“You don’t even know where the sewing room is. Adam touched Persephone’s face, leaving a streak of blood there as he did. “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded mutely.
“Help Mother to the settee in Persephone’s sitting room, will you, Harry?”
Adam ran to the sewing room next door. Several needleworks in various stages of completion were laid neatly on a table. Adam wiped his bloodstained hands on the sides of his breeches as he looked around the room. The tiny scissors on the table would be no match for leather.
He muttered an oath. The longer this took, the more swollen Persephone’s foot would become, increasing the chances that he would cut her in his attempt to free her foot.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, catching sight of a pair of sheers at the top of a box of fabric scraps.
Adam grabbed them. Harry stood beside Persephone’s bed, holding her hand when Adam returned.
“Mother?
“Lying down,” Harry answered. “Just kept saying she was sorry.”
Adam undressed to his shirtsleeves, needing the freedom of movement.
“Hold her still.” Adam motioned to Persephone’s leg. “I don’t want to accidentally cut her.”
Harry nodded and pinned Persephone’s leg to the mattress with his hands. She cried out at the pain.
“Sorry,” Harry said.
Adam slipped the tip of the silver scissors beneath the taut edge of her boot and cut. An inch at a time he carefully peeled back the leather. Blood had seeped inside, but the wounds did not continue. Her boots had proven something of a shield.
Adam breathed a sigh of relief when her foot finally came free. He hadn’t cut her or hurt her further. A great deal of the pain in her foot and leg would subside just from being freed of the confines of the boot.
“Will you bring over the washbasin, Harry?” Adam heard the weariness return to his voice.
“You do realize that’s the third time you’ve asked me to do something in the past few minutes.” Harry crossed the room to Persephone’s washstand.
“Forgive me, Harry.” Sarcasm dripped from his words as he pulled a washcloth from the table. “Seeing as there is no one else to help, I assumed—”
“I wasn’t complaining about the workload.” Harry set the basin down on the bedside table and poured water from the pitcher. “You just don’t usually ask. You command.”
“You would rather I commanded?” Adam dipped the cloth in the ice-cold water.
“No, actually.”
Was he usually so dictatorial? He was. The realization bothered him. Adam couldn’t say why, but it did. He put the thought out of his mind and set about cleaning as much blood from Persephone’s foot as he could. She winced at the first swipe.
“I am sorry. I know the water is cold. It will be some time before the kitchen can send up hot water.”
Persephone didn’t reply but kept quite still, eyes closed against the pain. Adam continued cleaning. Her ankle was swollen, a sprain at the least, perhaps a slight break. Still she’d walked on it, without complaint, without a single tear. To think he’d once thought her a coward.
“Harry—” Adam stopped the instructions that came immediately to mind. For reasons he had no desire to evaluate, he shifted his words into a request. “Will you see if Mother is in need of anything?”
“Absolutely.” Harry produced something of a smile and left the bedchamber, just as the abigail entered.
“First can of hot water, Your Grace.” She set the can on the table beside the washbasin.
“Empty the cold water, if you will.”
He’d cleaned nearly all the blood off Persephone’s foot, and set himself to doing the same for her ankle. Persephone whimpered almost inaudibly.
“I will try to be gentle,” he said.
