Their Wife

Twelve

"Shit."

My arm ached as I vigorously scrubbed the spot of dried dirt. I had been working on this one spot for the past five minutes. My knees were red and sore from being on them for hours. I was starting to lose feeling in my legs below them as my body screamed for a break.

I had been cleaning rooms and scrubbing floors since 8 am after helping Henry in the stables for the first hour. Since Ezra had informed Cassius that I was cleared to work the day he did, he refuses to give me any more time to rest and heal my injured hands. According to Ezra, he didn't want to 'deal with the headache those two would give him if he gave me more time.' Luckily, the cream had my burned hand in near perfect condition by the next day so I was able to do my work left-handed until the magical healing salve had healed my other hand enough. Today was my second day using my right hand again and it was starting to cramp.

It had been my regular routine for the past week to clean so I had gotten used to understanding what to generally expect, but it seemed like someone had put extra effort into dirtying the floors of the foyer last night. I bet I could guess who it was. The same person who intentionally destroyed his room before I had to clean it to make my life harder.

Jaxon.

He always sabotaged my work, making it harder or so that I'd have to redo it. The caked on dirt that covered the foyer and halls was no doubt his work. I bet he used a blow torch to bake that shit on so it would be harder to remove. Clearly, it worked considering it felt like my arm was about to detach from my body.

Although their physical attacks calmed compared to the day in the tea room, Jaxon still shoved or tripped me any chance he got. His push yesterday, as I got off a ladder after cleaning the windows, was the reason I had been kneeling on bruised knees for the past two hours.

While Jaxon was more hands-on with his torment, Zev attacked from the shadows. He didn't dirty his own hands. He had minions to do that for him. After the tea incident, the few servants that were hostile towards me got worse. I started finding tacks in my shoes and my clothes ripped to shreds. My sheets and mattress had been stolen from my room so now I had to sleep on the bare wooden board it used to sit on. The hard surface made the ache I felt throughout my body worse. They even pushed their work off onto me with threats of reporting me to the lords for insubordination since they ranked higher than me. It made it harder to finish my own work. On days where I was painstaking able to finish my work before mealtime, I found myself being locked in a supply closet until it passed. The last time I had three square meals in a day was when I was still healing. Ever since then I had just been surviving on breakfast.

On a positive note, since the incident in the tea room, I no longer had to serve the afternoon tea. I thanked Ezra even though he claimed to have nothing to do with it. The fact he couldn't look me in the eye and had a slight blush gave him away. I also had a feeling he was the reason Zev hadn't tried to bloody me again.

Another positive was that since I didn't have to visit Erza every morning, it made it easier to avoid Axel. I had a few close calls, but I ran in the opposite direction every time I saw him. I also hadn't been summoned by Cassius to be grilled for information. I think Ezra was to thank for that, too. He probably filled him in on the situation.

I did feel a little disheartened that I didn't get to see Ezra as often now. With my busy workload, the only times I got to see him were in passing. Quick greetings and shortened conversation. I didn't realize I would miss our mornings together.

Water splashed across the floor and soaked my side and legs. The echo of metal bouncing and rolling across the marble floor resonated off the walls.

"I think you missed a spot," Jaxon's dark, pleased voice said.

I blanked my face as I looked at the dirty, brown water spreading across the floor that I had just cleaned. The metal bucket stopped as it thumped against the far wall.