What a Gentleman Desires (23 page)

It was probably the smoke making him slightly giddy; he’d inhaled more than his share of it, because he opened his mouth and, before he could think better of it, said, “Well, although it’s one of the things we’ll never bother mentioning to Trixie, we did misplace our father’s remains for a few decades, but we’ve got him safely tucked up in the mausoleum again. Come on.”

While her mouth actually was at half cock, he took her hand and led her back to the upstairs foyer, to find Soames waiting there with a tray holding two glasses of wine.

“Thank you,” Valentine said, handing one glass to Daisy and then downing his own immediately before replacing the glass on the tray. That’s when he noticed that she’d drunk all of hers, as well, as if she’d been thirsty and the contents were nothing but flavored water. As he doubted the vicar’s daughter had ever so much as tasted wine until now, this could prove interesting. “I believe Miss Marchant has decided to leave you to it and only asks that hot water be brought upstairs so that she might have a bath.”

The butler bowed, eyeing the empty glasses; yes, he’d been butler to Trixie Redgrave for a long, informative time. “Begging you pardon, sir, but anticipating just such an outcome, I already took the liberty of ordering up tubs for you both.”

Daisy was blinking rather rapidly, which could be thought to be a reaction to the smoke, although Valentine thought differently. He could remember his first glass of wine—sipped, not gulped—and how warm and pleasant he’d thought the experience.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have. That’s too much trouble right now, what with—”

“Ignore her. She has no idea how worse for wear she looks.”

Soames looked at the floor. That, at least, had to be something new to the man. “Sir.”

Halfway up the stairs, with her hand still in his, she whispered, “I said I’d thank you to stop prosing on about how beautiful you mistakenly think I am. But that doesn’t mean you have to say I look as if I’ve been dragged backward through a hedgerow.” Then she stumbled on the stairs.

“Women,” Valentine said, scooping her up to carry her the rest of the way. “There’s no pleasing you, is there?” He put her down in front of the door to her bedchamber, normally Kate’s when she kept Trixie company, which they all took turns doing, always grumbling they’d be more comfortable in Grosvenor Square, but always genuinely delighted to share special time with their grandmother.

He put Daisy down and delivered a quick kiss to her pouting mouth. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Make certain the maid is gone and the door unlocked.”

“Yes, we do need to talk more about the fire, don’t we? But twenty minutes? That’s impossible. I’ll barely have the smoke out of my hair by then. Valentine? Do you have any idea how I hate it when you make pronouncements and then just turn and walk away from me?”

Already partway down the hall, he turned and blew her a kiss, then kept on walking. He was certain she’d figure out what he meant on her own, eventually.

Piffkin had the ability to anticipate Valentine’s most every need, but Piffkin was on his way to Redgrave Manor, so there were no fresh clothes laid out in the dressing room. Valentine dismissed the manservant waiting (but not anticipating) for him, believing himself capable of bathing and dressing himself. Making do with shirt and breeches, deciding against hose and shoes and banyan, he and his still-damp hair were on their way back down the hall in only a little more than thirty minutes.

He couldn’t chance the efficient Daisy not to already be out of her tub which, to his way of thinking, would be a crying shame.

He knew the layout of Kate’s room, having spent hours there with his sister when they were younger, the two of them lounging about on bed or floor, discussing everything from the silly to the deadly serious.

He lightly rapped on the door he’d long since abandoned opening without knocking first, and then stepped inside, locking the door behind him.

“Daisy?” he called out softly in the dimly-lit chamber, already on his way to the dressing room and the large tub kept behind a screen in a corner of that room. The door was slightly ajar, and he believed he could smell the fresh scents of lemons and violets. “It’s me, Valentine. Is your maid gone? I want to come in.”

“Yes, I’ve rather figured that out. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer you didn’t.”

It wasn’t an outright order to go away...

“You’re still in your tub, aren’t you? All covered with bubbles, entirely modest?”

“As I don’t bathe in my clothes, no, I’m not
entirely modest.
Is this what happens to normal people, Valentine? Do something once, and then be unable to think of anything else? Even with a house nearly burnt down around one’s ears? Because it’s very disconcerting to— Valentine! I didn’t give you permission to— Oh, I don’t believe you. What are you doing now?”

