her voice drift off, as if it were someone else’s from far away.

“Lift your arm, my lady.” Dulcie was flitting here and there, unhooking her gown, clipping the sleeve seams, and pestering Clio as if she had not spoken.

“I’ll sleep in my clothes,” Clio grumbled.

“The earl gave me an order,” Dulcie said, pulling Clio’s clothing off before she added under her breath, “I’m no fool. Unlike some,
I
know enough to obey my lord’s orders.”

Before Clio could think of an eloquent and biting argument, she was in a clean linen shift and Dulcie had left her chamber with her arms piled full of dirty clothes.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

Merrick was standing at the top of the stairs, still bellowing orders. ’Twas like trying to sleep in a bell tower at Matins.

She propped up on her elbows, ignoring the aching muscles in her shoulders, bottom, and back. Through the open doors she could see him. He stood at the head of the stairs telling everyone what to do.

As usual.

So she fell back with a huge sigh. She did so adore this new mattress. It was soft and warm and like sleeping on a cloud. She stuffed a pillow under her neck and sore shoulder.

But as she lay there, trying to sleep and ignore the noise, she noticed an aching in her shoulder—the arrow wound—for the first time since she had healed. It was sharp and tense and felt taut as woof strings on a loom.

Perhaps she had overdone things a wee bit. Those water barrels were terribly heavy. The next time she would bring someone strong and brawny with her.

Cyclops picked that moment to leap up on the bed. He pawed the covers, purring in that loud way that always made her smile. He walked in a circle and plopped down near her head as if to say, “Now we go to sleep.”

She stroked his furry head with that ludicrous eye patch tied around it. Just looking at him made her smile.

Sighing with weariness, she wiggled around for a moment to find a better position, then clamped a pillow over her head to block out Merrick’s voice. She drew her knees up until she was curled into her favorite position, pulled the coverlets over her head, and finally slept.

 “What are you doing?”

At the sound of Clio’s voice Merrick looked up.

She was sitting up in her bed and looking at him from sleepy eyes.

“Taking a bath,” he said casually while he used a cloth to scrub the dirt from his arms and chest.

“I can see that.” She stifled a yawn. “I am not an idiot.”

“I could debate that point with you.” He leaned forward and ducked his head under the water so he didn’t have to hear what she had to say. His patience was stretched taut enough already.

His head broke through the water surface and he slicked his hair back with his hands.

She had not moved. “This is my chamber.”

He scrubbed the cloth over his face and two days’ worth of scratchy black whiskers. He needed to have his man shave him. He laid the cloth on the rim of the wooden tub where a nearby brazier would keep it warm.

He looked back at her. “There is no soap.”

The expression she wore was startled. And he was glad, for that was how she made him feel whenever she switched subjects on him. “I think, woman, you need to spend your time seeing to the castle needs and not running off to collect spa waters. Perhaps you should be making soap instead of ale.”

He paused and let his words sink in. “No chatelaine with any pride would have a household without even one puny ball of soap.”

“I do not need a man to tell me what I need, my lord.”

“Someday you will take those words back, I promise you.”

“I have soap.”

She’d changed the subject again.

“
Camrose
has plenty of soap!” She threw back the covers and pattered across the stone floor, churning her arms like a soldier on the march. She opened a standing chest and pulled out a round ball of yellow soap.

She held it out toward him, her nose up again.

’Twas a perfect position. He could see right through her thin shift. He looked his fill and was reminded of his foolhardy conversation with Roger about her looks, and how he did not care. Words did come back to haunt you.

He found he did care what she looked like, probably because looking at her gave him such pleasure. And it was a different pleasure from his man’s need for a woman, different from wanting a woman. Just any woman.

He wanted Clio. His body responded to her, but that was not unusual. Right at that moment beneath the water he was hard as the castle wall. But he was a trained knight taught to control himself, so he could control his response. He did not act foolishly.

But somehow, this intense need in him was different with her. ’Twas only for Clio. And he could not control that, nor what she did to him, deep inside his body and in his mind.

His gaze flicked back to her just as she threw the soap toward him. He snatched it from the air so swiftly she blinked.

She watched him in stunned silence, so he hid his smile and examined the soap; then he raised it to his nose and sniffed. He made a face. “Lye soap.”

She whirled around, which was good because he needed a moment to fix his face into a serious frown. She opened and closed a few compartments in the cabinet, then turned and said, “Thyme soap!”

She threw a new piece of soap to him.

Or perhaps at him.

“Rose oil!” Then came another. “Chamomile!” And another piece flew across the room.

He caught one with one hand and one with the other.

“Sea heather! Lilac!”

Merrick tried not to smile while he dodged balls of herbed and essence-oil soap that flew at him like rocks from a catapult.

“Sandalwood! Myrrh! Spikenard! Clove!”

The clove soap hit the wall with a smack and rolled along the floor. That ugly one-eyed cat leapt off the bed and chased the soap ball, batting it with its paws before the ugly beast cornered the soap and pounced atop it.

“Musk! Patchouli! Lavender and spearmint! Almond, citronella oil, frangipani, orrisroot, honeysuckle, woodruff, attar of roses …”

A few minutes later, as Merrick sat in the tub with soap balls everywhere, he had to agree that Camrose castle had plenty of soap.

And its mistress had plenty of fire.

She stood in front of a chest, her fists planted on her rounded hips in a cocky “so there” way. One thing was certain. She was now wide awake.

God’s feet, but she was beautiful! She tossed her head the way his mount did when he reined it in too quickly, then strolled toward him like a conqueror, swaggering pridefully.

He wondered if she was even aware that she was clad in only her shift. But he remembered her dropping the towel and thought proudly that she was not one to cower and hide her fine body.

Whether she knew how she was clad or not didn’t matter.

The view did.

She did not look away, and he didn’t either, since the oil bowl on a nearby table cast light that limned her shape beneath the fabric. She might as well have been naked.

If she was aware of how she looked, or how little she wore, she gave no sign, but stared at him instead from eyes that sparked with a challenge. And something else, something more elemental, that made him want her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his entire life.

“Come here.”

She took her sweet time obeying him, but she did come to stand beside the tub. She stood above him, the glint of a devil in her eye.