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“Thank you.”
She walked to him and touched his forehead. The fever had seemed to go down and the heat of his body seemed to be entirely his own.
“Can I remove the cover?” she asked. Edward nodded. Ariadne slowly took it off so as not to cause him any discomfort. His bruises had darkened and the wound was oozing on the sides.
“I need to clean this,” she said. She left the room to bring hot water and a washcloth. Ariadne wished she had the means to buy more gauze bandages for him. When she returned, she found him examining his wounds.
“Doesn’t it make you queasy?” he asked, making a face. “My stomach is turning at the sight of it.”
Ariadne bent down beside him and frowned at the wound. “You can’t expect a knife wound to look pretty.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” he asked again with awe in his voice.
“No, why would it?” she asked, frowning.
“You’re a woman and—” he drifted off at the expression on her face.
“Women keep a babe inside them and then push it out in nine months out of their sheer will. Women are not weak by biological design.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Edward said. His ears had turned red. “Actually, I did mean that and I know that it was a wrong thing to say. My apologies.”
Ariadne cocked her head at him curiously. It was the first time she had heard a man accept that he was wrong.
“I admire my mother and my younger sister, who, by the way, reminds me of Leda. They must be of the same age.”
Something in her stomach relaxed. He thought of Leda as his sister. Ariadne didn’t know why this confession smoothed her heightened nerves. This man—this stranger in all ways except his name, meant nothing to her.
She placed the washcloth on his wound to clean it. Edward hissed at the contact.
“It's all right,” she cooed. He met her gaze, his amber eyes like pools of liquid gold. Ariadne felt herself getting lost in them until she pulled back and concentrated on washing the wound. After that was done, she took another heavier cloth and pressed down lightly on the bruises acting as a compress.
“Who did this to you?” she asked with concern in her voice.
An intense look came on his face as if he was trying to remember. “I don’t know them. They were trying to take my purse.”
“Why didn’t you just hand it over to them?” Ariadne asked in shock. She couldn’t imagine what on earth had made him engage with them in the first place.
“I thought I could make them change their minds.” Edward scratched his nose. “Obviously that was very stupid of me.”
“How exactly did you think you would reason with thugs?” Ariadne asked in a stern voice.
Edward sniffed at her tone. “Well, I let them know we could make a deal.”
Ariadne shook her head. “Men don’t like being talked down to.”
“I caused them no harm,” Edward said, furrowing his brows. “It was almost as if they were vindicated by my sight.”
“It was probably your clothes. They’re kind of flashy for these parts, and you stand out easily. “Ariadne calmly pointed out.
“So they were angry because it seemed like I came from money?” Edward asked, with a brow raised.
“While what they did was certainly wrong, it doesn’t surprise me at all.” Ariadne swept a hand around her. “Have you seen these parts? We’re neglected and forgotten by the very people who were supposed to take care of us. Wealth comes down the pipe but it never reaches us. People are tired and angry at the rich.”
Edward considered her words for a long time. “You get no help from the Crown?”
“A look at our streets will give you all the answers you need. Children die of hunger, men and women die of cholera and other diseases brought back from the Continent, but everyone turns a blind eye to our suffering.”
Edward inhaled sharply. “Lord above, I never realized things were quite so terrible here.”
