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Because, yes, she was safe for now. But she had no doubt her father-in-law would demand she return, with Christopher, the moment he learned where they both were.
Apart from traveling back to London, she’d really had no idea where she was going when she left Whitlow Grange earlier, only that she had to get away from the earl before he succeeded in killing her. Her parents’ already crowded house seemed to be the most logical choice, but even that could only be a temporary arrangement. Whitlow was far more powerful than her father, and the moment the earl caught up with her, he would demand she return to his household, along with Christopher.
The Duke of Bristol was more powerful than both of them, of course, with friends who were equally so. But Elizabeth couldn’t expect him to continue inconveniencing himself for her in the way he had tonight.
God, he had looked so rakishly handsome when she regained consciousness earlier to see him standing beside the bed on which she lay. In her slightly hazy state, his appearance, in a billowing white shirt unfastened at the throat, and tight pantaloons and Hessians that outlined his muscular thighs and legs, had seemed like that of one of the pirates of Elizabeth’s youthful fantasies.
Logically, she had always known pirates weren’t in the least romantic outside of the pages of books. That they were most likely dirty, with rotting teeth and foul-mouthed language, with little or nothing to recommend them.
But that hadn’t stopped her, before meeting and marrying Thomas, from losing herself in daydreams of a tall, dark, and handsome pirate carrying her off to sea in his ship with him.
Tonight, a tousled-haired Sterling looked exactly like that pirate of her dreams.
Fantasies of a rakish and dark-haired lover which were, even now, as the doctor’s draft began to take effect, joining her in the arms of Morpheus.
Sterling hadn’t taken his gaze off Elizabeth once since the moment he returned to the bedchamber, immediately after the doctor had departed, and found she had fallen into a deep sleep beneath the bedcovers.
“Why did Whitlow do this?” he questioned the maid softly.
“Because of me.”
Sterling gave her a startled glance. “You?”
She nodded abruptly. “I believe her ladyship questioned him in regard to his—his treatment of me.”
Sterling’s eyes narrowed. “Treatment of you…?”
The young woman lowered her gaze. “The old… He’s been demanding I go to his bedchamber this past six months.”
Sterling felt nauseous at the thought of Whitlow demanding physical intimacies from any woman, let alone this lovely young lady.
“I didn’t want to,” Peggy hurried to defend. “But he threatened to harm Lady Elizabeth and Christopher if I didn’t do as he said.”
Whitlow was lower than a snake. As disgusting as a pit of noxious slime.
“I am so sorry this has happened to you,” Sterling told Peggy softly. “Believe me when I tell you it will not happen again,” he assured in a hard voice.
He then dismissed Peggy, with the assurance he wouldn’t leave Elizabeth alone when she’d protested leaving her mistress. Once alone with Elizabeth, he pulled the armchair from near the window across the room and placed it as close to the bedside as he could before sitting in it.
Elizabeth muttered a few times in her sleep, but nothing Sterling was able to decipher.
Her face was pale beneath the increasingly darkening bruises on her cheek and temple, the latter a reminder of how she might have died two nights ago if she had struck her head any harder than she had.
Her hands, lying above the bedcovers, also showed signs of swelling and bruising. No doubt from where she had tried, and failed, to cushion her fall.
Sterling felt the anger boiling and roiling beneath his skin every time he thought of Elizabeth’s helplessness and fear as she felt herself falling and knew she wouldn’t be able to prevent it from happening.
Indeed, if Whitlow had been before him right now, Sterling had no doubt he would enjoy strangling the older man with his bare hands.
He still might.
However this should turn out, he would ensure Whitlow was finished.
In Society.
At his clubs.
Financially.
