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.”
He resented like hell that knowing glance. A little fury whirled in his head. “If I tell myself that, it will be because it is true. I am a mason, woman, not a knight or baron. Masons build structures. Others build the power and the world.”
“Masons are like the men who make siege machines.
They may not lift a sword, but there can be no war, and no power, without them.”
“You have an unholy anger about something far above you. Like all ignorant people, you see the world too sim ply, and voice stupid opinions too boldly.”
“I am not so ignorant and stupid that I do not know a lackey when I see one.”
Lackey. “What you see is a man fast regretting an im pulsive act of charity and growing sore angry at being in sulted in his own house. Do not blame me for the injustice in this realm. If you think that a mason can change any of it, you are mistaken.”
“Anyone with heart and resolve can change it. Masons and farmers and even—”
“And even tilers? If you believe that, you are worse than mistaken. You are a dreamer and a fool.”
She reacted as if he had slapped her. “Better a fool than a willing victim! Better dreams that give purpose, than resignation that deadens one's will!”
She looked half mad, almost desperate. He heard accu sation in her cry, but also something else, as if she pro claimed this for her own sake rather than to insult him. Still the insult was there, and his anger rose in response.
Not a normal anger. It had been mixing with a spiking desire all during this argument.
He wanted to silence this bold, ungrateful woman who slung insults more scathing than she realized. Not with his hand or words, but with a kiss. He wanted to embrace her rebellious passion and transform it into a more immediate fire.
The image of a fevered taking entered his head while she glared at him. It did not help that the argument had made her indifferent to her nakedness. The clear view of her breasts and thighs only made his imagination more vivid. The hot, tumultuous fantasy defeated his control in a way the physical intimacies had not. Her challenging ex pression only inflamed the urges he had been battling. He either had to reach for her and make it real, or leave.
He was angry. She didn't care.
Her head split with livid indignation. How dare he call her a fool. What did this mason know about her, and her dreams. How could he possibly understand any of it. No doubt so long as his fees were paid, there was no injustice in the world worth righting to him.
He looked at her as the silence echoed with her furious words. Looked long enough for her to realize that more than anger had set his face in its severe expression and more than fury caused those steely glints. His gaze drifted over her, and she suddenly grew alert to what he saw. She had forgotten about her nakedness in the heat of her emotions, but he had not.
He was going to reach for her. Reach in anger and de sire. She could see the impulse in those blue eyes.
Good. Then she could hit him. She wanted to. She needed to beat away the doubts to which his cruel words had given voice. Doubts that lived in her own heart, but that she kept silent lest they rob her of any reason to live.
He moved. For a breathless instant she braced herself.
He did not reach. He rose to get the last bucket from the hearth. He poured its steaming contents in to renew the bath's heat. He strode from the chamber.
She collected her emotions and calmed herself, and slid down in the water. The last bucket had made the bath wonderfully hot again, and it soothed her soul as much as her body.
She could not have really gotten its benefit if he were still nearby, even if she had not seen his danger in those last moments. Her body may have loosened under his compresses and fingers, but in her core an awareness of him twisted and knotted the whole time he knelt behind her.
He had not reached for her, but he had wanted to. Not just at the end, but from the moment he carried her into this house. Nay, from the first time he spoke to her. It was just there, thick, like the moisture rising from the bath.
Eventually…
The water suddenly lost its warmth. A chill shook her down to her toes.
It was time to leave this house.
Pushing herself up, she tested her legs. They no longer seemed detached from her body. Carefully, she stepped out of the tub. Bending to grab the towel almost made her fall, but she snatched it up and quickly dried herself.
She could walk now. Slowly. Stiffly. She made her way over to the bench. Grasping the bench for balance, she bent for the gown.
She held up the befouled, tattered garment. It smelled. It clumped around the knot where Rhys had tied its torn skirt. Mending would not fix that, nor would another dunking in the river ever get it clean.
She had looked like a fool in it, a poor woman displaying herself in her better's rags. But it had been all she had to wear, and now she had nothing.
She needed to purchase a new garment. It would take one of her precious shillings, and she would get little more than another rag in the bargain.
That frustrated her so much that she gritted her teeth to contain it. The shillings were not for this. She did not slave in the heat merely to feed and clothe herself. She scrimped and worked for a purpose, for a dream. Only the dream stayed forever that, out of reach, no matter how she struggled to realize it, because the need to survive kept thwarting her.
A dreamer and a fool. Rhys's words echoed in her ears, and some of the anger returned, mixing with the frustration. She blinked back tears of resentment.
It was not foolish to dream of justice. And somehow, someday, she would make the dream real, for herself and Mark. She would find the money, enough to hire a cham pion to fight for her. She would send a brave knight to avenge the worst of it, and maybe even to give them back the lives that had been stolen from them.
She would make it right, or she would die trying.
She threw a
side the towel. Turning the gown, she low ered it to step in. The firelight flickered over a few stitches of embroidery.
She stopped and stared. The fight went out of her, and a profound sadness took its place.
The tiny stitches grew and melted as her vision blurred. She had seen that decoration perfectly worked along the shoulders in a shimmering vine of ivy. The gown had been so beautiful in its unique dove color. So marvelously im practical, as befitted a wedding gown.
Now it was filthy and ragged, like the life it symbolized. Only a stroke of perverse luck had brought it with her from the marches. She had been wearing it on the night that she had left because a man's lust and vanity had turned his humor cruel.
This gown, Joan. I want you to wear this one tonight. And you will come to my bed. You will come in this gown, and remove it while I watch, and then you will kneel naked at my feet and beg for my favor.
She heard the words again, as if they whispered in her ears. Heard them and lived them. Her breath shortened, as if a gripping fist squeezed the air from her. Tears blinded her.
Her mind grasped desperately for the life-giving dream that was all that kept her strong.
A movement broke through the sickening memory. A presence loomed beside her.
Rhys stood there, holding a long bed linen. His gaze slid down her nakedness, then up to her face. Concern en tered his blue eyes, not anger or lust.
He draped the linen around her. His arms circled her shoulders until the cloth wrapped her. They rested on her a moment, like a tentative offer of comfort. Strong arms. If she sank against them she would never fall.
He stepped away and gestured to the grey rag hanging from her hand. “You can not wear that. It is no longer fit for more than wrapping your crockery.”
“It will do for a day or two, until I purchase another.”
“You can not sleep in it. We will see what we can do with it on the morrow.”
She shook it out, and made to step in. “Nay. I will—”
“You will not. Nor will you try to walk home as you thought to try.”
“My brother…”
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