Page 87

“I enjoy being carried by you, but don’t you think that ‘terribly injured’ is a tad dramatic?” she asked.

“Dramatic?” William echoed. He could not believe his ears as he entered her chambers. “You could have hit your head or broken your neck.”

He finally set her down on her bed.

“And yet I have not,” she reminded him. “I only twisted my ankle.”

“There simply is no way of knowing that you only twisted your ankle,” he said, exasperated. “There might be other injuries that you simply do not know of yet.”

“I assure you, William,” she replied, “there is no other injury.”

“You do not know that. A captain said the same thing when he fell off his horse, and he ended up dying from the fall.”

“How could you say that?” Eveline gasped, genuinely hurt.

William, however, could not quite tell what he had said that was so wrong.

“I am not your captain, and I certainly am not dying,” she huffed.

“Isn’t it only right that we know for certain?” he pressed. “People die from the slightest injuries. I have seen a young teenager die from a simple cut on his leg. And my mother…”

Realizing where his words were going, he heaved a sigh. It was not appropriate to mention his mother’s death at this moment.

“Why are you being so difficult?” he asked, throwing his hands up in the air, his frustration growing.

“Perhaps because I do not wish to be treated like a fragile object that could break at the slightest touch,” Eveline shot back.

“But youarefragile, and what has happened to you is by no measure a slight ordeal. You do not seem to be taking this seriously.” William was frustrated with her.

Even now, as she regarded him with anger on her face, he did not quite understand why.

“Don’t you think I would take it seriously if I knew for certain that I was dying?”

“The only person who can say for certain whether you are dying is a physician,” William proclaimed.

“Then perhaps you should have called for one the moment we got back,” Eveline countered.

“But I…”

Once again, William had no choice but to swallow his words as he realized, yet again, that his wife was right.

The first thing he should have done the moment they arrived was tell the staff to summon the physician.

“You are right. I shall do that this moment,” he uttered, before leaving.

CHAPTER 22

Eveline had heaved a sigh of relief when her husband had finally stepped out of the room.

However, now, after leaning back and lying in bed for so long, she was beginning to get bored. It was a shame that she could not even leave the bed because of her injured foot.

Her foot still throbbed, but now, it was a dull pain. And yet the pain at its worst was not as inconvenient as her husband hovering over her as though she would drop dead any moment.

She shook her head in disbelief. She had always thought her husband a brave man, but ever since he found her by the stream, he had changed totally, and not in a positive way.

He had been pale with fear when he saw her bloodied arms, and his hands had shaken terribly while he tried to tend to her at the stream. Even when his horse took them home, his body had been tense and his brow furrowed with worry. He had refused to listento her even as she repeated over and over again that she was not dying. And even her attempts at making light of the situation had fallen flat.

However, none of that was as ridiculous as his suggestion that she might die from a twisted ankle.