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He scowled at that and did as he was told Watching her undress would have been the highest for Sophie Talbot Turning his back was best

Except it wasn’t

It was sheer torture

He sensed his an to re over skin, the quickening of her breath as she navigated her wound, the little, nearly inaudible sound she made as she must have moved her arm in an uncomfortable way

"Do you require assistance?" he asked, the words harsh in the quiet room

She was silent for a moment before the soft reply came "No"

He cleared his throat "Be careful of your arm"

"I have been"

Past tense Christ Her shoulders were bare

The ht came, he heard proof of it, the hiss of fabric as she pushed it over her hips, the sound rhyth the

He clenched his fists and leaned against the wall, his ihtly faster, but not nearly as fast as his Not nearly as fast as his heart was beating

Not nearly as fast as other parts of him throbbed

And then he heard the scrape of the wooden bath stool against the floor as she positioned it, and the soft pad of her feet as she clih, as though she sank into pure, unadulterated pleasure

This was, by far, one of the worst nights of his life

It took all his power not to turn around Not to go to her Not to stare into that dath of her, flushed and pink froaze

Christ

He did not want her

But he did

She was to be married

To a bumpkin called Robbie

Where the hell had sheto marry someone in Cumbria? He shoved his hands in his pockets He didn’t care

She was plain and proper and uninteresting

Liar

And then she began to wash herself, and he resisted roaring his frustration at the sound of water against her skin, against the bathtub, sloshing and sluicing as she cleaned herself He ie of the tub as wet cloth slid down perfect, pale skin Her head tipped back as she washed her neck and chest, her handssloith infinite pleasure, across her body, above and then below the water, over curves and valleys, down, down, until the cloth disappeared and it was nothing but her hand, those long fingers dipping into ?"

He nearly leapt from his skin at the words

He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and somehow found words "It’s my na?"

He exhaled, not wishing to prolong her bath "Kingscote"

"Ah," she said, and was quiet for a long ant naance"

"I was on the grounds of Lyne Castle once" The reminder of his childhood home was unwelcome He did not reply, but she spoke anyway "The duke opened them to visitors for some reason There was a labyrinth there" He could hear the s himself "My sisters and I spent half the day lost inside--I found the heart of it and spent an hour or two reading at the center They never found me"