“I have.” She glanced over her shoulder and back into the bedroom.
He sauntered toward her. “Do you mind if I make myself a bit more presentable? Some ladies like a bit of sweat when I come to bed, but I feel as if you deserve a blank slate, a freshly clean Grant Webster.”
“As you wish.”
He entered the bedroom and dragged a hip bath from behind a large screen in the corner. He set it before the fire. “Rest there. I’ll return shortly.”
He left and returned with two pails of water filled full, which he poured into the bath. He did this again one more time, and then he looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“You can stay or leave for this, Freddy darling. It’s up to you. Are you voyeuristic?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. She did not think she’d like to watch just anyone undress and bathe. But Grant Webster doing so? That thought sent wild horses careening through her belly. “I think … I think I should like to watch.” Why shouldn’t she? She had decided to take a lover, and she would not do it in half measures.
She perched on the edge of his bed and watched him move with precision and dexterity to build a fire in the grate and stroke it to heights that singed her even across the room. He pulled large towels from a wardrobe and placed them around the tub then pulled the screen between her and the blazing bright and brightly erotic scene he built before her. Her own private matinee that stoked her own fires.
He ambled over to the bed and leaned a shoulder against the bedpost, looked down at her. “I’m going to let it warm up a bit. There’s a time and place for cold baths, but this, I feel, is not one of them.”
“You pay careful attention to bathing. All the little details.”
“Cleanliness is important to me. And I like to be comfortable. You know, there are several whip-smart fellows working on heated indoor plumbing.”
What a novel idea. What a delicious idea. “How marvelous.”
He nodded. “One of them approached me after a show. We had an ale together. Fascinating fellow. Invites me to dinner now and then with other whip-smart fellows. No idea what I’m doing there. Don’t fit, do I?”
“Whyever would you say that?”
He cocked a grin. “The whip-smart part. But I have other things they appreciate.”
She thought they likely appreciated his brain, too, but Grant denied to see that about himself.
“And what is that?” she asked.
“Blunt. I’ve funded many of their projects. Bought this house originally to help ’em out.”
“You own this townhouse?”
He nodded. “Not just the one. The row. Many call me landlord.”
“You make so much at Garrison’s, then?”
“I make more than the others,” he admitted. “It has been some time since I have felt the sting of poverty.”
She shook her head. “I do not understand then why Max has struggled so.”
“He does not make as much as I, but also, he has had many more setbacks than I have. The house to repair, the lands to fix, the mouths to feed. It is just me, myself, and I. So I can do as I please for the most part, take a risk, go without to make an investment.”
“Ah. I do try to not be a burden, but it is impossible sometimes.”
“Damn me, Freddy, I didn’t mean to suggest.” He bit off a harsher curse. “You are not a burden. Max could not have afforded a building like this even if he hadn’t had mouths to feed. I had a sort of … settlement that has made life easy for me.”
“What do you mean?”
He scratched the back of his neck, his cheeks flushing. “I’m a bit of a bastard,” he mumbled. “A rich man’s by-blow. My mother didn’t even want him to know I existed, but he found out, and when he offered her money to keep quiet—something she had planned to do anyway—she took it.” He shrugged. “Put it aside for me, said it was the only thing she’d ever want for me from him except for his genetics. He, apparently, was a pretty healthy sort of man.”
“Your father sounds like a—”
“Typical aristocrat? No offense to you, my lady.”