“Awwww… not you, too, Mistress Belle? I’m fine, see?” He pushed back from her and held his arms away from his body, letting her inspect him. “Not even cold, I bundled up so good.”
She gave him one more hug, thanking all the gods that he was safe, before he squirmed away and ran to Fain. The big man swung him up into the air and then set him gently on his feet again, never betraying the worry he must have felt.
“I’m glad you’re all right, lad, but no more jaunts into the woods on your own. Not until you’re older.”
Billy nodded and handed a pouch to Fain, then turned and dashed for the kitchens. “Bet the Shapherds have some cider waitin’!”
The crowd of men dispersed as Fain made his way to Vivi. She stayed crouched on the stone, trying to recover from the onslaught of emotions.
“I believe this is for you.” Fain held out the pouch of yellow flowers.
“I can’t take it. It’s only luck that my thoughtlessness didn’t get him killed.” She looked at him forlornly. “I am so very, very sorry, Fain.”
He gazed down at her a moment, and then tossed the pouch onto her lap.
“Take it then. Let it remind you. After all,” he walked away, leaving her on her knees, “Billy worked hard to bring it to you. Don’t let it go to waste.”
Chapter Fifteen
Vivienne wished she could wash away her turmoil as easily as she was going to wash away the grime on her skin. Her stomach was still clenched in knots over what might have happened to Billy, and she felt miserable every time she thought of her conversation with Fain. He didn’t trust her, wouldn’t trust her, and was even less likely to trust her now that she’d put Billy in such danger.
She wanted to go home. In the courts of Albion she knew all the dangers. She knew the games the nobility played, and she excelled at them. Here she knew nothing of any use, and every time she thought she was gaining ground she lost her footing. It was heart wrenching, and Vivi was so homesick she almost cried. But she didn’t. She refused to. Instead she tried to focus on the small pleasures.
Like the fact that she was finally going to be clean.
Marlplot had been her escort all evening; apparently Fain was following her advice to keep her under constant supervision. John had been happy enough to help her fill the hip bath in her room with steaming hot water. While they were waiting for the water to heat, they fetched a bar of the newly ready soap, and he even gave her a pile of laundered clothes and told her to pick out a few more shirts and breeches.
“Why, John! Thank you so much.”
“It’s nothing, Mistress Belle, just some of my older clothes. They don’t fit me no more.”
“Still, I’m grateful. This shirt is getting… unspeakable.” She grimaced at herself, and Marlplot chortled.
“I just wish it were a dress, Mistress.”
“Not to worry, John, you’re so large it will likely hang to my knees. We’ll call it the latest style in ladies’ fashion and dare anyone to contradict us.” He smiled again, and Vivienne was pleased. It was nice to make someone happy.
Finally everything was ready, and he left her alone in her room, assuring her he’d be right outside. Vivi wasn’t sure how Fain had phrased his instructions, but Marlplot wasn’t acting much like a jailer. It almost cheered her, thinking he might trust her more than he claimed, but then again, perhaps Marlplot had misunderstood Fain’s intentions.
Carefully, she worked the breeches down her legs until she could kick them free. It had taken her forever to work out how to get them on and off one handed, but since she refused to allow any of the men to accompany her to the jakes, she’d had to manage. The shirt was trickier. She’d had no occasion to remove it since Fain had helped her into it. Undoing the laces seemed a good place to begin, and after that she held the left cuff in her teeth while she pulled her arm free. Then it was a relatively simple matter to pull the shirt over her head and gently work it down over the bandages on her right arm.
At last, she sprinkled a judicious handful of the dearly bought witch hazel on the water, and stepped into the tub. She’d left the water well below the edge, wanting to make sure that as she settled in she wouldn’t slosh and wet her right arm, but even with barely enough water to cover her hips it was still heavenly. After one luxurious sigh, she took up the soap and began scrubbing weeks of grime off her body. She had just begun to lather the bottoms of her feet when she heard a knock on the door.
