From under heavy lids, she studied his face; his expression was deeply calm, like the surface of a fathomless pool. Calm was usually her province, but in the fright and flurry of the evening, she'd misplaced her inherent serenity. She'd lost her calm-but he'd found his. Or, she silently amended, could show his. He wasn't wearing any mask, any social cloak-this was as he was. The warrior who was most at home on the battlefield, in the heart of the fury-that was where he was most at ease. Where he was calmest.

Opening her weary senses, she closed her eyes and shamelessly drank in his calm, and felt it ease her. Let him press calm on her with every smooth caress of the soapy flannel as he gently, lovingly, washed her breasts, her waist, her gently rounded stomach. He moved steadily down, slowly, soothingly, washing every inch of her; by the time he reached her toes, she was floating on a warm tide.

She felt the water shift as he discarded the flannel, then he gripped her wrists and drew her up. Drew her toward him, lifted her so she sat on his thighs, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist. Her forearms sliding over his shoulders, she blinked her eyes wide as his arms closed around her and his lips found hers.

He kissed her gently, her wet breasts pressed to his wet chest, a thin layer of water sliding between their warmed bodies. Despite their aroused state, it was a soothing kiss. She kissed him back, in the same vein, simply grateful to feel his achingly familiar lips on hers.

Then he rose, Sifting her with him; her legs slid down and she was standing beside him. He reached for one of the pails left waiting and rinsed her, then repeated the performance on himself, using the last pail. She went to clamber out, but he was before her. He closed his hands about her waist and lifted her clear, setting her feet on the thick towel laid before the hearth. She accepted the towel he handed her gratefully, and ignored, as best she could, the flush that turned her skin a delicate rose, and the more pointed evidence of his arousal.

Revived, she quickly dried herself, then helped him mop his broad back. Standing behind him, she considered, then swiftly looped the towel around his hips and anchored it. "Sit," she said, prodding him toward the stool. "I want to neaten your hair."

He turned and looked at her with that unfathomable calm in his eyes, but consented to sit. She found a comb and scissors, and started snipping, removing the burnt and singed locks. Then she reached to brush the clipping from his shoulders, stopped, and peered. "You've got burns across your shoulders!"

He wriggled them. "Only minor ones."

"Humph! Well you can sit there a minute more while I salve them." She fetched the right pot from her supplies on the shelf; luckily, her fingers weren't burned, only her palms. She could grip things, could spread and knead; she carefully worked the salve into his burns. Then she stood back and surveyed his back more carefully.

"If you've finished soothing those burns, I have another burning part of my anatomy awaiting your attention."

The gravelly comment jerked her upright. "Yes, well." Quickly, she replaced the pot on the shelf. Half turning, she gestured to the bedchamber. "Come to bed, then."

His gaze fastened on her hand as he stood. "One moment."

He caught her hand, and inspected the raw redness. He swore, glared at her, then towed her back to the shelf. "Where's that salve?"

"My hands will be all right."

"Ah-ha!"

Catriona frowned as he lifted the pot down. "What happened to your burning anatomy?"

"I can suffer a few minutes more. Hold out your hands."

Trapped between him and the door, she had to comply. "This is quite unnecessary."

He glanced at her briefly. "All healers are supposed to be terrible patients."

She humphed, but held her tongue, surprised to find how cool and soothing the salve felt on her scorched flesh. She studied her palms while he returned the pot to the shelf. His left hand appeared; he grasped her right wrist and tugged forward. She stepped forward and looked up-and stubbed her nose on his back. "What…?"

For answer, he clamped her right forearm beneath his right arm-tight as a vise. She pushed against his back; it was like pushing a mountain. "What are you doing?"

On the words, she felt the soft touch of gauze; she whipped her head around and scanned the shelf-the roll of gauze bandage she kept there was missing.

"Richard!" She tried to wriggle and accomplished nothing. The gauze wound steadily about her hand. She glared at his back. "Stop it!"

He didn't. He was surprisingly deft; when he released her hand, she found herself staling at a perfectly neat bandage, secured by a tight knot. He reached for her other hand-

"No!" She danced back, hiding it behind her.

"Yes!" He stepped forward.

"I'm the healer!"

"You're a stubborn witch."

He was unstoppable; despite her protests, despite her active resistance, her left hand, too, was carefully wrapped in gauze, so her fingers were locked together with only her fingertips protruding. Defeated, she stared, first at one mittened hand, then the other. "What…? How…?

"There's nothing you need do until morning-that'll give the salve a chance to sink in."

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Come here. You have ashes in your hair."

He pulled her to the stool; resigned, she sank down and stared at the flames as, standing behind her, he pulled out her pins, searching through the wild mass her hair had become to find them. He shook the long tresses out, then fetched her brush from her dressing table and proceeded to brush out her hair.

"Thank God-or The Lady-there are no burned or singed locks. No thanks, however, to you."

Catriona wisely kept mum and concentrated on the tug of the brush through her long hair, on the soothing, repetitive rhythm. The flames in the hearth burned strongly; she closed her eyes and felt their warmth on her lids, on her naked breasts. With him behind her and the fire before her, she felt secure and warm. Her senses spread, sure and calm; about her, her world had steadied.

"I didn't expect you back-I thought I was dreaming when you appeared in the yard." She made the statement calmly, leaving it to him to respond if he would.

His eyes on the burnished flame of her hair, rippling and glowing beneath each stroke of the brush, Richard drew in a slow breath, then replied: "I got as far as Carlisle. We spent the night there, and I decided I'd made a mistake. I didn't want to go to London-I never did." There was nothing south of the border for him now. He paused, then brushed on. "And if I'd needed any prompting, discovering this morning that, after my arrival at the inn last night, Dougal Douglas had been inquiring after who I was and where I was headed, clarified the position nicely."

"Douglas?"

"Hmm. He lives near there and was in the town when I drove in. He quizzed the ostlers, then made the mistake of approaching Jessup late that night in the tap. Jessup reported his questioning to me this morning."

"And that brought you back?"

Lips compressing, Richard held back the impulse to agree. After three long strokes, he managed to get the truth out. "I'd already decided to return, but the notion that Douglas knew I'd left the vale, leaving you, in his terms, alone, made me hire a horse and ride. I left Worboys and Jessup to follow with the carriage."

"I didn't hear or see you ride in."

"No one did. You were all engrossed with the fire." He gave the lock he was holding an extra tug. "With running into a burning building."

She didn't respond. He brushed on, steadily removing flecks of ash from her bright mane. Under the brush, her hair came alive in his hands, like living fire. Warm, fragrant, gentle fire.