The Ugly Duchess

Page 57

And there he was. He was bigger—all over. Surely he wasn’t that big seven years ago. No.
She pulled her gaze away. “I thought you were in control of your lust,” she said accusingly. The very sight of him had her on her toes, ready to bolt to the other room. There was a key in the library door. There—
But his gaze was still tranquil, impassive. “I am.”
“Then why?” She nodded sharply toward his groin.
“Oh this?” He gave himself a careless pat. “Don’t you remember this?”
“I do. And it should be . . . it should be down.”
“Down?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you remember me ever being down?”
Theo scowled at him. “Perhaps not. But I’m sure that it’s supposed to be down.”
“Not mine,” he said, giving himself another pat. “I’m up all the time.” He had already turned away from her and was walking back toward the bathing chamber.
She stared after him, utterly nonplussed. His buttocks were the same honey brown as his arms. How was that possible? She remembered distinctly that his bottom had been pearly white. Now it was more defined, and a different color. As if he’d been in the sun without clothing. Curiosity drove her after him.
James was pumping hot water into the bathtub for the third time and testing the temperature with his finger. “How did you say that you like the water?”
“Not too warm,” she said cautiously. Really, his body was so strange. Any one of those wounds could have killed him if he’d caught an infection.
“Were your wounds ever infected?” she asked.
“A couple,” he said, not turning around. A chill crept down her back. She knew infection. She lost one of her scullery maids when the girl cut her finger. One of the ceramics workers died after accidentally burning himself.
“You could have died,” she stated. And then, because she needed to get his attention and make him understand, she walked over to stand beside him. She was a tall woman, but next to James, she felt small. Almost delicate, which was a joke because no one could ever call her delicate.
He straightened up and smiled down at her. Smiling made the poppy under his eye shift slightly, as if it were a real flower stirred by a light breeze. “I suppose I could have, but I didn’t. I seem to have the constitution of an ox. How’s the water?”
She leaned over and put in a finger. It was perfect.
“May I take your sheet, Your Grace?”
She looked again, suspiciously, at his tool. It was straight upright, the way it always was, if he was to be believed. And when she looked back into his face, he gazed back at her limpidly, with an expression that seemed almost bored.
“All right,” she muttered.
Everyone knew that men were compulsively lustful. A man couldn’t avoid a surge of desire if he merely glimpsed a woman’s breasts.
Though perhaps if the woman’s breasts were very small . . . if the woman was lean and had no curves . . .
Theo sighed and dropped her sheet. She refused to be humiliated by her own appearance anymore. She had learned that if she pretended to be a swan, she could fool the majority.
Though perhaps not without clothing.
Without further ado, she removed her drawers, stepped into the bathtub, and sat herself down. Before she asked, a huge male hand held out a bar of soap.
It was the vervaine that she used in every bath, and she took it. But just as she was about to start soaping, he took it away again.
Startled, Theo looked up. James was much closer to her than she had thought, kneeling beside the bathtub. “You needn’t,” she began.
But he said, “How else will you see how calm and unaffected I am? There’s no reason to be afraid of me, Daisy. I’m in perfect control.”
Theo swallowed. It didn’t feel like the best thing in the world to learn how very unaffected her husband was by the sight, not to mention the shape, of her body. But that was life, wasn’t it?
At least she wouldn’t have to do those freakishly odd things he had asked of her back when he was attracted to her. Back before he met dusky island maidens with curves like one of Titian’s women.
“All right,” she said. She stole another glance between his legs. Goodness, his tool was large. And red. It looked painful to her, so rigid that it seemed like to burst. But presumably that was just the way it was for a man.
She automatically held out her arm, because Amélie bathed her upper body (though not her breasts, of course), and then, while Amélie washed her hair, Theo washed her lower parts herself.
James was quite methodical while washing her arms. It felt good to be touched. Since her mother died, no one had touched her for any reason, except Amélie.
After all, she was a countess. People didn’t hug a countess, or do more than touch her gloved hand in the briefest of kisses. She missed . . .
Well, she missed simple touches.
So she let her head fall forward and didn’t talk, just enjoyed a touch that seemed so undemanding and yet so pleasurable. It was all right to enjoy James’s touch, whereas it was pathetic to be comforted by Amélie’s. She paid Amélie.
He soaped up one arm and across her shoulders. “Compared to yours, my back is terribly skinny,” she said, feeling a little awkward. “You have so much muscle there.”
“I suppose.”
“Does your throat hurt, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“It sounded so rough just now. As if it hurt. So I’m glad it doesn’t,” she added quickly.
His hands were so large that they spanned her entire back, and his soapy fingers made her feel exquisitely sensitive, as if every touch left a little kiss in its wake. She never felt this with Amélie, thank goodness.
She bent forward slightly, hunching so that he wouldn’t realize that her nipples were hard. He truly wasn’t affected by her nakedness; he was breathing just as regularly as he was before.
That was one thing she remembered quite clearly from their bed play together. When he was aroused, his breath came fast and his chest heaved. His eyes had been bright like fire, and his fingers had trembled. She glanced down. He was soaping her left wrist with hands as steady as they could be. A little sigh escaped her.
That was life.
If she’d learned anything since the day her life fell apart, it was that her life didn’t fall apart. One can survive a missing husband, and a dead mother, and being known throughout the British Isles as ugly. It was all survivable.
Difficult and demoralizing, but endurable.
“Your leg, please,” James said. His voice still sounded painfully hoarse, but she wasn’t going to mention it again.
Amélie never touched her below the waist, but Theo straightened one leg and put her ankle in his hand anyway. After all, her legs were her best feature: slender, with lovely round kneecaps and delicately curved ankles. It was a stupid thing to hold onto, but when one doesn’t have much to celebrate in the way of physical attributes, ankles matter.
James began soaping one rather slowly. He’d told her once that she had beautiful ankles.
“I like my ankles,” she said, wanting him to notice again. He drew a finger down the sole of her foot and made her squeal. It was very playful.