“I’ve never had wine in the tub.”

“It’ll help you to relax. I always enjoy a bit of scotch while bathing.”

“It seems rather decadent.”

“Exactly.”

She warmed at the low word that seemed filled with promise. Taking a sip of the wine, she positioned her arm so it rested on her breasts, providing them with a bit of cover from his wandering gaze. She didn’t think anything farther down in the tub could be seen too clearly, although it was silly to be modest now when he’d seen everything so very closely the night before.

Had it been only a night since her world had collapsed around her? Perhaps she was being unfair to believe she could recover so quickly.

She watched, mesmerized, as he dipped one of her soft linen cloths in the water at the far end of the tub. His muscles flexed as he squeezed out the excess dampness.

“We’ll start with your face.”

Gently he touched the linen to her forehead. “And where will you end?”

He grinned wickedly. “With your toes.”

Tenderly he skimmed the cloth around her face, along her nose, over her mouth, across her chin. Then he studied her as though he were to take an exam the following day and would be required to draw a likeness of her. “I see no evidence of him.”

She nibbled on her lower lip before taking another sip of the wine.

“You don’t have his chin,” he said quietly. “You look exactly like the woman in the photograph behind whose skirt you were hiding.”

Her smile was small, tentative. “My mum.”

He nodded. “You’re not as old, of course, but all the lines are the same.”

“I’ve been told on numerous occasions that I’m her spitting image.”

“Believe it.”

“But he had to have given me something.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Maybe it’s something deep within me, something that can’t be seen.”

“Your spleen perhaps.”

With a choked laugh, she looked at him, at the twinkle in his eyes, and felt the tiniest spark of joy.

“Definitely not your heart, sweeting.”

Although her heart was beginning to feel as though it wasn’t hers any longer, was beginning to feel as though it might belong to Matthew. He reached for the milled soap, settled it in the palm of his large hand, and dipped it in the water, avoiding her raised knee, avoiding touching any aspect of her. Then he was rubbing it over the cloth, saturating it with the fragrance wafting up as a result of his actions.

He seemed at once intrigued and awed. “So this is why you always smell like oranges.”

“That, and I have one every morning for breakfast. When I was little, I’d stick my finger in the pulp and dab it along my throat, like it was perfume.”

“Imitating your mother putting on perfume?”