“Well, what happened? What did you do?” In his absence, she’d turned his office—his sanctuary and place of business—into a laundry. She’d even gone so far as to hang sheets on a line of kitchen twine in a square around the stove, assuming they’d dry faster that way. Her voice drifted to him from inside the square of sheets.
“I paid my account in full and informed Mrs. Jeffers we won’t be doing business with her in the future. Oh, and I told her I thought you were right about the Satin Slipper.”
Tessa laughed. “What about the look on her face?”
“You were right about that, too.” David chuckled. “It was worth it.”
He heard a splash of water. She was obviously doing more laundry. “You did get the supplies first?”
“No.” David leaned against the edge of his desk.
“Oh, David…” Tessa nearly wailed her dismay.
“What’s the matter?”
“You canceled your account without getting our supplies? That wasn’t very smart. I thought you knew better.”
“Did you want me to ignore what happened and forgo the pleasure of seeing Margaret’s face?” David asked.
Tessa shrugged her shoulders. “To be honest, I’d thought you’d go back and demand the supplies,” she told him.
“It was a matter of principle.”
“But at least we’d have food on the table and tea to drink and soap for bathing. This is the last of it.”
David heard another splash of water and saw, for the first time, the shadowy outline of Tessa’s body behind the sheets as she stepped out of the tub. “You’re bathing?” He dropped the brief. The pages fluttered to the floor, adding to the general disarray.
She sounded a little breathless. “What did you think I was doing?”
David swallowed hard, watching the shadows as Tessa patted herself dry. “I thought you were doing your laundry.” David said the first thing that popped into his mind.
“I finished it. Just the uh…unmentionables. Besides, it’s Saturday,” she concluded as if that explained everything.
“What does Saturday have to do with anything?” Her logic bewildered him.
“I always take a bath on Saturday night. What’s the point of putting clean clothes on a dirty body?”
He watched through the translucent screen in fascination as she bent at the waist to wrap a length of toweling around her hair. She probably thought she was in complete privacy, but he couldn’t look away. He hunted for an excuse to stay in the room. “Have you mentioned your theory to Coalie?” David’s voice was low, thick with emotion. He edged aside one corner of her petticoat and rested more of his weight against the desk. “He doesn’t seem to subscribe to your view of cleanliness.”
“He’s a little boy,” Tessa answered. “I’ve never known one who did.” She straightened, lifting her arms to balance the makeshift turban.
David sucked in his breath, then shifted his weight from one leg to the other to accommodate the sudden swelling in his groin. The outline of her perfectly shaped breasts was silhouetted on the sheet. He shifted again, stood up, and began to pace the small space left to him.
“Is Coalie with you?” she asked.
“No, I sent him on an errand.” He didn’t elaborate, distracted as he was by her veiled movements.
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “I thought I might talk him into using the tub while the water’s warm.” Tessa pushed at a sheet and stepped out. She wore her flannel nightgown. It was damp in places where it clung to her skin. David noticed immediately.
The air seemed to thicken around them. Modestly covered, she should have been completely at ease, but she wasn’t. And neither, Tessa saw, was David. The unmentionables scattered about the room advertised in dainty white letters that she was naked underneath the night rail.
At a loss for words, Tessa struggled to find something to ease the tension. “Would you like it?”
“What?” David was engrossed in the damp white patch marking the valley between her breasts.
“The bathwater,” she explained, releasing her wet hair from the towel. “It’s still warm.”
So was he. And the thought of washing himself in her bathwater did nothing to cool him down. As he spoke, visions of the two of them sharing a bath clouded his brain. “I assumed you’d bathe in your room.” He cleared his throat. “Or even the storeroom.”