“Mistress? It’s time for me to go now, my turn is over.” Marlplot’s voice was muted by the heavy wood. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, John, and thank you again.” She tuned out the sound of men talking. No doubt Marlplot was bringing his replacement up to speed. With her toes as clean as she could make them, it seemed like the time had come to attempt her hair. The tub was so small she had to lever her legs out the far end in order to lower her head and dunk it under the water. She bobbed up and down several times, hampered by her need to keep her right arm dry, and then started to sit up, wiping the water from her face.
Just then the door opened, and Vivi heard MacTíre’s voice, sounding irritated.
“I would have sworn I told Marlplot not to leave your—” He stopped, making a strangled sound. Then he bolted back through the door, closing it behind him.
“MacTíre?” There was no answer. “Fain? Are you still out there?” Still, nothing. “Fain MacTíre, if I have to get out of this tub and go find a guard so that I am being properly monitored I am going to be very upset with you.”
The door opened a crack.
“Belle,” he sounded pained, “you have got to stop showing such casual disregard for your state of dress. I promise, no one will think less of you if you display a proper sense of modesty.”
“I am perfectly modest! It is not my fault that people undress me in my sleep, or walk in on me while I am bathing! You could have knocked, you oaf.”
“I did knock. When you didn’t answer, I worried you might have snuck out the window and gone to poison the well.”
“I am not poisoning anything. My head was under the water. I’m trying to get my hair clean.”
“That’s going to be difficult, lass. You have a plentiful bounty of hair, and only one good arm.”
“I am aware of that, thank you. Would you care to ride to the next hamlet and ask one of the local village wives if she’d like to take a cold winter’s trip on the back of your horse, for the express purpose of helping me wash my hair?”
“I shudder at the thought.”
“Precisely. So, unless you want to lend a hand—” the door opened and Vivi squawked. “I was not serious! Take yourself out of here at once, you… you…” She trailed off. Fain was carefully holding one hand clamped firmly across his eyes. “If I was really an assassin it would be terribly easy to attack you now.”
“If you can get out of that tub with a broken arm and without making any noise, you’re not an assassin, you’re a fairy. Where’s your towel?”
“I haven’t got one. I was planning on drying in front of the fire.”
“Well, that won’t do.” He was dryly amused. “I’ll get your bedsheet.” Vivienne giggled as he stumbled across her room, finally fetching up against the bed and pulling the rough sheet free. Then he made his way to the side of the tub.
“Stop! You’re going to trail it through the water.” She carefully reached out her good hand for the cloth. “I’ve got it. Now turn around.”
“I can’t see anything.”
“You might be peeking.”
He laughed and put his second hand over his eyes as well. “Better?”
“Not really.” She scrambled out of the bath, making, indeed, a great deal of noise, and wrapped the sheet around herself with as much speed as she could manage. “There. I suppose I’m covered, if not precisely decent.”
Fain first cracked his fingers, peering out cautiously, and then shut them again. “Best dry yourself with that one, and then try wrapping up i
n the other sheet.”
“Why?”
“That one is wet.”
“So?”
“Look down, Belle; I’m sure my point will be made clear.”
Down she looked. Ah. Several things were, in fact, exceedingly clear. Namely, every curve she had. The sheet was plastered to her, and didn’t conceal much, wet as it was.
“Perhaps you’re right. Give me another moment.”
Fain shifted restlessly while Belle dried herself and bundled up again. He’d been startled to find her bathing, but that was all; the tub concealed most of her body. His last glimpse of her, though, draped in the damp, clinging sheet, had jolted him. He didn’t seem to have any resistance to her at all. First he kissed her in the stables, now he was standing around waiting to help her groom her hair. If this kept up he’d be spilling all his secrets, regardless of who she was. He needed to get a handle on himself.
“All right, you can open your eyes, now.”
