Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
“Because my queen, my Mercy, my…” Her voice broke, and I held myself carefully in order not to go to her as the emotion ravaged her face. She drew breath into her nose sharply, straightened her spine, lifted her chin and finished, “My queen Mercy, she…would not…have flinched.”
I felt my own spine straighten and warmth gathered in my chest.
“I miss her,” Helga whispered.
“Of course,” I whispered back.
“You should bind your hair,” she said, still speaking quietly. “I will roll it so the back is long, but it is away from your face. It will be Dellish, but it will be lovely, and it won’t take long.”
“I would like that,” I replied.
She nodded.
I moved to the door to the chamber, opened it, and poked my head through.
True was standing, appearing impatient, something he wiped clean the minute he turned his gaze to me.
“Fifteen minutes?” I asked. “My hair needs to be rolled.”
His lips twitched.
“I’ll meet you in your study,” I told him, “then we’ll go together to Alfie.”
“I have work at my desk here, darling,” he replied. “Take your time. I’ll wait for you.”
I smiled at him.
He tipped his head to the side before he turned toward the desk that was in the sitting room, off our chamber.
I closed the door and moved toward Helga.
I sat on the chaise.
She fussed about me.
“Our king appears,” she began hesitantly, “tired.”
“He does not sleep well,” I shared unhesitantly.
“I can imagine,” she muttered.
“It is all that is happening, but it is also a soldier’s burden,” I told her as she gathered my hair.
“I have heard of this,” she murmured.
“I had not, and I cannot tell you how frustrating it is that there is nothing I can do.”
She clucked and rolled my hair.
I said no more.
But I was pleased.
I’d never had a maid.
However, I was thinking I would enjoy this acquisition greatly.
And not simply because her hands in my hair felt sublime.
“There’s no bloody point to it.”
“How about you let me be the bloody nurse and you be the bloody patient?”
“How about you be bloody somewhere else and leave me bloody be?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, since I requested it, one could take from that I’d bloody like it.”
“Well, we can’t always have what we like.”
“Don’t I know that?”
At these loud words emanating from the open door to Alfie’s room, I looked to True, True looked to me, and we both hurried our steps to and through the door.
There we saw Alfie’s nurse was at the side of the bed, a bed where the sheets were bunched at his hips, his long legs bared, and the nurse was maneuvering them, bending one at the knee, then pushing it up to straight toward the ceiling.
What on earth?
“Let me alone!” Alfie demanded, his voice just as loud, but thickening oddly.
“I…oh!” she cried, set his leg down carefully, this right before she jumped away from his bed.
They both noticed us at the same time, the nurse whirling our way, her cheeks blooming a deep pink, Alfie scowling down his body at us, both his hands darting to cover his groin.
Oh.
“This is fucking joke,” Alfie growled.
I swiftly looked away, lifted my hand toward the nurse and suggested, “How about we let these men have a chat?”
She rushed to me, beyond me, and out the door.
I glanced at True, who looked in danger of bursting with laughter, something that heartened me greatly, for I had had a few chuckles from him since we lost his mother, but not laughter, before I ducked my head and left the room, closing the door behind me.
The nurse was pacing the hall, and I realized, embarrassingly (as there had been a number of them), in the days that had passed since the incident, I had not learned her name.
She was one of three who attended Alfie, the only one he didn’t seem to be able to abide.
And now I was understanding why.
“I’m very sorry, I have not ever asked your name,” I said to her.
“Bronagh,” she choked out, still pacing, but she interrupted this to dip an awkward curtsy, only to take up pacing again.
I studied her a moment before noting, “I would assume, as you were given this duty, attending a personage as important as Sir Alfie, that you’ve had some amount of experience in your profession.”
“I-I studied at the Go’Da. In the Dome City. I-I did advanced studies in the healing arts. And I,” she swallowed…hard, “I’ve been at the Royal Service Infirmary for five years.”
“So I would assume,” I gestured to the door, “that has happened before. No?”
She ceased moving, her eyes floated to the door and she stared at it, not answering.
In fact, she stared at it seeming of a sudden caught in a daze.
“Bronagh,” I prompted.
She started and looked to me.
“I fear, my queen, that I must ask to be released from my duties attending Sir Alfie.”