The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(56)

“W-what are you d-doing?”

“What you suggested.” He finished pulling the shirt over his head and threw it on top of the others. “Taking a bath. Would be a shame to waste the water.”

She sucked in her breath, taking in every inch of his naked chest. His muscles tensed of their own accord, a natural reaction to being the recipient of so much study. Staring was putting it mildly. Gorging was better. And despite his anger, he felt himself warming under the heat of so much feminine appreciation.

Who in Hades was he kidding? It wasn’t feminine appreciation, it was her appreciation. He’d never wanted to flex and strut around like some damned peacock in his life.

Only when he started with the ties to his chausses did she tear her eyes away. The delicate flush that had pinkened her cheeks drew pale.

“With me here?” She gaped. “You can’t.”

“I assure you I can. And you are going to help me.”

“What do you mean, ‘help you’?”

“I would have thought you would be familiar with the tradition for the lady of the castle to wash her important guests.”

“That’s an outdated tradition. No one does that anymore.”

His eyes held hers. “We here in Scotland are a little backwards, as I’m sure your brother has told you.”

She didn’t protest any further, because by that time he was down to his braies. And with one quick pull of the ties, those were gone as well, and he was standing naked before her.

She went completely still. Except for her eyes, which were definitely moving. Aye, he was acutely aware of the slow travel of her gaze lowering. It was almost as if her eyes were touching him—stroking him—singeing a trail of fire on his skin, down his chest, over every band of stomach muscle, to the narrow path of dark hair that led to…

Her eyes widened as she took him in. All of him. It took some time.

Red palm prints of color stained her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. The latent sensuality of her gaze, the unabashed maidenly curiosity, filled him with heat. He started to swell and thicken but sank into the cool bath before he’d come to a complete rise.

The tub was just big enough for him to be able to dunk his head. He came back up, hair slicked back, already feeling better. Sitting back, he slung his arms over the edge of the tub like a sultan from Outremer and glanced at her. She seemed to be frozen in place, staring at him as if she couldn’t believe what he’d just done and didn’t know whether she should look or turn away. She looked, and seemed particularly fascinated with the rivulets of water streaming down his upper arms and chest.

The cool water wasn’t enough to stop him from hardening. If he weren’t so angry, he might have debated the wisdom of pressing this further. But he was still angry—enough to play with fire.

He quirked a brow. “Well? Are you going to fetch the soap? There’s a cloth for washing in the trunk.” His eyes scanned her clothes. Bloody hell, he’d have to be more careful if he didn’t want her to discover his role in the Highland Guard. “Which you must already know.”

She hesitated, and he could see her indecision.

He’d never expected her to do it. He thought she’d refuse and tell him to go to hell.

He should have known better. She was a Clifford. She had more stubborn pride than sense and would not back down from a challenge. Bloody hell, how could the things he hated in her brother make him admire her?

Teeth clamped and eyes narrowed with determination, she stomped over to the trunk to fetch the cloth, and then over to the table where she’d left the soap. She knelt beside the tub, plunged her hand into the water (too damned close to a part of him that was aching for attention) to dampen the cloth, and after a vigorous rub of the soap, proceeded to attack his skin with an equally vigorous scrub. His chest suddenly felt like the rocks the laundress would beat the laundry against.

She started to scrub his arm. “These markings won’t come off.”

“It’s a tattoo.” One that he probably should have tried to hide.

“Of a Lion Rampant, and…” She drew closer, examining it with far too fine a comb. “Is that a spiderweb? And what does Confido mean?”

“‘I trust.’ It’s a reference to my clan’s loyalty to the Scottish cause. It’s engraved on my sword as well.”

“So these are references to your clan?”

So to speak. The Highland Guard were his brothers. The Rampant Lion and spiderweb “torque” around his arm were the mark that bound them together. It was originally intended as a means of identification were the need ever to arise (as it might have when Arthur “Ranger” Campbell was sent to spy in the English camp), but the knowledge of the mark had unfortunately fallen into enemy hands with the death of William Gordon. He hoped to hell she never mentioned it to her brother.

“Aye.” Not wanting any more questions, he added, “You’re stalling.”

Realizing she was staring, her cheeks heated, and she resumed her scrubbing. There was nothing sensual in her touch, nothing erotic, but still it affected him. Hell, “affected” was putting it mildly. Just the idea of her hands on him was driving him mad. It wasn’t the first time a woman had bathed him, but it was the first time he’d ever been so painfully aware of it.

Think of England, he told himself. He laid his head back, closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate on everything he hated about the enemy he’d been fighting for almost half his life. Their overreaching kings, their pompous superiority, their chivalric hypocrisy, their treachery, their damned irritating accents…