By Design (5 page)

“I hope you are not overly modest.”

“Modest enough that I can not permit your help in this.”

“I do not see any other way.”

“If there is no other way, I will not bathe.”

“If you do not you will be crippled for days.”

“Then I will do it myself.”

“Your spirits have returned, but I doubt that your strength has. You are sure that you can manage alone?”

“I can. Leave me, and I will.”

He went to a chest and brought out a towel, and placing it and the soap on the bench. “I will be outside in the garden. Call me when you are finished. You may be able to bathe yourself, but you can not make the stairs on your own.”

“The stairs?”

“To the chambers. To sleep. I am hardly going to carry you all the way back to the tile yard tonight, and if you try to walk you will not even make it to the street.”

“I can not permit that either.”

He gave her a slow smile. “I am not above seducing you, Joan. But there would be little pleasure in it when you are so hurt that you can not move.”

With that, he was out the door.

This man must think that she fell off a turnip cart this morning. Everyone knew that men were capable of pleasure even if the woman was half dead. She would let the hot water restore her some, and then make her way back across the river. She certainly could not stay here all night.

She slowly eased up. Her legs rebelled with a hollow pain, but they finally held.

Her gown laced up the back. She tried to reach for the knot. Her arms, half frozen from being up in the stocks, simply would not go backward. She could barely get her hands past her hips.

It was ridiculous. Absurd. Her mind did not feel nearly as infirm as her body acted. Irked by her helplessness, she forced her arms to move.

Something pulled and twisted and shot with pain. Her vision blanked for an instant and her shoulder hit the hearth wall. Sliding down its rough surface, she sank into a huddle on the bench.

She waited for her head to clear. She debated her situation, and with a heavy sigh gave up her pride. Forcing her hoarse voice as loud as it would go, she called his name.

He came immediately, carrying two more buckets of water. He had known she would fail. He had been waiting.

He set the water near the hearth. He walked over and sat beside her. Without saying a word, he began undressing her.

C
HAPTER
3

R
HYS PULLED DOWN THE LACING
of her gown. The crossing lines had probably once been silver ribbons, but now crude hide strips held the back together.

He tried to remain uninterested, but it proved impossi ble. Her condition made his arousal especially pointless, but undressing her affected him anyway.

Joan tried, too. Her expression chilled into something half stern, half sleepy, and very distant. Still, her embar rassment was palpable. And provocative.

There was something practiced to her pose. He guessed that he was not the first man to disrobe her. That did not surprise him. She looked to be in her early twenties. It would be rare for a woman to reach that age without at least one man in her past.

He decided to leave her in her shift so they could pre tend some modesty. Only the grey fabric gaped to reveal that she wore nothing underneath. A creamy stripe of skin glowed from her neck to the dimpled hollow at the base of her spine.

“Hand me the towel,” she said, going very rigid.

He passed it to her. Turning away, she lowered the gown from her shoulders and unfolded the linen to shield her breasts. He found himself facing an elegant back, slen der and lithe, with a subtle firmness that spoke of physical labor. It tapered nicely, then began a subtle flair at her hips. The bunched gown obscured the progress of those curves.

He rose and helped her to stand. The tattered gown slid down. Its slippery descent revealed the rest. Nipped waist. Rounded hips and bottom. Shapely legs.

His mouth went dry as her beauty unveiled in the can dlelight. The gaoler had been right. There were easier ways to get to heaven than this.

She turned quickly, clutching the towel to her chest. Its thin fabric molded to her curves, and the lower edge flut tered along the top of her thighs. Stark nakedness would have been less erotic.

She eyed him cautiously, alert to her vulnerability. But something else passed between them, too. It was in her eyes and her embarrassment and the vague parting of her lips. He knew women well enough to recognize the signs. Whatever else she thought or felt, she was not entirely in different, either.

That made it harder. He suppressed the urge to splay his hand on the curve of her waist. Instead he lifted her lovely, smooth nakedness in his arms. “You do not have to be afraid. I am not unmoved, but I am not going to try to do anything about it.”

She clutched and stretched the towel to be sure it cov ered the essentials. “Because you would lose the grace of being a Good Samaritan?”

“Aye, and because you still smell.” He carried her over to the bath. “You have to put the towel aside now. We want it dry for later.”

“Don't you have another?”

“It is the only one here.”

“Close your eyes then. Now, lower me in without looking.”

“I do not think—”

“Put me in and then go around behind me.”

“I will try, but you must sit on the bottom and it is deep. Steady now … you are not light, and doing this blind … don't… hell.”

Once Joan touched water she tried to release herself. In the confused grappling that followed, she thrashed, he grasped, she sank, and he fell. He ended up braced above her with his hands on the bottom of the bath.

Water sloshed up to his armpits. Pretty breasts faced him a hand's span away. Soft and round and gently full. The tips were rose colored in the way of fair women. Rosy and tight. He did not bother pretending that he didn't no tice.

She instantly covered herself with her arms and sank down until her breasts were submerged in the dark water. The fire showed just enough ghostly, fluid femininity to keep his blood rumbling.

“Please. Behind me.”

He grabbed the soap and threw it to her. Water dripped off his sodden shirt, making pools on the floorboards. He stripped it off, fetched a dipper and a clean rag, and knelt behind that beautiful back.

“Leave now. I can do it.”

He ignored her, because of course she couldn't. Using the dipper he poured water over her head. “Give me the soap.”

