"Probably Lady Iphigenia. A lucky escape?"
"On the contrary. I pine for an innocent, wilting bride." He nudged open a door and carried her into an extraordinary room.
"Heavens above!" she exclaimed. "That"s not a bath. That"s a pool!"
He put her down on the tiled floor from which steps went down into a huge basin, which was half-full of water. He went to turn off a gargoyle-headed tap.
"A small pool. It"s eight foot long and four foot wide."
As the water stilled she peered at the ill.u.s.tration. The dragon was definitely having improper relations with the lady, but was the lady screaming or in ecstasy? Lucy felt she might have looked similar in their recent lovemaking.
"Is that a cold bath?" she asked warily.
"Cold baths are said to be very invigorating."
"Do we need invigorating?"
He smiled. "Or to cool the blood. But no, it will be warm enough for comfort."
"Where does all the water come from?"
"A cistern above, warmed by the sun in good seasons, and by a stove beneath in harsher times. The one good amendment to the Crag by the Mad Earl. He was obsessed by a search for fertility and eternal life. A few years before he died, he decided daily bathing would do the trick and went to extremes. I"ll leave you to enjoy it."
Lucy wasn"t having that. She shed the robe. "I might drown."
"It"s not even two foot deep."
She sat on a marble bench and began to undo one garter. "I"d feel safer if you stayed."
"aSafer" is not the word that comes to mind."
She couldn"t help but chuckle. She felt such power, such potency. She unrolled the stocking and tossed it aside, then started in on the other. When she glanced up again, he was still and very intent. She stood and took off her shift, completely unembarra.s.sed by nakedness. Then she went down the two steps to test the heat of the water with her toes. "Perfect."
"We try."
Smiling at his hoa.r.s.e tone, she continued down, then sat in the scented water, which was just warm enough and lapped the tips of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her nipples were still sensitive enough to take pleasure from the water. They even looked larger and pinker. Remembering the pleasure he"d brought, she glanced up at him. "Isn"t it a bit late for caution, my lord earl?"
His eyes still held that darkness that warned of trouble, of trouble she did not yet understand, but she didn"t relent. In the end he took off his robe and came to join her in the water, taking her into his arms.
"This is much better," she said, slithering against him into a cozy arrangement. "I"m less likely to wallow, and the possibilities are endless." She ran a wet hand over his wet body, learning the feel of muscle over bone. She traced a faint scar, jagged over his right ribs. "How did this happen?"
"Someone with a knife making trouble."
"And you intervened?"
"Someone had to."
"The earl?"
"It was before I became earl. I"ve not led a completely tame life, Lucy."
Of course he hadn"t. And wouldn"t.
"Do I need to learn nursing skills?" she asked, noticing a puckered scar on his shoulder.
"They probably wouldn"t come amiss."
"I"d think this was from a pistol ball. You haven"t dueled have you?"
"I"ve never needed to devise danger."
She frowned at him. "No broken bones from climbing cliffs?"
He laughed at that. "No more than you have from climbing stairs, love. I live a charmed life."
"I"d rather you live a safe one." She circled the scar with her finger. "Who shot at you?"
"A boatman."
"A fisherman?"
"One of the excise officer"s men."
She heard a challenging note in it. He expected her to be shocked. She was, a little, but she should have expected it. "I knew it. You"ve dabbled in your father"s trade. In Melchisadeck Clyst"s. How could a hot-blooded lad resist?"
"Are you going to scold me for it?"
"If I"d been around at the time. It"s not a game."
He kissed her. "I know that, love, but sometimes the need is irresistible."
Is . . . ?
He tasted her with soft kisses, seemingly simply for the pleasure of it and she almost purred, half-floating in warm water and sweetly cherished.
"This is heaven," she said, and he smiled.
"Perhaps I"ll have clouds and angels painted on the ceiling here."
"Do we really want to be observed by angels?"
"Unfair, you think?" he said. "Them being unable."
"Are they?"
"You imagine much bawdy frolicking amid the heavenly clouds?"
"Never before, but now I wonder where the cherubs come from."
He hooted with laughter and she caught it from him so they rolled in the water, slipping and sliding against each other.
Her sliding hand touched his manly part and she looked through the water at it, long and thick in the nest of hair. She wanted to explore, but felt that would be wrong in some way. As if it were still private to him.
