He could see Lady Alice’s expression in the candlelit vanity mirror on the far side of the room as she came to attention when the chills slowly diminished. He knelt behind her, his injured knee stiff and aching, but his hands where they had always wanted to be: on the lovely rosy tipped globes of her breasts as they floated in the water, an adolescent boy’s bobbing apple dream. He watched as she glanced down through golden brown lashes then up toward the mirror where she could see the shadowy planes of his face rising above her silvery gold curls, and he saw her delicately quirking eyebrows as she comically tried to decide whether or not to chastise him. He could feel in his fingers, his wrists, his arms, when she gave in to the gentle pressure and sank back against him. “Do not get used to this,” she whispered shakily as she drifted to sleep against his warm damp chest.

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