Percival novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: Hot Spring
The horn rolled away across the mountain, and the room went very quiet.
"What does it mean?" I asked.
"It means the Council gathers within the week."
Percival sat up against the green curtains with me still in his lap.
"Bascombe wants me to lie awake and count the days."
"Are you counting?"
"No."
He pushed my hair back from my face with both hands.
"Take me somewhere, June. Anywhere you like. For one night I do not want to be an adviser."
I looked at the lamp, and the violin, and the long dark windows.
"The Wolcott spring," I said. "Past the greenhouse. Maisie told me it never freezes."
"It does not."
"Then get your coat."
We went out through the kitchen wing in the dark, with his long fur-lined coat around both of us and our boots unlaced.
The snow was up to my shins, and the pines were heavy with it.
The spring sat in a hollow behind the greenhouse, ringed with black rock.
Steam rose off the water in slow white curls and drifted into the falling flakes.
It smelled of stone and warm iron.
"It has belonged to my family since the first Wolcott came here," Percival said.
"There has been no family for a long time."
"There's a family tonight."
I dropped the coat on a flat rock and pulled my cardigan over my head.
He watched me undress with his hands hanging at his sides.
Cold air ran over my bare skin, and my nipples tightened at once.
"Get in," I said. "I'll follow."
He took off his waistcoat, and his shirt, and the rest.
The steam curled around his long pale body as he stepped down into the water.
It came up to his waist.
He held out a hand to me.
I took it, and I went in.
The heat was a shock.
It rose up my thighs and my hips and the soft curve of my belly, and I gasped and sank to my shoulders.
The snow fell on my wet hair and melted before it landed.
Percival waded to a ledge of smooth stone at the far edge and sat, with the water lapping at his chest.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Percival are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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