He captured her hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her palm, eyes on her. "Don"t play with the dragon."
"Why not?"
"The lady beneath us might be a warning."
She remembered the mosaic image and matched it against her memories of ecstasy.
"I think she might be enjoying that."
"Being impaled by a dragon?"
"Her dragon."
"Hades, you could be right. The Mad Earl might want to portray Lady Belle as succ.u.mbing to pleasure under him." His hand cradled a breast, his thumb stroking the sensitive nipple. "Let"s test the theory."
Lucy antic.i.p.ated a pleasant impaling, but he delighted her with hands and mouth. The gentleness was new and wondrous, as was sliding her hands and legs over him, seeking, and finding, ways to delight him. Until pa.s.sion overwhelmed thought and she drowned in a steamy pleasure beyond all control or observation.
When she drifted lazily, her body light in the water but cradled against his, she said, "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Pleasure or horror?"
He laughed against her hair. "I wasn"t observing, but you screamed, and I hope it was pleasure."
"I screamed?"
"Quietly."
"A quiet scream. What a lot of interesting abilities I have. It was definitely pleasure. I like this bath. Thank you, Crag Wyvern."
"But the rest remains."
He wasn"t speaking only of the house.
She shifted to look at him. "What"s the biggest barrier, love? What stands tall between us and infinite delight?" When he didn"t answer, she said, "I think I deserve to know. We"re past secrets."
Then she remembered what he"d once said, and she saw it in his eyes. That with true love should come trust that some secrets are necessary.
"I could ask for trust," he agreed, "but you"re right. Secrets between us seem pointless now. But not here like this."
He raised them both to their feet and they climbed out. He took towels from a pile and gave her one. "I"ll go and get your clothes."
Lucy suddenly remembered the journal. She"d put it back in one of the pair of pockets, but he might feel the shape and become curious. No secrets, he"d said, but she didn"t want him to read her rambling thoughts about him.
"I"d rather put on something fresh," she said. "What happened to my valise?"
He looked enchantingly blank. "Yes, you had one. I remember-I put it down in the great hall when I showed you the skeleton. I"ll get it."
"In a normal earl"s household you would ring a bell and a minion would rush to serve."
"I don"t think we want to alert the servants any more than we must," he said drily, "and in this earl"s household we ring a bell only as a warning." He went to a chain on the wall and pulled. "You can hardly hear it from here, but that warns anyone outside."
"Warns them of what?"
"Deluge." He pulled out a plug in the bath and the water began to drain away. "It exits via a gargoyle in a grand spout that would drench anyone below."
"And tell the world we"ve been bathing?"
"It"s not that loud a bell, and anyone so close could well have guessed."
It made her blush, which seemed silly at this stage.
"So the Mad Earl wasn"t entirely demented, then," she said.
"It would have been easier if he had been. He could be sharply cunning in his own insane way." He tenderly put her into the woolen robe, even tying the belt for her, then gathered her into his arms again.
Lucy liked it, but she said, "I hope you"re not thinking of me as a child."
He laughed as he carried her out into the gloomy corridor. "Far, far from that, my wanton Indian G.o.ddess. I don"t know the names of any."
"Lakshmi is one," she said as they went round a corner, pa.s.sing another circular staircase. She supposed she"d become accustomed to them. "The G.o.ddess of good fortune and prosperity. My father had a statue of her given him by a nabob. She"s said to protect from troubles, especially those related to money."
"Just what Crag Wyvern needs. Why ahad"?"
"When I went home for my friend"s wedding it had gone from the library. I a.s.sume Charlotte doesn"t approve."
"Charlotte"s his new wife?"
"Not quite. They marry soon."
"But already she is the G.o.ddess of his house. Here we are."
But she was looking back at a skeleton hanging in a corner. "Another relative?"
"Not as far as I know. I"m sorry. I should have had it taken down."
"Oh, I"ll grow accustomed. As long as it doesn"t animate."
He shook his head as he carried her into a bedroom that was a contrast to everything she"d seen thus far. Here the furniture was modern, light, and bright in the sunlight coming in through a normal window to the outside-with a view of the sea.
Even as he was putting her down, Lucy said, "You fraud! You took me around the oddities, when this is the reality."