Veronica laughed, until she looked over and saw the needle struck in the tip of Chrostopher’s finger.
She gasped. “Christopher, your finger.”
“What?” he looked down then cursed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even notice. Give me just a moment.”
She looked away as he pulled the needle from his finger, only turning when he let out an annoyed huff.
She whirled to look at him, eyes locking on the small bead of red growing on her finger. “Christopher, you are bleeding!”
“I know, please take the embroidery before I get blood on it.”
“That isn’t my concern.” Still she took it and set it off to the side before coming to sit in front of him.
“You don’t need to worry so much. I’m fine, really.”
“Just let me see it,” she demanded, grabbing his hand before he could pull away.
Her eyes studied the small pin prick with unexpected scrutiny. “It doesn’t look like it was that deep,” she said, dabbing at the blood with her handkerchief.
He wanted to tell her that he already knew that. That there was no reason for her to worry, but his breath caught in his throat.
He could hardly believe she was touching his hand.
That hand.
The one that left Alexander to die.
Veronica got to her feet, a smile on her face, completely unaware of Christopher’s inner turmoil, his hand was still held in hers.
“There,” she said. “It should stop bleeding any moment now. Once it does you should be just fine. Luckly it wasn’t that deep.”
“It- it was just a pin prick. I don’t know what you were so worried about.” Christopher forced himself to say. It just felt so wrong seeing her treat that hand so gently. He wanted to pull it from her grip but felt paralized by her gentle touch.
“Sorry. I suppose I might have gotten a bit carried away. I just saw the blood then reacted, besudes, you can never be too careful with these things. I heard a story once of a woman who had a piece of the needle snap off in her finger tip. Terrible thing. Can you imagine?”
“I imagine you would just remove it the same way you would a splinter.”
She huffed. “You make it sound so simple. Still, I’m glad you are all right.”
As if she didn’t even realize she was doing it, Veronica’s hand tightened around Christopher’s. His breath caught in his throat, eyes moving to meet hers.
Suddenly her own eyes widened, pulling away so fast it was hard to push down the pang of disappointment blooming in his chest.
“I should have asked you before I took your hand. Especially…” she trailed off. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“You are all right, Veronica. I- I didn’t mind,” he said so quiet he thought she might have missed it.
But then he saw the way her eyes snapped to him, a hesitant smile crossing her face. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
“Next time?” she said, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Yes, and speaking of which,” he hesitated.
“What is it?”
“I have something I wanted to ask you. I understand this might be too fast, but I wanted to know—would you be willing to share my rooms rather than keeping to your own?”
“What?” she gasped, face flushing bright red.
