The chambermaid returned, and Ruark submitted to her deft hands as she plied his beard with hot towels to free the dried mud. If this poor girl found him so repulsive, he thought, then the high lady, Shanna, could have seen nothing more than a beast. She must have felt herself in dire straits, indeed, to have submitted to his bargain.
Still, this was a pleasant interlude for Ruark, one he had enjoyed all too rarely in the past months, even if the girl was none too gentle in her haste to be done with him. However, his only injury was a tiny nick dealt on the last stroke of the razor when the girl, surveying her work, took full note of the face whereon she labored.
“Blimey, gov’na!” she gasped and suddenly asmile, wet the towel to press it upon the small cut. Her face reddened now before his amused gaze, and she became more than a trifle flustered. Pitney’s attention was drawn when she tipped the pan of water, spilling most of it in Ruark’s lap.
Ignoring the man’s discomfort, Pitney remarked casually, “You seem to upset the wench. She’s as flighty as a nesting sparrow.”
The chambermaid bobbed a quick curtsy. “Sorry, gov’na. ‘Twas naught ’e did. ‘Twas me own doin’.”
Snatching the towel from Ruark’s shoulders, she began to dab at his lap before he caught her wrists and firmly set her from him.
“Never mind,” he bade her dryly. “I’ll do that.”
The girl could hardly keep her eyes from that wide, lean, muscular expanse of naked chest as she gathered her razor and strap.
“Trim his hair while ye have the shears, girl,” Pitney ordered and shrugged away the angry glance Ruark shot him.
The maid grinned widely and bobbed another birdlike curtsy. “Aye, gov’na. Be glad to, sir.”
For her strange behavior, Pitney gave the girl a frown of bemusement. Shaking his head, he muttered something to himself and presented his backside to the warmth of the fire while he sipped his ale in a leisurely fashion.
The maid puttered about Ruark’s hair with a new zeal as if she would cut every strand the same length, and by no means was it a thin batch. Pausing often to present a small looking glass so that he might approve her efforts, she held the mirror before her, managing to press it between her breasts with amazing results. The girl grew petulant with his lack of interest, and it was with obvious reluctance that she accepted his assurances that he wished no assistance in his bath. Eventually she gathered her shears and tools into her apron and left.
Ruark lost no time in stripping his smelly breeches away and settled himself into the bath, giving a long sigh of appreciation. He scrubbed thoroughly several times with a strong soap to remove the filth and vermin of the gaol, lathering the pungent suds into his hair as well. He was anxious to be on his way and toweled himself briskly before donning the dark stockings and breeches. But he paused long enough to note the close fit of the latter. Perhaps Shanna Trahern had noticed more of him than he realized, he mused with a rueful grin. He had certainly been aware of her.
Discarding the scented powder that had been made available, he combed his black hair into a bagwig at the nape of his neck and brushed it smooth before the looking glass. Standing in front of his image, he donned the cream shirt with its ruffles of lace about the cuffs, attached the lacy jabot, and then slipped into the silk waistcoat that matched the narrow breeches. He put on the brown velvet coat that was lavishly embellished with gold threads twining an ornate way around the wide cuffs and down the front. The leather of the brown shoes was softly buffed and adorned with gold filigree buckles on the high tongues. A tricorn of velvet, embroidered with gold, completed the outfit.
In all, Ruark surmised as he critically surveyed himself in the standing mirror, Shanna had spared no expense to have him garbed as a man of title. Over the shoulder of his reflection, Ruark caught Pitney’s eyes as the man regarded him. Pitney reviewed the changed appearance of his charge and managed a bleak smile.
“I think me mistress will be pleasantly surprised.” He finished his ale in a gulp and consulted his timepiece. “We’d best be on our way.”
It was a small country church, in summer ivy-twined, but with the crisp chill of the approaching winter, the vines clung dark and brittle against the gray stone of its walls. The drizzle had ceased, and bright shafts of sunlight pierced the broken clouds, setting the crystal panes of the rectory windows aglitter with shifting shards of color.
Shanna stood bathed in light coming through an oriel. Her face, as she gazed out upon the rolling fields, held the smile of one confident of her goals in life. She had arrived early at the church, in a hired coach, for her carriage had to carry Pitney to the inn, more than an hour’s ride away, and there remain while he journeyed by another hired coach to London and back again with Ruark Beauchamp. But the Reverend and Mrs. Jacobs had been warm and hospitable, and Shanna had managed to endure the wait.