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He rushed forward and grabbed her right boot.

“Owwww!” She winced, her face contorted in pain.

William’s heart sank. “Oh, Eveline.”

His hands shook as he tried to pull her boot off her feet. For certain reasons, it was quite hard to get off.

“It hurts,” she said.

William pulled back and took a deep, steadying breath before trying once again.

When he finally got the boot off her, the sight that greeted him made his heart stutter.

Her ankle looked purple, and her foot was so swollen that it was no wonder he found it hard to pry the boot off.

“This does not look good,” he said.

Eveline simply shrugged. “Well, it could have been much worse. After all, I fell off the horse.”

“You fell off the horse?” William exclaimed.

In his panic, he had neither given a thought to how she got her injury nor wondered where the horse had disappeared to.

Now, having realized how she had gotten her injury, he could only imagine the other injuries she might already have.

“I need to inspect you properly,” William said, peering into her eyes before pulling her hair up to see if she had sustained any injury on the head.

“What are you doing?” Eveline enquired.

“I need to know whether you have sustained any other injury,” he explained, now fussing with her jacket in a bid to check her back.

“That is not quite necessary,” Eveline assured him.

“But it is,” William responded, trying to pry her jacket off her shoulders. “What if you have sustained a terrible injury to your spine and?——”

“If I have sustained an injury to my spine or my head, then I would feel it, would I not?” Eveline pointed out irritably, shrugging him off as she pulled her jacket tight around her.

William sighed, exasperated. How could she not see that she was in danger?

“Eveline, I must make sure that you are not in danger,” he said in an even tone, even though his heart was thundering with panic.

“I am not in danger, William,” Eveline insisted. “I have only sustained an injury to my ankle.”

“You do not know that,” he argued. “Falling off a horse can be deadly. I have seen?—”

“If anything is deadly, I would say it is the fact that I am still sitting here. You shall take me home this moment,” she snapped at him.

William opened his mouth to protest, but he quickly shut it again. He could not help but admit that she was right.

Therefore, he lifted her into his arms and lowered her onto his horse’s back. Securing her feet in the stirrups when one of them was swollen was a rather tricky task, but he was able to do it.

As they made their way back to the castle, Eveline winced every now and then as her injured foot moved in the stirrup.

William was relieved when the castle finally came into view, and when the stable boy and footmen tried to help his wife down the horse, he stopped them.

“The Duchess is terribly injured,” he said. “I shall help her down myself.”

With that, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the castle.