Joan unplaited her long braid and he washed. She had a lot of hair, and it took a long time. The soap turned the water milky, finally obscuring her body. Except the top of
her back. And the sinuous line of her shoulders and neck. And the bent knees popping up, catching the firelight.

She began washing. It pained her to move her arms so much, but he knew that she would not let him do it for her. Just as well. Stroking those limbs, even to clean them, would not be a good idea.

He brought over one of the buckets of hot water. Using the rag, he made a wet pad that he pressed to her neck.

She startled, and recoiled from the heat. But the shock soon turned soothing and she accepted it. He could feel her loosening beneath his hand. The protective hunch of her shoulders slowly dipped away.

“You said that you are alone, Joan. Are you widowed?”

“Not exactly. I was betrothed once. He is dead.”

“You chose not to remarry?”

“I have no interest in finding a husband. Marriage can interfere with a person doing what needs to be done.”

He understood what she meant. He had avoided it him self because of things that needed to be done. It was odd hearing a woman say it, though. He wondered what pur pose had led her to reject a normal life.

He remade the compress and held it to her back, below her shoulder, where her position in the stocks would have caused the worst knots. A little groan of relief escaped her. It sounded for all the world like a woman being plea sured.

He pushed her wet strips of hair out of the way so he could do the other side. “How came you to London?”

She slid up so he could reach better, crossing her arms over her body lest he try to peek.

“My family died, except for Mark. We came here be cause I had met Nick Tiler a few years earlier where I lived. He had come to make pavers for a manor house in the region, and had let me play with the clay. I hoped that
he would give me work, since he had said back then that I had a talent with it.” She shrugged. “I could think of nowhere else to go.”

“Where was your home?”

“The western marches.”

“We have more in common than crafting statues, then, since my family hails from there as well. You crossed the breadth of England? That is a long way for a woman and a boy to travel by themselves.”

“I had no idea how long when I started. It took three months and the little coin I had. But Nick accepted me, so it was not a lost journey.”

All the way from the marches with a young brother in tow. He was impressed. He had made that journey himself when he had been about Mark's age, with a father to pro tect him and enough coin for inns. Even so, it had been hard and sometimes dangerous. He had been running from trouble and seeking a free future, and only those goals had made it worthwhile. He doubted he would have done it just to find work in a tile yard.

He placed the hot compress on the edge of her back and pressed in to her ribs below her arm. His fingertips grazed the soft swell of her breast. She stiffened in objection, but the comfort of the heat defeated her.

“When I was a young apprentice, my master's wife used to do this,” he explained. “After a few years my body grew accustomed to the work. If I had really hurt myself, she also did this.” He placed his fingertips below her shoulder bones and firmly circled.

She arched in shock. “That hurts!”

“It becomes a good hurt. Stay still.”

She accepted it, and then welcomed it. Slowly the knots softened and she grew limp. Her head lolled on her knees.

It probably would help her legs, too. And her arms. She would never permit that, but an image of it stuck in his
head. He saw her lying naked on a bed while he slowly worked his hands over her entire body.

“This is a fine house,” she said, to distract them both, as if she guessed his thoughts. “Wider than most in the city.”

“Too wide for one person, is what you mean. I came into some money several years ago, and put it in land as most do. I built the house with an eye to selling it.”

“But you did not?”

“I will someday, I expect. But there is a well, which is convenient, and a good-size garden where I can work. I have grown accustomed to both luxuries. And it is the first city house that I planned, so I have an affection for it.”

She raised her head and peered around the kitchen more alertly. “You built it yourself?”

“The stonework.”

“You designed it, too? Are you a builder?”

“I assisted a master builder for a few years, and began serving as one myself around the time I bought this prop erty.”

She twisted to see him. It pained her enough that she grimaced, but that did not stop her. Nor did the fact that her crossed arms hardly covered her breasts effectively. “Is that how you serve them? Mortimer and the Queen? As a master builder?”

Her blue eyes flashed with anger. She used the accusa tory tone she had adopted when he walked her to the city gate three days before.

“It is how I serve the crown.”

“So you say, but it is really them.”

“For now, it looks like it is.”

“They spend the realm's wealth on their luxuries. Have you helped them in their extravagance?”

“There are many builders to the crown. My projects have been few, and not very extravagant at all.”

“But you hope for more and better ones.”

Her belligerent goading irritated him. “It is my craft and my skill and how I eat. Aye, I hope for better ones.”

She was picking at something that he resented her broaching. Bad enough that he debated his choices in his heart. He did not need this woman forcing them into words.

She did not retreat. “You said that day that you do not work on their castle walls, but one day you will be asked to, won't you? Not to carve tracery, but to plan and design the keeps and the fortifications. When Mortimer steals an es tate, he calls one of his builders to come and improve the defenses that failed in his assault. One day that builder will be you, won't it?”

“I doubt that. I am not one of his favorites.”

“You tell yourself that, but you know the day will come. You are young for a master builder. That means that you are more skilled than most. When it comes to the walls that hold up power, skill is what matters.”

“You do not know what you are talking about. Skill is rarely all that matters in this world.”

She glanced with scorn over his face and body. “I think that you have already made your choice, in your heart. You will do whatever is asked if the coin is right, and say that you only further your craft. You will probably tell yourself that it doesn't matter, that it is not one man's act that makes the injustice continue.”