She was seated in front of the fire, swathed in the second sheet from her ankles up to her arm pits. Her damp hair was streaming rivulets of bathwater down her back, and she was trying unsuccessfully to gather it up in one hand without letting the sheet fall to her waist.
“Here, let me.” He twisted the heavy strands together and held them up. “Go back over to the bath and lean over.”
She stood, looking at him dubiously. “You’re not really going to wash my hair, are you?”
“Are you going to wait five weeks until those bandages come off?”
“On second thought, I think you make a lovely body servant. Let’s go.” She knelt gingerly next to the tub and leaned forward. “Proceed.”
“Actually, I’m not sure how to proceed.”
“What?”
“Well, I haven’t exactly ever washed a lady’s hair, now, have I?”
She sighed. “There’s a mug on the mantel. You can use it to pour water over my head.”
In short order he was cautiously wetting her hair, while trying to keep her neck and shoulders as dry as possible. “And how do you recommend soaping this excessive mass of hair?”
“Don’t you wash your own hair?” Her voice was acidic. “It isn’t as though mine is so vastly different. Except, of course, for being longer, prettier, and superior in every way.”
“So, you want me to pour vinegar all over your head?”
“What?!” She started to sit up, and water streamed down her back. Hastily she bent back over. “You pour vinegar on your head?”
“It’s easy to come by and does the job. You smell odd until it dries, though.”
“You aren’t joking, are you?”
“Not at all. I seem to recall they have some lovely liquid soaps they use in the city, but out here we make do with what we have.”
“You people are barbarians.”
Together they came up with a solution. Fain put some of the soap in the mug with a small amount of warm water, and frothed it until the soap dissolved. Then he poured it carefully into the black locks.
“Hold still, I’m going to rub it in.”
He started at the base of her neck, gliding his fingers up to the hairline. Belle pillowed her forehead on her one good hand and leaned against the tub, relaxing under his hands. With the tip of each finger he made tiny circles all over her head, working the soap into a heavy lather. When a large dollop of suds rolled down her face he gently wiped it off with the back of one finger. As he went back to massaging her head, Belle gave a little sigh of contentment.
One of the tiny yellow flowers had lodged itself in her tresses, and he plucked it out and offered it to her. Her eyes locked on the tiny flower and she spoke quietly.
“He’s really all right?”
“He’s fine, Belle. A little full of himself, after his adventure, if you must know.”
“I never meant anything to happen to him.”
“I believe you.” He felt her go utterly still beneath his hands.
“You do?”
“In this, at least.” She waited. “I don’t think you’d ever hurt Billy. Not by design, at any rate.” He let his voice take on a teasing note. “What you’d do through sheer stupidity is another thing altogether.”
“Well, I suppose that’s something.” Her voice was dry, but he sensed the relief beneath it.
“Time to rinse.”
Mug after mug of water went down over the glistening strands. When he thought the soap must all be gone, Fain wrung as much water as he could from her hair, and then grabbed the discarded, wet sheet.
“All right, sit up, slowly.” He wrapped her head, and then helped her to her feet and over to the fire. Once she sat down she smiled at him, and then closed her eyes with a look of bliss.
“I am perfectly content, right at this moment. Perhaps I’ll just sleep here in front of the fire.”
“I doubt you’d be as happy when you woke in the night with the fire out and a wet, cold sheet on your head.”
“You have a point. Of course, now you’re going to have to escort me to get dry sheets.”
“Hmmm…”
“Also more firewood, since you’ve pointed out that I don’t have enough for the rest of the night.”
“Anything else?”
“I think it would be lovely if you could manage to find me a hairbrush, somewhere.”
“A hairbrush…”
“No wait, don’t tell me. You use a curry comb from the stables, don’t you?”
Fain didn’t stop to think. He moved on impulse instead, grabbing the woolen blanket from the bed and wrapping Belle up in it before carrying her out the door.
“What are you doing? Why do you have this obsession with carrying me places? Where are we going?”