“I believe the exercise is commonly called removing one’s shirt,” he told her as he stood beside the tub, envying the bubbles that clung so lovingly to her fair skin. “I’m going to assist my lady in the washing of her hair.”

He watched her as she watched him strip off his shirt and drop it on the floor beside him, her eyes going slightly wider at the sight of his bare chest. “Please put your shirt on again. It’s...distracting.”

“I’ll assume you mean my chest, and not my shirt.” He turned toward the low table arrayed with a half dozen bottles of differing shapes. “Which of these do you use to wash your hair?”

She was holding a large sea sponge in front of her breasts now. “Those aren’t mine. I use the same lye and wood ash soap I use to...to wash the rest of me. It’s still in my bag, in the bedchamber. I don’t know whom all those bottles belong to, just that Sara poured two of them into the tub. Go away, Valentine. Please.”

“Homemade soft soap? We must have something better than that here.” He was already busy uncorking and sniffing the contents of the bottles, deciding he liked the smell of lemon best. “We’ll use this one,” he said, pouring a goodly amount into his palm. “Duck your head under the water to wet it. Or should I be looking for a pitcher of water here somewhere?”

“You’re not going to go away, are you, even knowing how embarrassed you’re making me. I suppose I should be practical, as sitting in this water until it freezes over and the bubbles disappear certainly isn’t the answer. The pitcher is for rinsing the soap out afterward.”

And with that, she took a breath and sank beneath the surface, coming back up with her face and hair dripping with water and bubbles, even as he found himself torn between admiring what she’d done and wishing the high-sided tub wasn’t quite so long or so deep. That was Kate’s fault; she’d demanded a tub like Trixie’s, one she could “stretch out in, not sit with my knees up to my chin.”

As Valentine recalled the thing, nobody had told her
why
Trixie’s tub was, well, large enough to fit two people inside. But perhaps now that Kate had found her Simon, she understood.

“You look a whole other person,” he said now, marveling at how Daisy’s curls remained, even though sopping wet. They were simply plastered to her head now, her exquisitely shaped head, her nose shiny from what had to have been a good scrubbing, her thick, water-darkened lashes resembling small, slightly curled spikes, her perfect fair skin glowing a bit from the heat of the water.

If she were a sugarplum, he would eat her up in one delicious bite.

“Here we go,” he warned as she continued to cling to the sea sponge. He knelt down behind the tub and slid his soap-slick hands over the crown of her head.

He felt a strange tingle rise up his arms, and fan out across his shoulders. All he was doing was rubbing soap into her hair, yet there was an intimacy about the thing that both startled and pleased him.

“Ummm,” Daisy said as he lightly rubbed at her temples. She closed her eyes and leaned back her head. “That’s...nice. I imagine this is all in aid of seducing me?”

“You imagine correctly.” He rose up over her enough to be able to bend forward and kiss her damp lips, and then sank back onto his knees, applying himself to his job once more. “How the devil do I get soap on all of this? Half of it’s still hanging into the tub.”

She instructed him how to scoop up the length and plop it on top of her head, and then apply more soap and “Just squeeze it, don’t rub it, or I’ll be combing out a rat’s nest of tangles for a week.”

Valentine attempted to do as she instructed, but what she asked was impossible. In his mind, he had pictured a romantic, sensual interlude. In reality, he was getting sopping wet, Daisy’s hair was constantly attempting to elude his fingers when not tangling around them, making a jangled mess.

“There’s got to be another way,” he said, not sounding romantic at all, and he knew it.

“There is, but not with you in the room, although I normally wash my hair over the washbasin,” she told him, reaching up one hand to check on his progress. “Oh, no. Valentine, stop. Please, just stop. Go into the other room and let me finish.”

He gave up on what he knew to be a bad job, another romantic dream shattered, and got to his feet. But he felt fairly certain all wasn’t lost. “And then I can seduce you?” he asked her cheekily.

And the vicar’s daughter-cum-governess answered calmly: “Yes, Valentine, and then you most certainly may seduce me. Now go away.”

