Burning for Love (Kindred Tales)

“No, please!” Rissa exclaimed. She had always dreaded the scrubbing part of her nightly bath with Lady Mildew. Mostly because her old chaperone had always insisted on using the stiffest scrubbing brush possible—the blue one with the metal-tipped bristles that left her pale brown skin red and raw afterwards.

“So you’d rather be dirty?” Lady Mildew demanded, glaring at her.

“No indeed, but it is no longer your job to scrub me, Lady Mildew,” Rissa said quickly. She looked at James. “If you please, Sir James, the scrubbing brushes are in the second drawer under the sink,” she told him.

He nodded silently and went to rummage in the drawer for a moment. When he returned, Rissa was delighted to see that he had one of the softer brushes in his big hand—the pink one with a long handle.

“Hold out your arm, please, Princess,” he said, kneeling beside the tub. “So I can scrub you.”

“What’s that brush you’re using?” Lady Mildew demanded. “That won’t get her clean! She needs the blue one—that’s the one I always use on her!”

James frowned.

“The one with metal-tipped bristles? I would never use something like that on Princess Ka’rissa’s skin. It’s much too rough—it might hurt her.”

“She needs to be hurt a bit, in order to get her clean,” Lady Mildew protested. “She’s a very dirty girl, you know—she needs a good, solid scrubbing.”

“She doesn’t look all that dirty to me,” James said firmly. “And I refuse to use an instrument on her that might wound her. Princess, please hold out your hand,” he said, looking at Rissa.

Shyly—she had been crossing her arms over her chest to cover herself—Rissa sat up and held out a hand to him. James took it in his own and began stroking the scrub brush up and down her arm, gently but firmly.

Rissa sighed in pleasure at the pleasant sensation. The bristles produced their own sweet-smelling foam and cleaned her without abrading her skin. Lady Mildew said no more but looked on with a sour expression as James washed Rissa’s other arm and then her legs and back and torso—though he carefully avoided her points. The older woman didn’t object again until James nodded and sat back.

“There, Princess—I believe you’re clean,” he told Rissa.

“She is not!” Lady Mildew exclaimed. “You haven’t washed betwixt her legs, yet! That part is the dirtiest of all!”

James frowned.

“I don’t believe I should scrub that area with a brush—even one without metal-tipped bristles. I don’t want to injure the Princess.”

“You have to scrub her there to get her clean!” Lady Mildew insisted. “And if it hurts her, so much the better! That’ll keep her from trying to reach between her legs like the nasty, dirty girl she is!”

“Lady Mildew!” Rissa was horrified and humiliated at the same time. “I have never—”

“Oh, yes you did! Or why did I have to use the Chastity Wire on you in the first place?” Lady Mildew demanded.

“I was only ten years old!” Rissa exclaimed. “I…I didn’t know any better! And anyway, I can’t—not with the Chastity Wire in the way—and you know it!” Suddenly, years of anger boiled up inside her. “I think you only scrubbed me so hard all those years because you liked hurting me!” she blurted, before she could stop herself.

“How dare you speak that way to me, you nasty little worm?” Lady Mildew’s faded blue eyes flashed warningly. “I ought to leave right now without putting your Chastity Wire back in place. Let’s see how long your reputation remains unstained if word gets around the Court that you’ve got a man dressing and undressing you—not to mention bathing you, naked in the tub—and no Chastity Wire to keep him from doing what he shouldn’t!”

“I have told you, James is a cyborg!” Rissa exclaimed. She hated fighting with her old chaperone like this! Lady Mildew usually just grumbled and groused—she hadn’t seen the other woman this stirred up in years. She must really be angry about her loss of status, since she was no longer Rissa’s Constant Companion and chaperone.

“I don’t care what he is, he’s got man parts betwixt his legs and he’s up to no good!” Lady Mildew declared.

She got up as though to leave, and Rissa realized there was a disaster in the making. If word got out to the Court—to the person who wrote Lady TittleTattle’s Breadcrumbs—that her new male Companion was bathing her and undressing her and there was no Chastity Wire involved, her reputation would be ruined beyond repair, no matter what the Steward said!

“Please, Lady Mildew, don’t go,” she said quickly, clasping her hands under her chin. “I…I didn’t mean what I said and I shouldn’t have said it. Please, I beg you!”

Her words seemed to calm her old chaperone somewhat, for Lady Mildew sat back down on the chair beside the tub and frowned warningly at Rissa.