“You said you wanted a hairbrush.”
“So?”
“We’re going to find one.”
“While I’m wrapped in a sheet?”
“If you got dressed now you’d just soak your shirt.”
“Still, this seems highly indecorous.”
“You wanted a hairbrush, Belle, now stop complaining.”
“Fine. But this better not be another impromptu trip to the stables, MacTíre.”
It turned out that Fain was taking her to his bedroom.
At first Vivienne gaped at him, hardly believing his gall, but when he’d deposited her on his bed and begun rummaging among his personal belongings she found her tongue.
“Of all the… I thought I made myself clear, earlier!”
“How so?”
“You seem to be under the impression that I am just here for the taking, and I assure you, that is not the case! I am not to be kissed in the stables, or oggled in my tub, or taken to your bed, without my express consent! Your nerve is unbelieva—”
“I didn’t bring you here for any nefarious purpose, Belle.”
“What?” Vivienne deflated. Of course, she didn’t want him presuming on her. But he didn’t have any nefarious purposes? At all? Was the man made of stone ? Here she was, practically naked, back in his bed, and he wasn’t… Of all the nerve!
“I’m your guard for the evening, and while I was planning on sleeping on a pallet in front of your fire, now that you have no sheets, it seemed expedient to just bring you here, instead.”
“Oh.” Her voice sounded oddly flat in her ears. How very practical he sounded. Totally logical. Completely unconcerned. How irritating.
“Besides, I may be one of the few men in this castle to actually have a comb. I mean, besides the ones we use on our horses.” He smiled at her, a broad, infectious grin that made her stomach flutter. Drat the man! Why did he make her feel this way?
She sniffed. “You could have told me where we were going, and why.”
“But then I would have missed out on one of the adorable fits you like to throw.” He smiled again, and her stomach didn’t just flutter, it took wing and soared away. What was going on? She eyed him suspiciously.
“You’re being very nice to me.”
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“What can I say? I have taken a temporary leave of my senses. Now, come sit in the chair and let me comb out your hair so it can dry. I don’t want you making my pillows wet.”
Vivienne did as she was bid, but she refused to hurry. First she rose gracefully to her feet, and took a moment to straighten the folds of the sheet as if it were a ball gown. Then she tucked it securely in on itself, so she could use her good arm to gather up the heavy wool blanket off the bed. Finally she minced across the floor, lowering herself with regal elegance into the waiting chair and draping the blanket across her lap like a throw of the finest cashmere.
“I’m ready. Try not to pull it out by the roots.”
“If I snatch your hair out, it won’t be by accident.”
His voice was acerbic, but his hands were gentle, and he sectioned her hair with patient fingers. Vivienne had last combed her hair out in the inn where she abandoned Wallace, and now it was a snarled mess. She’d half expected Fain to declare that it would have to be cut, but instead he picked up the comb and started working through the end of one section, gradually making his way towards the roots.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“Combed a lady’s hair? Oh, yes.”
“Was it… your wife?” Vivi was hesitant. Fain hadn’t mentioned a wife, but then, why would he? He thought she was a spy. All of a sudden her insides seemed as much a snarled mess as her hair, but Fain laughed and her stomach unclenched.
“No, I’m not married. My father’s ward, my foster-sister, had wretchedly long hair. Once, when she was five or six, her nurse threatened to cut it, and she came to me, crying her eyes out. I must have spent three hours or more untangling it.”
“That was nice of you.”
He chuckled. “I hadn’t really thought ahead. From then on, whenever she tangled her hair she would come to me and demand I fix it. It got terribly embarrassing as we got older. One of my friends started calling me Lady Lovely Locks.” Vivienne giggled. “Laugh if you want to, but be warned, eventually I held him down and shaved all his hair off to make him stop.” She choked off her titters and spoke with mock sobriety.
Once Upon a Romance 02 - As The Last Petal Falls Page 12