He laughed.

“Needless to say,” she added, laughing herself, “Seline adored the ridiculous story. Mr. Landry, too.”

“Never let it be said that Mark Landry doesn’t have a taste for the brazen.”

“Likely why he and my sister are such a match,” she replied. “You’ve bought horses from him, I imagine.”

“That, and we share a club.”

“I find it difficult to believe that Landry is welcome in White’s,” she said dryly. “I’ve never heard him speak a sentence that didn’t include something shocking.”

“It’s not White’s,” King said. “We frequent the same gaming hell.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “I’ve never thought much about gaming hells.”

“You’d like it there,” he said. “Filled with gossip and scandal and not entirely safe from gunfire.”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t be welcome, I’m sure. As we’ve established, I don’t know enough about gossip to hold my own.” There was a pause before she said, “Which returns us to, why do you return to Lyne Castle?”

Levity disappeared from the room with her question, and for a long moment he did not answer, not wishing to lose the moment. It was gone nonetheless. “My father is dying.”

She stopped moving in the bath. Silence stretched around them, heavy and deafening. “Oh,” she said again. “I am sorry.”

He straightened at the honesty in the words. “I’m not.”

Why was it so easy to tell her the truth?

She was silent for long minutes, the water quiet around her. “You’re not?”

“No. My father is a bastard.”

“And you return home anyway?”

He considered the words and the question in them, and then thought of his father, the man who had ruined his future all those years ago. Who had taken the one thing King had wanted and destroyed it. Who had made King’s entire life about reciprocating—destroying the only thing the duke had wanted.

Later, he would not understand why he told her. “He summoned me. And I have something to tell him.”

More silence. And finally a soft “I am through.”

Thank God.

He did not turn as she lifted herself up in the tub, not even as he heard the water slosh around her when she returned to the bath with a little squeak. Not when it happened a second time. He amassed tremendous amounts of credit for his gentlemanly decorum.

Instead, he asked, “Is there a problem?”

“No,” she said, and the sound repeated itself.

He risked a look over his shoulder.

Mistake.

He could see only her head over the lip of the deep copper tub, but if her cheeks were any indication, she was clean and pink and perfect.

“Don’t look!” she cried.

“What is the problem?”

“I . . .” She hesitated. “I can’t get out.”

What did that mean? “Why not?”

“It’s too slippery,” she said, the words despondent. “And my shoulder—I can’t put pressure on my arm.”

Of course. Surely he was being punished by the universe.

He turned, already shucking his coat.

“Don’t turn around!” she cried, sinking below the lip of the tub.

He ignored the words and walked toward her, frustration manifesting itself as irritation as he rolled up his shirtsleeves. “I assure you, my lady, I don’t wish to help any more than you wish to be helped.”

It was true, if slightly disingenuous.

She peeked over the rim of the bathtub. “Well. You needn’t be rude.”

Another man might have felt a pang of remorse at the fact she took the words as an insult and not as self-preservation.

Though her hands were placed in critical positions to hide her most inappropriate parts, it did not have the intended effect. Indeed, it drew his attention to the long, errant strand of her hair that curved, dark and tempting, down her shoulder to tease at the water, and made him desire, quite thoroughly, to move it. And replace it with his lips.

This was madness.

King kept his gaze on her face—he had to, in order to retain his sanity. “I’m going to lift you out.”

Her eyes went wide. “But I am—”

“I am quite aware of your situation, my lady.” Perhaps if he used the honorific, he wouldn’t be so inclined to join her in the damn tub.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to drop you on your head. If you want eyes closed, I suggest you close yours.”

Before she could argue, he leaned down and lifted her, water pouring off her, soaking his shirtfront and trousers on its way to the puddle on the floor of the room.

She squeaked as he raised her, and she did close her eyes, her hands moving to clutch his shoulders and steady her imbalance. It was a natural reaction to being hauled about, King had no doubt, but it was a mistake, nevertheless, as with her hands at his shoulders, the rest of her lacked cover.

The soft, pink rest of her.

He wasn’t looking at her face anymore.

She opened her eyes and noticed, her already pink skin turning close to crimson. “Put me down!” He did, as though she were aflame, and she immediately wrapped herself in a towel. “You said you wouldn’t look!”

“No,” King said, “I said I didn’t wish to look.”

She stalked away from him, putting herself on the other side of the bed. Clearly unthinkingly, as the memory of her flushed skin in combination with a bed did not exactly dissuade him from his thoughts.