He crushed her to him. He couldn’t help it. He had to feel her in his arms, to reassure himself that she was there and that she would always be there. With him, by his side, until death did they part. It was strange, but he was driven by the oddest compulsion to hold her... just hold her.
He wanted her, of course. He always wanted her. But more than that, he wanted to hold her. To smell her, to feel her.
He was, he realized, comforted by her presence. They didn’t need to talk. They didn’t even need to touch (although he wasn’t about to let go just then). Simply put, he was a happier man—and quite possibly a better man—when she was near.
He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent, smelling...
Smelling...
He drew back. “Would you care for a bath?”
Her face turned an instant scarlet. “Oh, no,” she moaned, the words muffled into the hand she’d clapped over her mouth. “It was so filthy in jail, and I was forced to sleep on the ground, and—”
“Don’t tell me any more,” he said.
“But—”
“Please.” If he heard more he might have to kill someone. As long as there had been no permanent damage, he didn’t want to know the details.
“I think,” he said, the first hint of a smile tugging at the left corner of his mouth, “that you should take a bath.”
“Right.” She nodded as she rose to her feet. “I’ll go straight to your mother’s—”
“Here.”
“Here?”
The smile spread to the right corner of his mouth. “Here.”
“But we told your mother—”
“That you’d be home by nine.”
“I think she said seven.”
“Did she? Funny, I heard nine.”
“Benedict...”
He took her hand and pulled her toward the door. “Seven sounds an awful lot like nine.”
“Benedict...”
“Actually, it sounds even more like eleven.”
“Benedict!”
He deposited her right by the door. “Stay here.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t move a muscle,” he said, touching his fingertip to her nose.
Sophie watched helplessly as he slipped out into the hall, only to return two minutes later. “Where did you go?” she asked.
‘To order a bath.”
“But—”
His eyes grew very, very wicked. “For two.”
She gulped.
He leaned forward. “They happened to have water heating already.”
“They did?”
He nodded. “It’ll only take a few minutes to fill the tub.”
She glanced toward the front door. “It’s nearly seven.”
“But I’m allowed to keep you until twelve.”
“Benedict!”
He pulled her close. “You want to stay.”
“I never said that.”
“You don’t have to. If you really disagreed with me, you’d have something more to say than, ‘Benedict’!”
She had to smile; he did that good an imitation of her voice.
His mouth curved into a devilish grin. “Am I wrong?”
She looked away, but she knew her lips were twitching.
“I thought not,” he murmured. He motioned with his head toward the stairs. “Come with me.”
She went.
* * *
To Sophie’s great surprise, Benedict vacated the room while she undressed for her bath. She held her breath as she pulled her dress over her head. He was right; she did smell rank.
The maid who had drawn the bath had scented it with oil and a sudsy soap that left bubbles floating on the surface.
Once Sophie had shed all of her clothing, she dipped her toe into the steaming water. The rest of her soon followed.
Heaven. It was hard to believe it had only been two days since she’d had a bath. One night in jail made it feel more like a year.
Sophie tried to clear her mind and enjoy the hedonism of the moment, but it was difficult to enjoy with the anticipation growing within her veins. She knew when she’d decided to stay that Benedict planned on joining her. She could have refused; for all his wheedling and cajoling, he would have taken her back home to his mother’s.
But she had decided to stay. Somewhere between the sitting-room doorway and the base of the stairs she’d realized she wanted to stay. It had been such a long road to this moment, and she wasn’t quite ready to relinquish him, even if it would only be until the following morning, when he was sure to come by his mother’s for breakfast.
He would be here soon. And when he was ...
She shivered. Even in the steaming hot tub, she shivered. And then, as she was sinking deeper into the water, allowing it to rise above her shoulders and neck, even right up to her nose, she heard the click of the door opening.
Benedict. He was wearing a dark green dressing gown, tied with a sash at his waist. His feet were bare, as were his legs from the knees down.
“I hope you don’t mind if I have this destroyed,” he said, glancing down at her dress.
She smiled at him and shook her head. It wasn’t what she’d been expecting him to say, and she knew that he’d done it to set her at ease.
“I’ll send someone to fetch you another,” he said.
“Thank you.” She shifted slightly in the water to make room for him, but he surprised her by walking to her end of the tub.
“Lean forward,” he murmured.
She did, and sighed with pleasure as he began to wash her back.