His sharp mood was failing as a smile broadened his mouth. “Yeah.”
“So why would you give an excrement about me? Isn’t that saying you don’t think much of me?”
“It’s slang,” he explained.
“Everything you utter is slang.”
“Not everything.”
“The vast majority,” I replied.
His next came in a mutter. “Not gonna argue that.”
“Are we done speaking on this topic?” I queried.
“You don’t fight me on goin’ with you to your parents, then yeah.”
“I’m not in the mood to argue. I’m in the mood to read,” I lied about the latter.
I was in the mood to brood, something I wasn’t going to do in front of him, and I was assuming whatever came next for me would be done with him at least in the room.
“I take that back,” he stated strangely. “One more thing on that topic.”
“Yes?” I prompted.
“Why don’t you ask Frey yourself?”
“When I’m around him he’s friendly and sociable.”
Noc stared at me for some time after I finished speaking before he asked, “And?”
“I find it nauseating.”
He burst out laughing.
I rolled my eyes.
When he was controlling his mirth, I was done rolling my eyes.
He caught them and declared, “You’re so full of shit.”
“What an offensive thing to say,” I snapped.
“It’s slang too, babe, as you know. But yeah. I just essentially called you a liar. Though, in a teasing way.”
With nothing else for it, I looked to the ceiling and begged of the gods who had abandoned me, “Deliver me.”
“You gonna read?” he asked.
I turned my attention to him. “The next item on my day’s agenda is practicing my skill at ignoring you. So yes, Master Noc, I’m going to read.”
“Great, I’ll go get a book,” he muttered, pushed out of his seat and came to me.
He then bent close in order to kiss the top of my hair.
Kiss the top of my hair!
Like he was a doting uncle.
The gall!
Even as the aristocrat in me was insulted beyond measure, I felt a shiver glide down my spine and it was the first thing that felt good in that area for three days.
“Be back,” he said.
Deciding to put my plan into action, I didn’t respond.
I simply opened my book, removed the ribbon and pretended to read.
* * * * *
Late that evening, after dinner, I sat on the chaise in the dressing room next to the bedroom (both decidedly masculine, but then Noc and I had exchanged rooms due to my situation), bent slightly forward for comfort. My robe was draped low at the back but I held the edges of it up in front to cover me.
Josette was sitting behind me, attending my wounds.
After a day I’d spent completely in the company of others (Noc, reading, Noc, lunch, Noc and Finnie, afternoon chat, Circe and Cora joining us for afternoon tea—we’ll just say it was a great relief when they were away to prepare for dinner), we’d just completed my evening bath.
“The physician wants the lavender and honey on them tonight, milady, but he spoke to me and believes you should do your best to leave them to the air tomorrow. The moistness isn’t allowing scabs to form. We can dress them prior to bed, but during the day leave them. Do you think you can do that?”
As I’d never sustained a beating from my father in my life where anyone attended my wounds, I had a feeling I could.
These were not the words I used to answer my maid.
I stated, “We’ll try it, Josette.”
“Good,” she mumbled.
I sat, feeling the restfulness of her ministrations, and seemingly unable to stop my mouth from speaking that day, more words poured forth.
“There are matters of our future to discuss,” I informed her.
“Our future?” she asked.
“Indeed,” I replied. “Losing Master Antoine, the situation as it stands here, things are quite up in the air.”
Her voice sounded surprised. “Won’t we return to Fleuridia?”
Fleuridia was her home.
I knew from her curriculum vitae she’d been in service in both Hawkvale and Lunwyn prior to coming to being in my employ, which was why I assumed the lovely lilt of her Fleuridian accent was not pronounced and her Valerian was superb.
It had not occurred to me, uncomfortably, but she might be wishing to return home.
“Will this be a problem for you?” I asked.
“I…well, I go where you go, milady.”
She did indeed.
But that had never been across the Green Sea.
“Can you sit up?” she requested. “I need to wrap the dressings around.”
I did as she asked, dropping my arms to give her the access she needed.
“Josette?” I called.
“Right here, Lady Franka.”
“You do know…” By the gods, how did one go about doing such things? “That your service…the way you perform your duties…that I quite…value that.”
There was a pause in her movements before she answered me, her voice lower, not with emotion, or at least not soft emotion.
She sounded like she wished to be laughing.
“I do get that impression, milady.”
“Excellent,” I stated brusquely. “In understanding that, you can imagine in future I’d like to keep you in my employ.”
She wound the gauze around my front and back as I spoke and continued to do so as she did the same. “I would hope so.”