The Corinthians Series: Somebody To Love

Chapter Eighteen

Raphael was awaken by tentative rasps on the door. Cheerful morning light was coming through the glass window and the translucent curtain. He pulled himself upright and found his ankle was still throbbing unpleasantly as he flexed his foot. Thankfully it was not as bad as yesterday. 

However, the bruises he had suffered from the fall was jabbing him with heavy soreness. 

He was wiping away a night of restless sleep from his eyes when the maid entered the room with a silver tray bearing a plate of food and a pot of beverage. After carefully setting the breakfast offering consisting of bread, cheese, a small roll of cured meats and a lump of jam, the maid went out the door. Shortly after however, she reemerged again with a sleek cane. The maid propped the walking stick near him against the bedside table.

"Would you mind telling me where is Lady Callista?"

The maid paused for a second, considering her words before she spoke, probably trying to translate her answer in English for him to understand. "Lady is out... with the hest."

Perplexed, he repeated her answer. "Hest?"

"Ja." The maid nodded. "Ridning."

Raphael considered for a moment before venturing his guess. "Do you mean horse riding?" The maid nodded enthusiastically. "Ja, early morgen! Hun gik tidligt afsted inden hun vendte tilbage og gik igen. Not yet back."

Raphael had dismissed the maid with a thanks and a budding worry. He did not understand most of what she had said but the 'not yet back' part clung heavily to his mind.

Noon crept on with tedious slowness without Callista showing up to to administer him his medicine. The maid had come and gone with his lunch and returned some time later with tea, a selection of books and stationery. Raphael was trying to focus on his reading when the door of his room was suddenly thrown open. He braced himself for a moment before the gap between the doors admitted Mrs. Applewhite dressed in a dark violet outfit, loudly proclaiming her arrival with taps of her cane.

"I heard you created quite a ruckus yesterday, my lord." she chattered stiffly as she lowered herself onto a chair where Callista had spent reading yesterday afternoon. She did not wait for a reply before launching into a lecture. "Tis plain for everyone to see goodness, I do not see the purpose of this contradictory show. What a waste of time."

"What's plain, madam?"

"You like the girl. Half in love with her, even." she spat, looking at him from under her giant hat of purple flowers made of out fabric. Raphael's throat suddenly was as dry as bone. He tried to lodge the tightness with a cough but Mrs. Applewhite continued on, "she's desperately trying to hide it too, having as much success as trying to empty a keel with a pitcher."

Raphael was about to say something when Mrs Applewhite gave him a withering stare. "Save your breath, boy. I am thrice your age, hence I would not be lied to by you who learned your letters at my knees. Now she's gone riding since the bloody dawn."

At this, Raphael's blood curdled within his veins. He quickly glanced to the bedside table where a small desk clock had been clicking steadfastly. It was half past four. "She has not returned since morning?"

"Haven't you been listening to me boy? What if something ghastly had happened to her? I heard two summers ago she had been thrown off her horse and bled though her skirts, so her mother said."

Raphael sat his teacup back onto the tray with a clang, pushed himself out of bed and grabbed the cane that was propped against the bedside table. He grimaced once he started putting his weight onto his injured leg. Pain raced from the ankle up to his knee, spasming his muscles. But he disregarded it with a clench of his jaw.