Page 39 of So Close To Heaven
The girl tilted her head, completely unruffled by Ivy’s resistance. She seemed only to be still considering how to convey something to Ivy. And then she shook her head, offered a few murmured words, holding up her hand, palm forward as if to saywait, and then gave a small curtsy before slipping out of the room.
Despite the near-undressing by a complete stranger, Ivy felt lighter of heart and mind than she had in a long time, and jokingly commented to the closed door, “It’s going to take more than a soft bed and the promise of a hot meal to get me to drop my drawers, missy.”
Alone now, with only the glow of the fire lighting the chamber, Ivy took in her surroundings. The room was nicer than she ever would have imagined for the fourteenth century. Two walls were hung with woven tapestries, their faded colors still rich against the stone. A beautifully embroidered bedspread of dark beige covered what appeared to be a generously stuffed mattress on a four-poster bed. Atop it lay a fur blanket of gray-brown, impossibly thick and large. Ivy sank her fingers into it, her mouth parting in wonder at the plush feel.
A short table stood beside the bed, supporting an ewer and basin, and a tall cupboard filled the space between the two windows. Near the fireplace stood a lone seat—little more than a stool since it was simply a seat without a back—and a small square table, no bigger than a checkerboard.
Drawn by curiosity, Ivy crossed to one of the windows, lifting the latch and pushing the shutters wide. Cool air rushed in, sharp against her face, but her gasp was in reaction to the sight below. The keep sat on a short cliff, its stone walls rising directly above a body of water. The water stretched vast and silver in the twilight, the horizon seeming endless, dissolving into a hazewhere sea met sky. The window was just high enough that she couldn’t look directly down, but thought she heard the sound of small, slow waves rolling in, and wondered if there was a beach down there.
The iron latch of the door scraped, and the door opened again. This time, an older maid entered behind the round-faced girl. Her eyes were sharper, her bearing brisk, and to Ivy’s relief she spoke halting English.
“The bath comes,” the woman said without preamble.
Ivy nodded quickly. “Great. Thanks.”
The older maid gestured toward the plump-cheeked girl. “Evir, she...helps.”
“Ohhh,” Ivy replied, drawing the sound out in sudden understanding. So that’s what the girl had been trying to do earlier. But her relief faltered. Heat rushed to her cheeks as the girl stepped forward, expectant. Ivy balked. Never in her life had she been disrobed by anyone she wasn’t dating—or, well, sleeping with. And yet she knew, from all the historical fiction she’d devoured over the years, that this might be normal here. Maids assisted their ladies and visitors, undressed them, bathed them, brushed their hair—normal here, for them, but not for Ivy.
Just then, a young kid carried in a large wooden tub that seemed to be twice the size of him, setting it near the table and chair and fire. With only a darting glance at Ivy, he took off.
Ivy shifted her weight, caught between gratitude and an unwillingness to offend. “That’s...kind of you, but I can manage,” she said to the maids. When neither seemed to comprehend this, Ivy added, “Thank you, but no help needed.” She smiled, hoping they didn’t think her rude. “I can manage.”
Evir, standing in the shadow of the older woman, looked at the back of the woman’s head as if waiting for explanation. The older woman nodded, her lips tight, as if to say,Fine, do it yourself.
With a few words to Evir, the older woman departed, just as buckets of steaming water were delivered in the next minute, carried in by another pair of servants.
Evir hovered uncertainly. Only then did Ivy notice what the girl carried. In one arm she held several lengths of rough cloth—toweling of some kind, Ivy supposed, woven and coarse but clean. In the other she balanced a small, pale lump, no bigger than her fist. Ivy blinked.Soap?At least, it looked like soap, though she’d never seen medieval soap before. For all she knew it could be a lump of fat or lye or something more sinister.
Evir lifted the cloths as if to show her, then offered the pale cake with an encouraging smile, speaking a few gentle words Ivy didn’t understand.
“Thanks,” Ivy murmured, reaching out to take them, her mouth quirking despite herself. “I think I get it.”
Evir bobbed her head, clearly relieved, and exited the room.
Trip after trip, more water was brought to fill the tub, until it lapped high and a faint mist of steam rose in the flickering light. Ivy clasped her hands together in eager anticipation.
A few minutes later, alone in the room, the door closed by the last departing water-bearer, Ivy finally peeled off clothes she’d been wearing for two weeks straight and slipped into the bath. The heat wrapped her at once, a luxurious embrace that made her groan aloud. She sank deeper until it lapped her shoulders, closing her eyes as if the weight of the past weeks had lifted clean away.
“This,” she whispered to the quiet room, “is heaven.”
Honestly, she’d tried not to think about it overmuch in the last two weeks, but the truth was she hadn’t bathed properly since she’d come to this century. All she’d managed were hurried washes in icy lochs and creeks, crouching behind rocks with numb fingers and an anxious ear for the men nearby. Her mother’s voice surfaced then—half amused, half resigned—calling such a thing a “whore’s bath.” The phrase came back with startling clarity, spoken once long ago as she and her mother had cleaned all the important areas with a washcloth at the kitchen sink when there’d been something wrong with the plumbing in the lone bathroom for more than a week. Ivy smiled at the memory, though it tugged at her heart all the same.
Though she couldn’t stretch her legs in the tub, she did let her head fall back. Already she loved this place—the sturdy keep, the warmth of its hearths, the simple promise of a clean bed and a private chamber. For the first time since she had been cast into this strange world, she felt she might truly be safe. This, at least, was endurable—and so much safer for her baby.
She could stay here forever, she thought dramatically,ifshe were forced to remain in this century.
The thought alone was startling enough, but what followed was worse—an addition her mind slipped in, soft as a baby’s breath.
But only if Alaric remained as well.
Her eyes flew open, staring at the rafters above. After a moment, she realized this should come as no great shock to her after all. Kendrick, Ewan, and Blair had been fine companions on the march—cheerful, patient, even protective in their own ways—but it had been Alaric’s towering presence that had most often set her at ease. Impossibly adrift in time, lost in a distant century, she had every reason to come apart at the seams. Half the time she still felt unhinged, barely keeping herself together. But Alaric’s presence—solid, strong,so freaking capable—had steadied her more than she’d realized until now. Possibly, he was the sole reason she hadn’t lost her mind entirely.
And it wasn’t only his steadiness. There was no denying it: he was striking, the kind of man a girl might have conjured up in daydreams. Broad-shouldered and battle-worn, handsome in a way that belonged wholly to this age, he was the sort of figurewho could have stepped out of an illuminated manuscript—except he was real, flesh and blood, and here she sat, imagining a forever in this century that included him and his electrifying brown-eyed gaze.
The latch scraped softly a short while later, and Evir slipped back inside, her arms laden with folded cloth. She set the items neatly upon the bed and shyly made motions with her hands as if pulling something over her head.
“Oh, I see,” Ivy acknowledged with a fresh surge of joy. A fresh set of clothes. “Thank you, Evir.”