Which made him more eager than if she’d purred something inane like, “Oh, darling, take me, take me!”

He left, but did not go far. He made it only to the other side of the door, which he carefully left ajar a few inches, telling himself it was mere curiosity that had him watching her, to see how she did something as mundane and yet complicated as wash her hair.

To his surprise—and delight—she first ducked beneath the surface again. She reemerged face-first, her head tipped back, her hair falling straight down her back. He caught his breath as she continued to rise, going up on her knees in the deep tub, exposing her body to him nearly to her waist.

She raised her arms, gathering her hair at her nape, and twisted its length, squeezing out much of the water, and then draped it all over one shoulder before leaning over the tub to take up the bottle he had used and pouring some into her hand.

She had such a long back, her spine straight yet dipping in at her narrow waist. The flare of her hips was subtle, exquisitely delicate. And mind-blowingly enticing.

Ah, now he understood.
Start at the scalp, and work your way down
. The process was purely practical. Not that this phenomenon kept him interested for more than a few seconds. No, he was too busy watching how her small, perfect breasts rose and fell as she worked the soap into her hair, completely relaxed in her nakedness because she believed herself unobserved.

Valentine could almost convince himself he was witnessing living art, rather like Botticelli’s
Venus Rising from the Sea
...but then Daisy surprised him yet again.

She stood up.

She reached for one of the pair of earthenware pitchers on the table beside her.

She lifted the first pitcher and slowly poured its contents over her head.

Water and clinging bubbles, cascading down her body, sliding between her breasts, gliding down over her amazingly flat stomach, arrowing toward the juncture of her thighs.

Valentine was finding it difficult to breathe, and when she repeated her action with the second pitcher, he knew it was either turn away or betray his presence. He eased the door completely shut and took several deep, calming breaths (which, truth to tell, did very little good if he had hoped to calm his libido).

By the time he heard the door open, he had strategically placed himself on the hearthrug, his damp shirt drying as it hung down from the mantel, held there by a heavy brass figurine. He was in the act of stoking the logs with the poker when Daisy sat down beside him, a large bath sheet wrapped around her, another smaller one tied turbanlike around her head.

“Sara laid out one of your sister’s nightrails and dressing gowns for me, but they seem rather pointless, don’t you think? You’ve already seen me like this. Oh, good, Sara put out my combs, as I’d asked her. I told her I like to dry my hair by the fire when I can.”

He looked at her, wondering what the devil was going on. One proposal, one bedding, a single glass of wine, and suddenly everything was fine, perfect, no need for convincing her she wanted him here?

He’d never understand women. He doubted anyone ever would, even other women.

And most especially this woman.

But he’d ask, anyway. That’s what made him a man. Men were always asking questions they probably shouldn’t ask.

“Are you all right?”

Daisy was unwrapping the towel and easing it from her head. Her wet hair smelled like lemons and there were golden sparkles among the dark red curls. She pulled her hair away from her face, lifted it and let it fall past her bare shoulders.

“What could be wrong? I’ve been told in a most businesslike way that I must marry, have been relieved of my virginity, nearly been roasted alive, been told I’m beautiful by a man who seems to have said it enough to believe it and accosted in my bath by that same matrimonial, amorous, clearly delusional half-naked male who just five minutes ago peeked at me as I was rinsing my hair. All in less than a single day. Oh, and I’ve had my first taste of wine, and admit to feeling slightly muzzy, but I believe fatigue also may play a part in that. I’ve decided I may as well enjoy all of it. Except for the roasted alive portion, of course.”

Valentine had begun smiling halfway through her recitation. “Of course. I can see you might not wish to repeat the almost roasted alive portion of today’s entertainment. Now what?”

She was working one of the combs through her hair. “Isn’t this nice? I wonder what was in that bottle, as it’s clearly superior to my soft soap. My hair is barely tangled. Oh, you asked me something, didn’t you? I suppose that’s up to you, isn’t it, Valentine?”

“Why me?” he asked in some amazement. When had he lost control of his planned seduction? Because clearly he was no longer in charge; Daisy was making all the moves.