Page 17 of The Best-Kept Secrets
The ribbon she’d been using to mark her place in the book had, at some point, fallen off her lap. She didn’t see it on the floor or on the bench beside her. It must have fallen into the gap between the bench and the wall.
She slipped her hand into the gap. Her fingers found the ribbon, but when she curled them around it, something sharp stabbed her smallest finger. She quickly pulled her hand free once more. The ribbon fluttered onto her lap, and blood oozed from her wound.
Keeping her voice low so as not to awaken their companions, she said, “Duke, do you have a handkerchief?”
He lowered his paper. “I do.” He reached into his breast pocket.
She cupped her other hand beneath the bleeding one, ready to catch any blood that dripped off.
“What happened?” Rather than simply give her the handkerchief, he took her injured hand in his.
“There is something sharp over here. I didn’t see what.”
He wrapped his handkerchief around her bleeding finger and held tight to her finger, pressing hard but not truly painfully. “You didn’t make a sound.”
“I didn’t want to wake our traveling companions.”
“I can’t say I blame you for that.” The poor man looked embarrassed.
“There’s a woman who lives in the village not far from Tulleyloch,” she said. “Anyone who happens past her home while she’s watching will receive an earful, an extensive recounting of everything that ails or vexes her.”
Duke’s mouth twisted a little. “That sounds familiar.”
“One of the times I found myself caught listening to her, I realized something.”
He loosened his hold on her finger, studying the handkerchief wrapped around it. “What did you discover?”
“That she was lonely. She’d no one there to see her struggles and know what difficulties she’d passed through. That makes a person feel very... invisible.”
Duke pressed her finger once more, even as his gaze slid to his grandmother, still sleeping. “She doesn’t have any family in Ireland any longer, and she has a difficult relationship with her children. A lot of her friends have passed away. She likely is a little lonely.”
“That realization didn’t mean I suddenly enjoyed being harangued with all the complaints the poor woman in the village could toss at me,” Eve said, putting her ribbon in her book with her free hand. “Being miserable doesn’t excuse treating others poorly. But I found I could be a little more patient with her.”
He looked back at Eve once more. “Is that how you have managed to endure my grandmother as well as you have?”
“That, and I am a saint among women.”
Duke didn’t smile, but heavens, if he didn’t look as though he was about to.
“Did you find the ribbon for your book?” he asked.
“It’s in my book.”
“I understand and fully concur with the wrath that quickly descends upon a person who removes an item marking a reader’s place in a book,” Duke said, “but I think your finger needs the ribbon more than your book does.”
She pulled the ribbon from her book and handed it to him. He tied it around the handkerchief, pulling it tight enough to replace the pressure his fingers had provided.
Duke opened a compartment in the carriage wall beside him and pulled out a stoneware jug.
“While I agree your grandmother’s made this a difficult day for you,” Eve said with a laugh, “I don’t know that hard cider is quite the right thing just now.”
He looked back at her, and that same twinkle of an unexpressed smile touched his eyes. “It’s water.”
“Insidethe carriage?” She’d never heard of such a thing. Barrels of water were often strapped to the outside but could be tapped only during pauses in the journey.
“I’ve found having a bit of water inside to be a helpful thing.” He then pulled a small tin cup from the same compartment. With a fluidity born, no doubt, of experience, he uncorked the jug and poured water into the tin cup without spilling any despite the carriage’s bumping and rocking on the uneven road. He held the cup out to her. “You’ve cleared your throat a few times in the past fifteen minutes. I suspect you’re thirsty.”
She gladly accepted it—with heruninjured hand, naturally. “Do you always address people’s difficulties this efficiently?”
