Florah stared at the outrageous man at a loss of what to say so that she can get out of her current predicament.
Gavriel looked at the girl whose skin was flushed with goosebumps, her wet dress sticking to her body like a second skin.
Her hair looking unkempt, he scooped a handful of water and poured it over head.
"Huuhuh" Florah gasped feeling cold, she was wet all over and now the man kept pouring water over her head in an attempt to bathe her.
"Your Majesty, you are right I have never done this but there is no need for you to bathe a lowly servant like myself. Let me try again to bathe you, this time I promise to be fast and very careful" she let it all out in a single breath.
"Between you and me, who looks like they need a bath more than the other?" Gavriel inquired looking at the girl.
Florah looked at her dirty dress and her feet covered in dirt from all the walking and running she had done.
She didn't bother looking at her master who had shamelessly pulled her into the bathtub knowing that he was fully naked underneath the water.
"I do, your majesty" Florah replied.
"If it's the dress don't bother, l can still bath you with you in it". He uttered ignoring her plea earlier.
Florah felt like burying herself right there and then.
She kept quiet racking her brain to come up with an excuse to get out of this situation.
What didn't favour her thinking was the king pouring water over her head throwing her off balance.
While the redhead's thoughts were all muddled, Gavriel intently looked at the girl's features.
It would be a lie to deny that the girl was a beauty, her big hazel eyes reflected the golden candle light in his dark bathroom.
He could clearly see the outline of her body from her wet dress that clang to her.
Her body looked frail and thin, it seemed like with a little bit of pressure she could snap like a twig.
He had no problem breaking her and ending this shred. But right now he wanted to slowly solve the puzzle that was sitting in the cold water holding onto the bathtub's edges for dear life.
Despite the cold water they were immersed in, her body remained warm. 'Hmmm, interesting' Gavriel thought pouring more water in the girl's hair.
"Which one of your parents had red hair?" Gavriel asked out of the blue.
Florah's blood ran cold and her face became paler, she knew nothing about her parents or where she came from.
The only thing she remembered was a woman who wore a black cloak that covered her everybody part telling her that she was 'Florah Crest' and then that woman disappeared like it was just a dream.
"It was my mother who had red hair" Florah skilfully lied through her teeth, looking down at the water.
Gavriel noticed the little high in the girl's heartbeat when she paused to answer his question.
He noticed how calm she was breathing, her heartbeat was also stable. Like what he had heard was just a fragment of his imagination.
'You actually are a good liar, Red. But l am better' Gavriel smirked his thoughts running haywire on how to punish his lying maid.
'Even after I warned you not to, how brave or is it foolishness'. He thought observing her
Without warning Gavriel stood up, stepping out of the water as he was nolonger interested in the bath.
Florah immediately closed her eyes, making no attempt to peep at the King's well toned body.
Gavriel strut to the wooden shelf by the wall where several white towels were neatly folded.
He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his lower body, without turning to the girl in the tub he said "I am going somewhere 'princess' make it quick" his words laced with sarcasm.
She was quick to catch the underlying meaning of his words. Touching her wet dress, she decided to take it off and wash herself since she was already wet.
Using the dress itself to lightly scrub her body, Florah finished cleaning herself.
Now came the problem of what to change into, Florah wished she could magically make her maid's uniform dry but she knew that was impossible.
She sat in the water with her knees against her chest, for about five minutes wondering what to do.
But all her ideas ended up with her being humiliated or worse slaughtered by her said master who seemed to be unhinged.
Come to think of it, the rumors that she had heard about the king were kind of too drastic considering what she had seen and experienced.
The only thing he had done that truly scared her was when he set the witch's head on fire and when he found out about her lies.
Other than those things, she thought he wasn't that bad except for his aura that sometimes suffocated her.
He hadn't even done anything to her for escaping from him. She still wasn't sure how he came to be in her house with the head of her dead captor.
'That man' in the forest must have been working for him, maybe he was the one that had followed me, to report back to the king all l did during my escape.
Florah concluded in her mind finding no other logical explanation, for how the king got to know whatever she did in his absence.
She made a mental note to make sure that she always looked around for any suspicious person spying on her incase she wanted to successfully escape from him.
'That will save me from getting caught again' she naively thought.
While she was lost in thought, the bathroom door opened scaring her out of her internal dialogue.
Florah opened her mouth to make an excuse thinking it was the king that was upset by her delay.
But she was surprised to see a maid enter with her head lowered carrying her wooden box that stored her belongings.
The maid entered and placed the wooden box in the bathroom and exited without saying a word.
Florah looked at her wooden case in confusion, 'Who told her to bring it here, Was it the king' she wondered.