door to the bathing room opened, and Rhys FitzHugh stepped through, a surprised look upon his handsome face as his gaze swept the chamber. “You have a room just for bathing?” he said, astounded.
“Don’t you?” she asked him.
“Nay,” he said. “We have an oak tub, or we bathe in the stream near the house.”
“And yet you English infer that we Welsh are barbarians,” Averil murmured.
“Not all Welsh houses have such rooms,” he defended himself.
“Perhaps not, my lord, but this is how I have been raised. Please sit down on that stool now so I may remove your boots and clothing,” Averil told him, sounding far braver than she actually was.
He obeyed, and she quickly pulled the muddy, well-worn boots from his feet. Her little nose wrinkling with disdain, she unrolled his foot coverings and dropped them onto the floor. Indicating that he should now stand she began to remove his garments. First his cotte, a calf-length tunic from which she shook the dust and laid carefully aside on a chair back. Beneath it he wore a chemise. It was laced up the front. Averil’s slender fingers undid it quickly. For a moment she stopped. Beneath the open chemise his chest was broad and smooth, devoid of hair. When she took the garment from him he would be quite naked. She considered how to remove the chemise.
Making the decision for her, Rhys FitzHugh took Averil’s two small hands and held them to his chest for a moment. “I think, wife, we must now become acquainted with one another,” he said in a quiet voice. “Let your dainty hands explore, Averil. There is no wrong in it, and it would give me pleasure.”
Averil felt her cheeks suffused with warmth. “My lord.” Her voice was a whisper. “I am a virgin.” She could not look at him.
Rhys FitzHugh tipped her face up so that their eyes finally met. “I know that,” he said softly. Then, dipping his head, he brushed her lips with his just briefly.
Her little mouth made an “O” of surprise, and she gasped.
He smiled. “You have never been kissed,” he said.
“Of course not!” The tone of her reply was indignant. “I was meant to be wife to a great lord, Rhys FitzHugh. I could not go to a great family with my honor besmirched.”
“Then I am fortunate to be the recipient of your chastity,” he replied dryly.
“Yes, you are!” she said indignantly. “And I am rewarded for my good behavior by being wed to a manor bailiff with naught to his name but a stone cottage! What in the name of Holy Mary made you steal me away other than you thought I was my father’s heiress?” she demanded of him.
“I needed a wife,” he said, “and my father told me before he died that a rich wife was a sight better than a poor wife.”
“Then you have been cheated, too,” she responded.
“Nay, I have not. You may not be your da’s heiress, Averil, but you are well-propertied for a lass born on the wrong side of the blanket. And, you are extravagantly beautiful. You will be desired by many who see you, including some who are great lords, but you are my wife, and I know your own sense of honor will not allow you to betray me or the FitzHugh name. My father did give me his name, you know, and our children will be true born.” He smiled down on her. “I like the feel of your hands on me, wife.”
Averil blushed furiously once again. Rhys FitzHugh was a most infuriating man, she thought. She drew his chemise from him, saying as she did, “Get into the tub, my lord, before the water grows cold.” Her eyes were everywhere but on him, now.
He could not refrain from chuckling. “Aren’t you getting into the tub with me?” he asked her mischievously, his eyebrows waggling wickedly at her.
“I can wash you quite well without getting into the tub,” she said sharply.
“You can, but you won’t,” he told her. “I am your husband. I want you in that great stone tub with me.” Then, before she might protest further, he picked her up in his brawny arms, mounted the two steps, and climbed into the tub.
Averil shrieked with her surprise. “Put me down!” she cried to him.
He complied, gently dumping her into the hot water with a grin. “I would be well washed, wife,” he said.
Averil grabbed a scrubbing brush, and whacked him smartly on his dark head. “Why, so you shall, my lord husband!” she told him. She dipped her hand into the stone soap crock, and slapped the runny soap on his hair. “I won’t bother picking the nits today,” she said. “A good soaping should rid you of them.” She had stepped up on the tub’s little stool that sat beneath the hot water. Her fingers dug fiercely into his big head as she scrubbed his dark—and she was noticing—somewhat curly hair.
“Ouch! You shrew!” he yelped. “You will take my scalp off!”
“Your hair is filthy. Close your eyes!” She dipped a large scoop of water and dumped it over his head. Then she added more soap and began to scrub again.
“I’ll smell like a field of flowers when you get through,” he protested. “The bees won’t be able to restrain themselves from me.”
“A clean head will be a great improvement for you,” she snapped. She began dipping water again, and rinsed his dark head until there was no more evidence of soap.
“God’s mercy,” he said, “but you have sweet little titties, wife.”
“What?” Her cheeks grew hot again as she raised startled eyes to his face.
“The way your sheer little chemisette clings to them is quite provocative, Averil,” he murmured, moving nearer.
She looked down, and gasped with her shock. Standing on the stool so she might wash his hair put her but waist deep in the water. The soft fabric of her garment clung to her flesh, molding it in a very sensual manner. Not only her breasts, but her torso as well.
Her pale skin grew beet red with embarrassment.
“Take it off,” he said in a low, hard voice.
“What?” She could not have heard him correctly.
“Remove your chemisette, or I will rip it from you, Averil,” he told her. “I want to see you as you were made.”
“It isn’t right!” she cried low.
“I am your husband,” he told her, his voice gentler now. Jesu! The sight of her beneath that wet fabric had roused him mightily. He had forgotten for a moment that she was so innocent despite the unorthodox household in which she had been raised. Merin Pendragon might keep a wife and two concubines, but Rhys FitzHugh had seen no evidence of licentiousness in his house.
“We may be naked for one another?” she questioned him.
“We may, and while your chemisette needed laundering, Averil, I would see you without it.”
Averil slipped down into the water, and then drew the garment from her person, wringing it out and tossing it onto the bathing room’s stone floor. “I must continue bathing
