It Has Come

Chapter 3; "So it seems..."

Despite him trying to get me to leave him to his own devices, I insisted on helping Eric recover. I brought him another outfit that he deemed "much too casual, Mistress Willow, I am the only butler of the house, I can't go around in that when I have so much to do!"

I defended the white cotton shirt and black pants that were so worn in they were as comfortable as pyjamas. "You can go about your duties once you've recovered, and if you absolutely insist on it, you can still work while wearing this. Mother and Father won't care since you're injuried."

"Mistress Willow," Eric was sounding exasperated with me by now, "since you spoke so much, which, if you don't mind my saying, is rather out of charachter for you, and since you are basically giving me an order right now, I shall put on... these... things." He scoffed at the clothes, looking mildly disgusted. Ignoring the look he gave the garments and feeling triumphant, I gave him an undershirt to put on first.

"I want you to change into that first, don't don the cotton shirt just yet," I told him. "I need your arms bare to bandage them."

Eric got an odd look on his face, as if he were embarrassed about something. His cheeks were becoming slightly pink. 

"What's wrong with that?" I squinted at him curiously.

"N-nothing, Mistress Willow..." The guy wouldn't even meet my eyes. He seemed to be very interested in a spot on the floor at my feet. Not wanting to talk any more, I tossed the outfit into his lap and stalked back to my chair at the table as he got up from his seat and limped from the dining hall, on his way to his ground-floor bedroom in the servants' quarters.

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A few minutes later, Eric came limping back into the dining hall where I was waiting, wearing the black pants and the undershirt, holding the cotton shirt on one arm and his destroyed butler's outfit in the other. He seemed pretty self-conscious about his bare arms for some reason around me. His cheeks were getting increasingly pink. Eric sat down heavily on the chair at the wall as I cut off a leangth of bandage from the roll I held. He winced as I cleaned the wounds but didn't say anything. I wrapped the white cloth around his arms multiple times because of the blood that still seeped through somehow. 

I suddenly realized why he was so pink.

Eric and I were alone together.

In the vast dining hall.

And he was practically shirtless.

I blushed suddenly, feeling my face get warm very quickly indeed, and my fingers faltered on the bandaging.

"Noticed, have you, Mistress Willow?" Eric, smiling slyly, said. "If you wouldn't mind, I should like to do the rest myself." He held out his hand and I placed the roll of white cloth in his palm. I left the dining hall just as he started binding himself. 

Walking back up to my room to get changed from my now-muddy riding outfit seemed to take longer than usual. When I finally opened the door and stepped in, I noticed that a new dress had alerady been chosen for me. A long black garment with lace sleeves was lying on my bed. I peeled off my wet and dirty pants, shirt, and cloak to slip my way somehow into the tight bodice. Once I had, I walked back out of my bedroom. I don't like to stay up in there for long very much; it's too cramped and stuffy for my taste, even though it was one of the larger bedrooms of the masion.

I saw Eric, now wearing the cotton shirt over his heavily bandaged body, emerge from the dining hall. He was still limping and wincing occasionally, but he gave me a brave smile and bow. For the first time after the gargoyle incident, everything was going normally.

Until it wasn't.

Until I heard a knock on the front door.