Steel's Edge

Page 21

“Thank you, but I’m perfectly happy waiting.”
Richard stared at her. They were at an impasse.
“While I have your attention,” Charlotte said, “I’d appreciate it if in the future when you come up with a plan that makes a hardened criminal pause, you could at least give me the gist of it ahead of time. In broad strokes. While I don’t have your expertise in dealing with the criminal underground, I’m a woman of reasonable intelligence, and I react badly when surprised. I understand that you’re used to being the lone swordsman, but I promise you that I can be an asset at the planning stage and can assist you better if I know where you’re going. Use me as your, what’s the Broken expression? Sounding door?”
“Sounding board,” he said, his voice dry.
“Exactly.”
Richard’s face had a most curious expression. Two parts exasperation, one part shock, and three parts politeness so ingrained in him that it was keeping the rest of his emotions in check. “Will there be anything else, my lady?”
“Yes. It would bring me great pleasure if, when both of us are present during a conversation, you could occasionally acknowledge my presence and allow me to speak for myself instead of referring to me in the third person.”
Richard locked his jaw. She waited patiently to see if he would explode.
“The next time we have to talk to a violent psychopath, I’ll strive to keep that in mind,” he said.
The next time you don’t, I won’t stand there quietly. “Thank you for indulging me.”
“My pleasure.”
He bowed his head, managing to put enough exasperation into that bow to fuel a small ship for a voyage across the ocean. Very well. She curtsied. The effort of bending her legs nearly took her off her feet.
They straightened.
“We still have the question of the bathroom,” she said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver doubloon. “Heads or tails.”
“Heads.” She took the coin from his palm. “And I will do the tossing.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“You told me not to trust anyone. Besides, I’m not the one with a brother who magically wins bets.”
She flipped the coin and slapped it onto the back of her wrist.
“Tails.” Richard smiled. “I win. The bathroom is all yours, my lady.”
Accusing him of cheating wasn’t just illogical, it was silly. Charlotte took her stack of clothes and walked into the bathroom. The dog followed her.
“No,” she said firmly, and shut the door. A disappointed whine answered her.
Inside an Adrianglian-style drencher shower waited for her: a wide showerhead positioned directly above, over her head. Charlotte turned the handle and warm water cascaded down in a welcome waterfall. Charlotte stripped and stepped under the flow.
The water splashed over her in a cleansing stream. Her legs buckled a little. Her muscles ached all over, and the shower did nothing to wash the encroaching drowsiness from her. Charlotte washed her hair with detached thoroughness. It felt like someone else was driving her body. If she didn’t hurry, she would collapse before she reached the bed. She washed all the dirt off, wrapped a towel over her hair, dried herself with the larger towel, and picked up the first garment from the stack of clothes.
* * *
RICHARD heard a muffled word from the bathroom. His body was giving out from fatigue, and the bathroom door was relatively thick, but he was absolutely sure that Charlotte de Ney had just called someone a prick.
Considering her latest stand, he shouldn’t really be surprised. Their partnership was less than a day old, and he had already received a dressing-down. Your own damn fault, he congratulated himself. You took her with you.
The dog rose from his spot by the bathroom door, trotted over, and flopped by him with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. Big shaggy paws rose in the air, and he was presented with a canine chest.
“Really?”
The dog looked at him. Fine. Richard reached over and rubbed the fur. He couldn’t possibly smell any worse. The wolfripper dogs weren’t trained to kill humans, only to find them and keep them put. The slavers didn’t wish to unduly damage their merchandise. Aside from their size and their teeth, the wolfrippers were just dogs, and this shaggy idiot seemed starved for affection.
Richard scratched the dog’s belly. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought to tell her what he was planning. It was simply force of habit. He had been on his own for too long. Being chewed out for it, like he was a child who had committed a lapse in manners, however, wasn’t in his plans. She would have to get over it. Nor would he be obeying her orders. In fact, he would address it the moment she came out of the bathroom, to prevent future misunderstandings.
The door opened slowly.
“It appears our host has a sense of humor,” Charlotte said, and stepped out.
Her hair fell down over her back in a combed wet wave. She wore a flowing robe of pale pink that ended a few inches above her knees. The robe was completely, decadently sheer. He could see every curve of her body, from the elegant neck to the swell of her breasts, barely obscured by the folds of the fabric, to the supple bend of her waist and widening of her hips . . .
