The Lord I Left by Scarlett Peckham

Author:Scarlett Peckham [Peckham, Scarlett]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781641971249

Chapter 21

Henry held himself still as Alice attempted to peel the leather from his hands, pausing now and then to pick out tiny shards of glass. Normally he would be rigid with nerves at a woman touching him so intimately. But he was growing so used to Alice’s nearness that he sometimes failed to mark the sin of it when his hands found hers. And besides, the cuts smarted so fiercely that he could think of little beyond pain.

(Liar.)

Alice accidentally nudged a tiny shard of glass deeper into his palm and he sucked in his breath and snatched his hand away from her, tucking it to his chest.

“I’ll just leave them on,” he said.

She looked at him with a mix of frustration and affection, like he was a disobedient child. “No you bloody won’t, you goat.” She gently pulled his hands back to her lap. “Wounds left unattended breed sickness. I wish I had some brandy to give you for the pain.”

“I wouldn’t drink it if you did,” he muttered, to distract himself.

“I know,” she sighed. “You are a tiresome, saintly man.”

She said this with a wry smile that lightened his mood. Her manner made him feel well nursed in a way he was not accustomed to. It was like a balm after the harsh raillery from his father. His father who must be even now looking at the window and smiling, rubbing his ever-knowing wrist in vindication.

The thought made Henry want to smash another window.

“Don’t move,” Alice told him, rising.

She fetched an old pot attached to the wall with a nail and stepped outside. When she’d returned, the pot was filled with snow. She set it next to the weak fire, then returned to the business of slowly, painstakingly, freeing his hands from his gloves.

When she was done, she held both of his hands in hers, turning them over to observe his injuries. His left hand had only a scrape or two, but the right one was pocked with little cuts and smeared with blood.

“My father will be so smug.” He had not meant to say that aloud, but Alice looked up at him with a malevolent glint in her eyes.

“Your father is a plague-bepissed weasel whose opinion matters naught.”

“Alice!” he cried, unable to avoid laughing at the sheer fluency of her expletives, however he felt obligated to disapprove of them.

“What? You told me I must be honest,” she said piously, albeit with a grin.

She went to the fire and retrieved the pot. The snow had melted into icy slush.

“Plunge,” she instructed, looking at his hands. He obeyed her, dunking his stinging flesh into the cold water.

When he lifted them out, she used the sleeve of her dress to clean away the remaining smears of blood.

His thoughts flashed to that night in the meeting house, the maid offering to wash him. To the dream he’d had of Alice, performing a similar act.

Despite the chill in his raw hands, and the innocence of Alice tending to his injuries, he flushed.

He

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