Page 42 of The Lord's Compass
Fortunately, they were not far and began the walk back to the house, albeit slowly. When they entered the front door, Abello was waiting for them, a concerned look across his usually expressionless face.
“What has happened?” he asked and Eric told him as briefly as he could.
“I am going to take Faith upstairs,” he said. “If we require further assistance, I will send a request.”
At that, he began up the stairs, feeling the weight of her gaze upon him.
“I am sure I can walk,” she said. “I must be getting heavy.”
“Lucky for you, I spend a great deal of time in athletic pursuits,” he said. “Therefore, I have no difficulty. Although…” he couldn’t help but tease her, “I must say, you have required a great deal of maintenance in the past few weeks. First, your hand. Now, your ankle… you are such a delicate flower.”
She snorted, proving his point. “While I am far from the most graceful woman you have ever met, delicate is likely the last word to ever describe me.”
“Is that so?” he said as he walked across the landing and into her chamber, then laid her across the bed.
“That is so,” she returned. “Hope is the graceful, delicate one. Unfortunately, she received all of the poise.”
“The perfect princess.”
“Yes,” Faith said, although without any malice. “She most certainly is.”
Sensing that this was an area of discomfort for Faith, Eric made himself comfortable beside her on the bed as he slowly pushed her skirts away from her ankle before unlacing the boot she had worn for their tour.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “not everyone prefers a princess.”
“Of course they do,” she insisted. “Hope is everything a man could want.”
“Your sister is a lovely woman, true,” he noted. “But she does not call to me.”
“No?” she said, and he could tell she was holding herself back from asking just who did call to him.
He decided to take pity on her and tell her anyway.
“I like a woman who challenges me. Who has some grit, I suppose you could say. Who can rescue herself – even if it is rather fun to rescue her time and again.”
As he finished unlacing her boot, he slid it off her foot and glanced up, finding her lip between her teeth.
“Does that bother you?” he asked. “I know sometimes I speak without thinking, but if you’d prefer not to hear it?—”
“It’s not that,” she said, shaking her head. “It is only that this is not something I am used to hearing. I believe it is hard for men to see me through Hope. I do love her, more than anyone else in this world, but that does not mean that it is easy to stand next to her beauty all the time.”
He nodded, sympathetic to what she was saying, even if he had a hard time understanding how anyone could overlook Faith.
“Your ankle is swollen. A bit red and angry,” he said, running his fingers over it. “Does it hurt more when I touch it?”
“A bit,” she said. “I’ll rest it for a while, and hopefully it will improve.”
He carefully placed it on a pillow before inspecting it for any further damage, but as far as he could feel, all was well. It would likely heal in due time.
Faith lay back and Eric stretched out next to her, propping his head up with one hand.
“You know,” he said, circling a finger around the floral pattern in the covering, “Ichose you. Two years ago, before Hope was promised to anyone else. I am sure that, had I expressed interest in her, an arrangement could have been made between us. I had the title coming to me, after all.”
“My father wanted me to marry first.”
“Still, when it came to it, he allowed Hope to marry before you, did he not?” Eric asked. “You, however, are missing my point. I didn’t choose her. I chose you. And not for your dowry or your connections. Those are available everywhere you turn on the marriage mart. I chose you for you.”
“We never discussed marriage,” Faith said. “It was just a kiss.”
