Page 31

" 'Tis time to get you cleaned up, it is. Madame doesn't like her lads soiled."

"Her lads?"

"Aye. You've just met two of them."

He tried not to let his brows shoot into his hairline. After all, he was worldly, he reminded himself. "And what exactly do her lads do?"

"Oh, some of this and some of that," she said and paced a bit closer.

" 'Tis said you're exceptionally good at such things.

I was thinking, in fact, that I might get a wee taste—ach!

But here comes the water already." A "lad" entered, carrying a bucket the size of Manchester.

"You've always been a bit quick on the draw haven't you, Boots? "

The dark-haired man grinned. "The better for a second go," he said and emptied his bucket into the tub.

The fair-haired fellow followed on his heels, and in a moment the copper basin steamed at him from the far corner.

The lads disappeared with a grin for Polly and a happy, conspiratorial sort of nod that made Gilmour feel a bit queasy.

What the hell sort of situation had Isobel gotten him into?

"Well then..." Polly stood with arms akimbo, smiling broadly. She could, it seemed, smile while talking. "Out with you."

"What's that?"

Dropping her fists from her hips she paced toward him. "Get out of bed now and into the bath."

There had been a time, he realized, when he had thought he had seen a bit of the world. He had, it seemed, been as innocent as a swaddled babe. "I fear me legs don't work."

"Your legs don't... ach!" she exclaimed. "Liddie was after you was she not? Here then, the lads will carry—"

Lads! Nude!

"Nay!" The word escaped a bit faster than he had planned, but the thought of those two burly brutes lifting him naked into the tub was just a bit more than he could stomach just now. "I think I can manage."

"There's me scrappy lad."

The scrappy lad's legs cooperated quite nicely, actually. Apparently whatever Liddie had given him had worn off while leaving his legs intact. A soothing thought. But it was quite difficult, he noticed, to wrangle the linen about his hips as he shimmied toward the tub.

Polly took his arm, as if he was a decrepit old man who might lose his course on the way to the garderrobe, but in a moment they had reached their destination. She smiled and tugged at the linen.

"Here now," she chirped, happy as a green finch in spring. "There's no need for this now, is there?"

He wanted to argue, but he couldn't think of a reasonable excuse for dragging the linen in with him like a bairn with a favored blanket. It came away in her pale, dimpled hands.

"Ack!" Her eyebrows rose. "How nice. I was wondering why Madame called you More."

"What—"

"Into the tub with you."

It was, perhaps, the most embarrassing moment in his life to step into the water. His balls brushed the cool metal. The water steamed against his knees.

"There, now. Isn't that better? Just relax."

Relax?

"Here." Folding a huge loose woven cloth, she propped it behind his head. "Lie back, love. Little Polly ain't going to eat you up."

He leaned back with frank misgivings and rolled his eyes toward her.

"Let me think now. Where did I put that soap? Oh yes!" she exclaimed and dipped her hand into her bodice. "There it be."

He truly hadn't thought there would be room between her bosoms for so much as a hound's tail hair. But there you go. Wrong again.

"What needs washing first?" she asked and eyed him up before tsking. "Them poor ribs of yours. Whatever happened?"

"It seems there are those who do not care for the MacGowan clan."

"Jealous, were they?" she asked and laughed. "They must of seen you in the altogether aye?"

Again he tried to verbalize thoughts, but she bent to soak a rag in the water, which caused her bosom to pop out of her bodice. His eyeballs popped as well.

"Oops," she said and shaking her shoulders, settled them back into place.

"If I may ask a question," he ventured.

"Certainly," she agreed and wrapped the wet rag across his face.

He spoke through the only opening. "What manner of place is this?"

"This?"

He didn't bother to respond.

"This is Delshutt Manor. Madame's summer home."

"And Madame is..."

"Relax now. There's a good lad. I'm going to give you a shave. We don't want them nasty whiskers burning any tender flesh, do we now?"

She uncovered his face and lifting an oddly shaped bottle from a nearby trunk, poured out a few droplets of oil.

Its scent, pungent and strangely sweet, filled the moist air.

He breathed in and, despite everything, found himself relaxing.

It was then that he realized she had produced a blade from somewhere.

He stiffened as memories stormed back. Talk of castration tends to make one jumpy.

"Madam is Lord Fulton's widow. Before that she was wed to Sir Ludlow of Huxcliff and Lord de la Font."

"At the same time?" He eyed the blade as it drew nearer.

Polly giggled. The razor wobbled. "You're a wry one, ain't you, laddie?

" she said and scraped the blade across his cheek, over his jaw and down his throat.

He dared not swallow. Indeed, he may have stopped breathing.

"Nay, o' course, not at the same time. The church frowns on that sort of thing, don't it now.

Still..." She straightened and as she did so, her bosom pressed intimately against the back of his head.

"Madame does what pleases her. But..." She drew out the word as she leaned over him to finish his right cheek and draw the blade down his left. "She's as generous as they come."

"Generous?"

"With her staff. We be more like family than—ach, now I'm dripping," she said, and sidling to the right, leaned over the tub to gather a droplet of oil from his chest onto her fingertip.

With the cooper pressed against the underside of her bosoms, they swelled up like raised dough, pale and swollen and fragrant with the soap that had somehow been hidden between them.

"Well now..." Her face was very close to his.

"What needs me ministrations the most?" she asked and taking the soap from its place by the tub, ran a foamy track down his chest. "Very nice," she murmured, and dipped her hand beneath the water. It slid downward. He tensed.

"Polly!"

She jumped. He jumped. They turned in unison. Isobel stood in the doorway, dressed in a borrowed nightrail that billowed about her fragile frame. Only her pale, narrow feet were visible beneath the embroidered hem.

"Polly." Her voice had softened. " 'Tis so good to see you."

"Isobella!" The plump woman straightened with a smile, her arm wet past the elbow, suds dripping from her plump fingertips. "I was terrible worried for you. You've had yourself a time of it."

"Aye." Her gaze skittered to Gilmour and away. "Aye. But I am safe now."

Polly nodded happily and reached out to distractedly lather Gilmour's shoulder. " 'Tis glad I am to hear it."

"Aye!" The word was a little sharp.

"Were you in need of somemat afore you find your bed, Isobella?"

"Nay, I..." Her hands fidgeted. "Well, in truth, Lady Madelaine has asked me to fetch you."

"Madame? But 'twas she who set me to this task."

"Aye well..." Bel paused for a moment and licked her lips. "I suspect she found something more pressing."

"More pressing than this?" Polly asked and laughed. "I have me doubts. She wanted the lad bathed right quick. In any event I'll be finished here in a hop," she added and leaned forward to slip the soap merrily down Gilmour's chest again.

All eyes followed its descent.

"Polly!"

"Aye?" The soap stopped just below the water surface.

" 'Tis quite urgent, I believe."

For the first time in Mour's short acquaintance with her, Polly frowned. "Are you certain?"

"Aye." Isoble stood as straight as the king's royal guard. "Quite certain."