The Earl's Keeper

Nineteen - Easily

William called out for them to enter, and the maids bustled in with a tub and hot water for the bath.

Once it was made, they left promptly. Mia groaned inwardly. There was nothing more she wanted than to dive into those steamy waters and wash away the filthy feel of that wretched man from off her body. Her mind could still remember what it felt like to have his emaciated fingers dragging down her skin, trying to feel her most intimate parts. It was enough to make bile rise in her throat, and want to puke.

"For you," William indicated toward the very thing that she had been thinking about.

He watched how she perked up instantly. He could only imagine how she would want to wash away the dirt of her vile encounter. Truth be told, he wanted her body cleansed of the trauma she had been through. The images of the attacker and his wandering hands was enough to reignite his anger and make him rethink his modest beating. The bloody bastard ought to be hanged!

William grabbed a clean shirt and breeches, intending to change elsewhere to give her some privacy. Mia cleared her throat and gained his attention. She stood up and her face was hidden from him as she turned it away to face the steaming tub.

"I would require your assistance, my lord." She stated it quite clearly and the words had his whole body ablaze and tingling with a pins and needle sensation, in anticipation. "My stays?"

William was glad she couldn't see his face right now. For he had to pick his jaw up off the floor from where it had dropped. He felt like a pubescent boy once more, upon his first time seeing a chit undress, from terrorising the local female population alongside his rakish brother George. The two had quite the ferocious competition on who could get one up on the other. A milk maid today was a viscounts daughter tomorrow, and so on until William suddenly found himself unexpectedly wed. Perhaps to the most stunning and vixen-like seductresses of them all.

She certainly knew how to get a man excited, that was for sure. He slung his clean clothes over his shoulder and approached her. From what he could see of the side of her face, a slight dusting of rose pink across her cheekbones indicated at her emotions. William knew she could just as easily have called for her maid, Nancy. But the fact she did not, made him all the more curious - and excited. She wanted him to be the one to help her.

Mia forced herself to breathe normally as she heard the soft approach of his footsteps. She shed her overcoat and dress, tossed aside to the bed. Her skin prickled when she felt William's fingers fumble at the top of her stays.

With more practiced hands than she had expected, he began to untie her corset. Ah, but of course he knows his way around a woman's clothes, she smirked at the incomprehensible sense of jealousy that stabbed at her. If he thought their little moment back there had altered their relationship, he was sorely wrong. For all the things he had said and done against her, she was determined to punish him, slowly. And what better way than with her body. The very thing that he seemed to burn for. The attraction betwixt them was undeniable. That much she could admit. The physical need they experienced was evident in the taste of their tongues that lingered with the others flavour.

The only difference was, Mia had some semblance of control. It was always he who initiated the first move. Her pride would not allow her to do it, not yet. He would suffer and then she'd think about forgiving him. He was his father's son, after all. It was petty as it was foolish. But Mia was a woman of principle, and her principles lay with doing whatever harebrained idea entered that pretty noggin of hers. This had been the current forerunner ever since they had become married, and she a neglected trophy wife.