Page 42 of Persuasions of an Earl's Daughter

What if he ended up harmed? What if he was lying around in a muddy puddle somewhere, calling for aid? She should have gone with him.

She scrubbed the pots until they shone then scrubbed again. As she set the final pan to the side and looked around the kitchen for something else to do a knock resounded through the house. They all froze, and Klara motioned to Lilly to stay.

“They do not want us,” Astrid reminded Lilly as she joined Klara in her cautious steps toward the front door.

Wiping her hands on a towel, Lilly followed the ladies, and all three of them stopped a few feet away. Another knock made them all jump.

“That’s August!” Lilly declared, able to make out the faint sound of his voice on the other side of the thick wood. “It’s him.” She couldn’t help letting a relieved smile crack her face as Klara opened the door and August ducked into the cottage.

The smile didn’t last long. Covered in mud, his golden hair dark with rain and grime, he resembled less a handsome rake and more a beast brought in from the cold.

He gestured behind him with a thumb and flashed a grin. “Got it.”

She peered behind him to see a cart and horse. One she had become quite intimately familiar with when she’d been sprawled across it. “You stole their cart?”

“Seems an appropriate punishment, does it not?”

“Come inside, August.” Klara gestured vigorously. “Out of this terrible, terrible weather.”

“I’ll see to the horse.” He hissed out a breath as he twisted, and Klara grabbed his arm, hauled him in and shut the door firmly behind him.

“We shall see to the horse. You shall get clean, and your wife can tend to your injuries, no?”

August shook his head. “It’s terrible weather out there.”

Klara shook her head. “You English think no one else has rain and that we shall all melt but even in Sweden we have rainstorms and Astrid and I have sturdy boots and thick coats.”

Astrid made a shooing motion. “Go into the kitchen. There is still warm water on the stove.”

August opened his mouth and Astrid gave him a firm look before snatching her coat from the coat stand and he closed it.

Lilly took his hand, enfolding her fingers through his. Despite the coldness of his skin and the dirt scratching her bare hand, she’d never enjoyed holding a hand more. He was here and safe, and that was all that mattered.

“That was reckless,” she muttered as she took him through to the kitchen and motioned for him to sit.

He dropped heavily onto a wooden chair and winced as he did so. Under the light of several lamps and the candles upon the table, the true extent of his battle revealed itself to her. Pale tracks ate through the mud upon his face, but the rain had not been able to wash away the evidence of his fight.

Blood followed his hairline and stained his collar. From the cautious way he moved, she’d wager there were other cuts and bruises to be seen too. The largest of her kidnappers had been a brute and even a man as strong as August could not expect to have fought him without coming away injured.

“So reckless,” she said again as she searched the larder for cloths and found a pile of clean ones she could use to clean him up.

“I am not exactly known for being sensible.”

“Neither am I but you did not see me picking a fight with the kidnappers.”

He smirked. “Yes, but you would have done so if you could have.”

“Perhaps.”

After pouring warm water into a bowl, she dunked a cloth into the water and put a hand under his chin, angling his face upward. “You shall need more than a cloth wash, but we should at least see the state of the damage.”

“The other man came off worse,” he quipped.

Lily struggled to find any humor in the situation. She’d spent too long worrying about him and many of her fears had been realized by the looks of it. “Why do you do such things?”

He stared at her. “Why do you?”

“I did not get into a fight with a man twice my size tonight.”

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