AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Go,” he heard the brunette hiss before slippered feet and a flickering candle followed him down the hallway.
Sterling vowed that if it was the last thing he ever did, Whitlow would suffer for what he had done to Elizabeth.
Slowly.
Excruciatingly.
And soon.
“I am sorry, young lady, but I must move you in order to be able to examine all of you.”
Elizabeth heard an unfamiliar male voice apologize regretfully.
“I will not allow you to do a single thing that might cause Elizabeth a moment of unnecessary pain or discomfort,” a second, now-familiar voice, warned harshly.
“My dear man—”
“I am not yourdearanything,” that arrogant voice bit out tersely. “Nor do I care to be spoken to in that patronizing tone.”
Elizabeth, still caught in a fog of darkness, but becoming more aware with every second that passed, had no idea who the first man was. But she had absolutely no doubts that the second voice belonged to Sterling Bishop, and that he was extremely displeased.
“Of course not, Your Grace,” the first man’s voice soothed. “I was simply going to explain that the extent of the lady’s injuries means that if I am to examine her properly, there is very little movement that will not cause her discomfort.”
Ah, the second man was a doctor.
Injuries?
What injuries?
Had she been in an accident of some kind—
No, it had not been anaccident!
Elizabeth remembered it all now.
Whitlow’s anger. His striking her. The horror and pain of the tumble down the stairs before she stilled and then lost consciousness. Waking in darkness and pain. Crawling to her bedchamber. Peggy’s shock the following morning when she saw Elizabeth and learned what had happened. The day that followed as Elizabeth tried to keep the worst of her injuries from Christopher. Whitlow’s callousness that evening, along with further threats. Peggy helping her to dress later so that they could all make their escape.
Except Elizabeth had known, after only a few steps outside on their way to the stables, that she would never be able to withstand the long and bumpy journey back to London.
She also now remembered that her last words before the blackness consumed her had been “take me to Bristol Manor.”
Was that where she now was?
If so, where were Christopher, Peggy, and Mary, and the young groom who was to drive them?
The need to know what had become of all of them was enough to pull her out of the last of the protective fog and into the realm of painful reality.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Thank God…” Sterling murmured his profound relief when Elizabeth’s eyelids began to flicker and then opened.
She turned to look at him with those beautiful violet eyes. “Where is Christopher?”
A wealth of feeling welled up in Sterling’s chest upon hearing that, as he had suspected would be the case, Elizabeth’s first thought was to know the whereabouts of the son she obviously adored. “He is asleep in a bedchamber just down the hallway from this one. Peggy and Mary are with him,” he instantly assured.
“Thank you,” she breathed gratefully.
Sterling nodded. “Jimmy has brought the doctor, as I instructed, and that young man is now outside seeing to the stabling of the horses and carriage.” He had instructed the groom to include the latter so that the carriage was not left outside to attract the attention of anyone who might feel a need to tell the Earl of Whitlow that they had seen one of his carriages at Bristol Manor.
