She knelt before the little girl. Someone had put out the fire with brown mop water. “It’s not your fault.” She attempted a comforting smile. “Are you hurt?”
She probed her own wrist, which, for some reason, sent a sharp pain through her arm.
“Violet, ye’re bleeding!” Keira grabbed her wrist, and she winced.
Blood pooled on her forearm, coloring the blue sleeve of her dress purple. Violet peeled back the fabric to reveal a gash two inches long with the width of a scratch.
“It’s not so bad.” She wiped away the blood with her other sleeve. A mistake.
She winced as her fingers brushed the spot where the candle flame had licked her skin.
“Ye need to see the healer,” Keira urged.
Violet could not protest.
The pain was addling, but she managed to instruct the staff to take down all sconces and replace the hinges.
Keira was noticeably sober at the sight of blood. Violet had to turn her gaze away when the healer peeled back her skin in search of debris before bandaging her up, but she had watched and tried to distract herself by comforting Keira like an adult should, describing the healer’s treatment and cooing whenever she was overcome with the urge to rip her hand away.
But even after the show of bravery, Keira was still a child, which she proved grandly when she took to singing ominously in her ear that a bride getting hurt just before the wedding was a bad sign.
Violet dismissed her on the way to the Great Hall. She would have avoided it for the day if she had not had to oversee the progress. But upon further reflection, she decided to delegate the task to Keira, which the girl readily accepted, eager to prove herself mature. Violet then made her way to the garden, where the air was cool and welcoming. Just what her nerves needed.
She had felt dread when she watched blood roll down her arm. It was her first injury since her childhood, a scar, a few days before she made the most important decision of her life. Was it a warning?
She held her bandaged wrist to her chest, perambulating the flagstone path. Could it really be a sign of bad luck? Was this marriage not a road to happiness?
Her mind was troubled.
She was on the sixth stone on her third pace back when she heard her name.
Ruaridh descended from the narrow terrace breathlessly. As he marched towards her, she felt her fears evaporate in a cloud of dust. How could she worry when she was marrying the man she loved?
She anticipated the feel of his arms around her. From his countenance, he must have bolted across the castle in search of her. Knowing him, he would pull her into his arms before he uttered another word… and he did.
He held her tightly, and she leaned into him, feeling comforted. Her legs almost gave out. Or they did. She wouldn’t know, he held her above ground. He was warm and soft and still smelled of his morning bath.
“I heard ye got hurt.”
Vibrations rose from his chest and massaged her cheeks. She would not have heard him if he hadn’t pulled back slightly.
“It was only a scratch.”
The muscles of his back tightened. When he pulled back to inspect her, his face had hardened.
He cupped her wrist, and his thumb stroked the ivory linen wrapped around it. It looked worse than it was; the healer was heavy-handed with her application.
Ever since she realized her feelings, Violet had watched him for micro expressions that would tell her that his feelings had also transcended infatuation and blossomed into the intense love she was burning with.
It was easy to presume infatuation. She could tell he had developed a tendre for her when he smiled, when she caught him watching her, even when he helped her cross off the items in a list she had made on a whim. Love, on the other hand, required a delicate sleuthing, a recording and composition just to prove that it might exist in another person.
When he looked at her injury with that fire in his eyes, was it because he loved her? Was it worry that quaked his shoulders, casual or the burning feeling?
“I am alright.” She palmed his cheek. “I barely bled.”
“But ye did.”
She pulled her arm away from him, and he looked at her. That breathless feeling returned, but she managed to contain it.