He was staring. All of his years as an adult male had vanished, wiped away as if they never existed, and he was a teenage boy again, awkward and dumbstruck. He gaped at her, unable to glance away, unable to make a sound, unable to do anything but stare.
He wanted her. She was an erotic dream.
This wasn’t real, he decided. He was still in a cage or lying by the road dying, and his feverish brain had conjured up a beautiful fantasy to taunt him one last time before he passed on into the afterlife.
A pale pink blush spread over Charlotte’s cheeks.
Look away, you fool.
Richard closed his mouth and forced himself to turn to the bed and pick up his own stack of clothes. “It appears you’re right. Jason does have a sense of humor. Let’s hope I don’t come out in a leather loincloth.”
He headed to the bathroom, forcing himself to look anywhere but at Charlotte as she crossed the room and climbed under the covers.
In the shower, he leaned against the wall, bracing himself with both arms, and let the water splash onto the back of his head and over his back, massaging his tired muscles. Richard closed his eyes and saw Charlotte in his mind. Get a grip. You’re the man she sprung from a cage, covered in filth, piss, and blood. She took pity on him and healed him. She had no idea that it was more kindness than he had seen from a woman in years. For her it was merely common charity.
She was a beautiful, refined woman. A man would have to be dead not to respond to her. He had come so close to death, and now his body was rejoicing in the fact he’d survived. Acting on it was out of the question. She trusted him, and he wouldn’t break that trust. Even if she opened that door, which she would not, Charlotte had just suffered an emotional catastrophe. Only a lowlife would take advantage of that, and he wouldn’t be the mistake she regretted first thing in the morning.
Richard shut his mind off, soaped up the sponge, and scrubbed himself until he could detect no odors other then the crisp, spicy scent of soap. The shower was almost more effort than he could take. As he stood under the water, he briefly considered simply sitting down on the floor and not getting up. But he was pretty sure she would come looking for him, and being found naked slumped on the shower floor would be truly disastrous.
Jason had left that outfit on purpose. The man was smart and perceptive. He would’ve read their body language, deduced that they were traveling together but weren’t intimate, and taken this opportunity to taunt him. If Richard was keeping score, this one would go to Jason Parris, but he wasn’t interested in side battles.
His clothes turned out to be plain Weird attire: simple dark gray underwear, a tunic, and brown cotton pants. It would do until he could acquire new ones. He exited the bathroom. Charlotte lay on her side, hidden under a sheet. Her eyes were half-closed, and he wasn’t sure if she was asleep or watching him through the curtain of her soft eyelashes.
Richard took his sword from where he’d left it, by the door, and sank down against the door, crossing his legs, his blade resting against his shoulder. Generations of his ancestors had slept just like this, and some of them had woken up with their blades in their attackers. If Jason had a moment of insanity and decided to disrupt their rest, he would join them.
“Richard,” Charlotte said.
“Yes?”
“Are you worried we may not survive the night?”
There was no point in lying. “I prefer to be cautious.”
“Would you like a blanket and a pillow?”
He would’ve liked to join her in bed. And what would you do if you did? You’re so tired, you can’t see straight. “No, thank you. I’m used to sleeping like this. It gives me comfort.”
She stirred on the bed. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For guarding the door, and for taking me with you.”
There were many questions he wanted to ask her. He wanted to know where she was from, why she had run away to the Edge, and how her ex-husband had hurt her, but the fatigue smothered him. Richard closed his eyes and surrendered to sleep.
FIVE
WHEN Charlotte awoke, sunlight was spilling through the windows into the room, the delicate and pale radiance of the late morning coloring the light yellow bedding a faint peach.
Richard stood by the door, with his bare back to her. He’d changed into dark trousers and was holding a white shirt. Muscle corded his back, hard and powerful, bulging under bronzed skin, as if he had absorbed the sun’s warmth and now was suffused with it. He was built like a predator, lean, strong, fast, and perfectly balanced. Frightening in his potential for violence yet irresistibly compelling. She wanted to run her hand up his back, tracing the contours of the muscle underneath. It was a completely sensual desire, a physical need free of rational thought. He was so different from her, so very masculine, and she wanted to reach for him.