Free An Unmistakable Rogue by Annette Blair Page B

Besides, unlike the rest of us, you had no opportunity to bathe today.”
    Chastity was less embarrassed over sitting naked in a tub he had prepared for her, than she was delighted by the decadent prospect—which caused a corresponding dart of self-reproach ... that she ignored. “Bother the guilt, I can hardly wait.”
    Reed grinned. “You can be private in here with the children upstairs. And me,” he added on a rush. “I’ll be up there, as well.” He searched the room with an anxious gaze, relief washing over him as he grasped the violet brocade like a lifeline. “I found this.” The unfolded length became a dressing gown, which he held before her, presumably to gauge its fit, and he whistled.
    “Not too matronly, I take it?”
    Reed groaned. “I have expunged the word from my vocabulary. I thought it would be perfect, I mean, you could wear it after.... He wadded it, thrust it her way, and turned to check the heating kettle.
    Chastity supposed it was best they remain uneasy in the intimacy of a candlelit setting. Their arrangement was no more than a temporary convenience, after all.
    Reed poured the last of the steaming water into the tub. “I secured the front door for tonight and will fix it properly tomorrow. Oh, I almost forgot.” He handed her a bar of soap.
    Chastity cupped the fine-milled satin-textured cake, brought it to her face, and inhaled. “It smells like a rose garden after a summer rain.”
    Reed stood as if lightening-struck. “I, ah, found it in the same trunk as the dressing gown.”
    “Thank you. I can think of nothing nicer than a bath in roses and rain.”

CHAPTER SIX

    Reed hit his thumb for the third time. “Damnation!” Anybody would think he had never held a hammer before. If he did not stop thinking of Chastity’s naked body covered in roses and rain, he would bludgeon himself to death.
    Balancing atop a less-than-sturdy ladder, he leaned against the broken door to cradle his throbbing thumb.
    “Damnation!” Luke exclaimed, working at ground level, directly below him.
    Reed looked down to watch the cussing child pound a ha’penny nail into the door, choose another and poise the hammer to strike again. “Damnation!” he repeated, before smacking the second a good one, and Reed had to swallow his grin. He damned near liked that boy.
    He was getting a good handle on this cussing business, which meant that Reed would not need a hammer to do himself harm, Chastity would do it for him, for teaching the children bad language.
    “Damnation!” Luke’s cussing was picking up speed and enthusiasm.
    “Luke, we have to stop using that word.”
    “Why?”
    That boy could really look innocent. Talk about deceiving. “Chastity will be angry.”
    “Why?”
    Reed’s frown deepened. “It’s considered vulgar.”
    “What’s vulgar mean?”
    “Bad, nasty, as in getting your behind warmed by a wooden spoon for saying it.”
    The child looked troubled. “But you say it.”
    Clever brat. “I know. I’ll stop saying it, as well.”
    “Cuz you don’t want Chastity to warm your behind?”
    Now there was a question. “We are both going to stop saying it, from now on, right?”
    Luke shrugged and went back to work. He pounded a nail, shook his head and looked back up. “Works better when I say somethin’ nasty. Makes me hit it harder, you know?”
    Here was one of the reasons children annoyed the hell out of him. “Then find another nasty word,” Reed all but shouted. “Just not that one.”
    Luke shrank at his anger. Damn.
    After a minute, the boy shrugged and picked up a nail.
    Reed was cross and he knew it. He had not slept for thinking of Chastity, soft and naked in a summer garden. It had been all he could do not to come down to see if she was wearing that violet silk dressing gown, the very shade of her incredible eyes, which would do incredible things to his body, if he saw her in it. Or out of it. Hah. Who was he kidding? Incredible things had happened to his body all