Of Silk and Steam by Bec McMaster Read Free Book Online

person who ever touched her like this was her maid in the sanctity of her bedchamber, a place where no one wanted to kill her or hurt her, dethrone her or judge her.
    The corset gaped open suddenly and she caught it against her breasts, still holding onto her hair with one hand.
    “I shall fetch you some blud-wein,” he said, looking up then and finding her eyes on him in the mirror. Startled eyes, she couldn’t help but think before she narrowed them.
    His own were liquid darkness. Unfathomable. As were his actions.
    Mina watched him leave, each step owning the space around him. Far too comfortable in his own skin—comfortable too in this situation, as though he thought he had mastery of it. Leaving her laces undone and her corset sagging, her heart beating just a little too swiftly for comfort.
    What the devil was his game here? It felt uncomfortably as though neither of them were Casavian nor Caine at this moment—not enemies but simply two people who found an attraction in each other.
    And she’d be a fool if she thought that. She waited, listening to the silence in the room, but there were no answers to the question. He had demanded a kiss from her and more, but he seemed disinclined to take either boon.
    And the bath was cooling.
    Practicality forced her to examine her options. She had no dry clothes, and no doubt there would be men looking for her, men well equipped to remove her, should the process prove necessary. If she were a Falcon, her first instinct would be to surround her prey’s house and wait. People always returned home, seeking what they perceived was safety.
    But they wouldn’t be looking here, would they? Nobody would ever suspect her erstwhile rescuer to be Leo Barrons, not with the feud between their families. She would be invisible here, and the threat he cast toward her could be…managed, if nothing else.
    Wriggling out of her undergarments, she let them fall to the cold tiles and stepped into her bath. Home was no longer safe for the moment, and there was nothing she could do to fix the situation tonight. She needed to think, to find some way to outwit the prince consort, and her first instinct—to run or hide—was hardly suitable.
    Scalding water slid over her body as Mina sank into the bath, teeth gritted. Sensible thoughts fragmented, bubbles clinging to the smooth slope of her breasts while her skin turned a pleasant pink. “Oh, goodness,” she whispered, sinking farther into the water and leaning her head back against the rim of the claw-footed bath. This was surely divine.
    It hurt for a long time, until the heat began to soak into her bones, warming her from within. Mina washed the stink of the canal from her hair, then added more hot water, her foot resting on the rim of the bath and her fingers idly twirling the pearls at her throat.
    It was no surprise when the door opened and Barrons returned. She swung cattish eyes on him and stayed silent, not bothering to sink any farther beneath the bubbles that covered her. Let him play his little games; she had her own in place and wouldn’t need long to divine his intentions.
    Men were so predictable. The thought steeled her will. Barrons was just another man, after all, and she’d been using her feminine wiles to wage war for years.
    He’d changed into dry clothes—a black shirt that seemed to absorb all of the darkness in the room and black suspenders riding hard over broad shoulders. At some point he’d rolled the shirtsleeves up, leaving his forearms bare. She’d never seen him in anything other than court clothes. These more informal clothes made him look a little more ruffled, more sensual.
    His hair had grown longer in the month since he’d left for Saint Petersburg, and he’d tied it up now with a thin piece of velvet. It highlighted the stark line of his cheekbones and a lower lip that was slightly fuller than it ought to be. She wanted to drag that ribbon from his hair and run her hands through the gilt-colored