Louisa wandered over to the bed, hummed thoughtfully as she inspected the gown laid out there, and turned away, crossing the room to an elegant writing-desk by the window.
Uncertain what she should do, Ellen stood close to the door, waiting for Louisa to speak, or invite her to a chair. After a couple of minutes of silence, though, she spoke first.
“What sort of things do you think I should know, cousin?”
Louisa did not speak for another full minute, toying with an ornate silver letter-opener on her desk, before turning and looking at Ellen. “Which of them will you choose?” she asked.
Confused, Ellen blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Major Trevithick, or Lord Bellmere. Which will you choose? You are unlikely to find any other suitors, you know. Best for you to accept one of them quickly, before they come to realise you are not truly of our station. Look how Thomas hovered close when you spoke with them today, terrified you would say or do something to embarrass the Havers name.”
Horrified, Ellen took a step back as Louisa approached her. “Really?” Her voice shook. “I did not think…”
Louisa sneered. “Why else would he leave my side, for you?”
Ellen’s head drooped forward. She had no answer for that question; Thomas’ admiration for Louisa had been evident from the first time she saw them together. With a crowd of rival suitors in the room, surely Thomas would not have left Louisa’s side unless he saw a clear duty to do so.
“So I ask again, which shall it be, Trevithick or Bellmere?” Louisa pressed.
“I barely know either of them! Why do you demand I choose now? Surely it is not so urgent!” I could not possibly make a decision of such magnitude on such a slight acquaintance, Ellen thought with a surge of anger.
Louisa’s beautiful face twisted with a sudden rage. “I was willing to allow you one,” she said, her voice a low, harsh snarl. “Mama said I must let you have one. You’re being greedy, Ellen.” She changed to a high, almost sing-song voice. “Choose, Ellen, you have to choose!”
Louisa was making no sense, and acting very strangely. Suddenly frightened, Ellen took another step back, towards the door.
A clawlike hand locked around her wrist. “You have to choose, Ellen. You’re being naughty.”
“Let go of me,” Ellen said, trying to keep her tone steady even though panic gripped at her insides, making her knees tremble. “You’re hurting my wrist. Thomas will be angry with you for hurting me.”
Louisa tilted her head to one side, and a dreadful rictus of a grin spread across her beautiful face. “I know your seeeeeecret,” she said, drawing the word out. “So foolish, to think Thomas would ever look at you. Such a silly, naive little girl.”
Ellen swallowed. “Let go of me,” she said again, but it was becoming harder to speak calmly. Louisa’s grip was tight, and despite her fragile appearance, the other girl was terrifyingly strong. “You’re not well, Louisa.” Indeed, she was beginning to fear that her cousin was not entirely sane. There was a strange light in Louisa’s blue eyes that spoke of madness.
“Enough!” Louisa shouted suddenly. “You won’t listen!”
Ellen gasped as Louisa’s other hand came up between them, silver flashing as she brought the letter-opener from her writing-desk to Ellen’s throat.
“Louisa, don’t,” she croaked, suddenly petrified.
“You won’t listen, so I have to make you be quiet,” Louisa crooned. Cold metal traced over Ellen’s skin, pressing lightly at first, and then harder. Frightened to breathe, wondering just how sharp the letter-opener was, Ellen stood stock still.
“I knew you’d ruin everything from the moment Thomas insisted you come to live at the Hall. You should have married some yeoman farmer and stayed in the country. Then I wouldn’t have to do this.”
Louisa was going to kill her, Ellen realised incredulously. She was insane, and she was actually going to kill Ellen.
Some ancient instinct of self-defence kicked in as Louisa drew back her arm, and Ellen jumped back, her free hand coming up to try and fend Louisa off. The other girl was still holding onto her wrist, though, and Ellen couldn’t get free. Her heel caught on the edge of one of the floor rugs and she tripped, falling backwards. Landing with a thud, she finally managed to get out a scream as Louisa came down atop her, malevolence written all over her beautiful features as she stabbed the knife down.
Unable to escape, it was all Ellen could do to try and swipe Louisa’s arm aside with her own. Instead of piercing her heart, the knife caught her forearm instead, driving clean between the delicate bones of her wrist and piercing deep into the floorboards with the force of the thrust.
Ellen screamed with shock at the excruciating pain, pinned to the floor by the knife through her arm.
“Damn you!” Louisa shouted, yanking at the knife, but it was stuck fast. Ellen screamed again, agonised, as the knife shifted slightly inside her arm. “Damn you, just die!” Letting go of the knife, she put her hands around Ellen’s neck and squeezed.
*
“Ellen!” Thomas roared her name, cursing his legs for not carrying him faster as he took the stairs three at a time, suddenly absolutely certain that Ellen was in mortal danger. “Ellen!” He flung her bedroom door open without bothering to knock, startling her poor maid. “Where is she, Susan?”
Susan just shook her head, staring at him with wide eyes, and Thomas spun on his heel. If Ellen hadn’t made it to her room, she must have gone into Louisa’s for some reason. Louisa had lured her in, undoubtedly, and Ellen, in her innocence of Louisa’s true nature, had trusted her.
A scream of pure terror made his heart clench, and he never afterwards remembered the steps which took him the length of the hallway to Louisa’s suite.
The sight which greeted him as he flung Louisa’s door wide would stay with him forever; Ellen on her back on the floor, blood spreading in a wide pool from her arm, pinned to the floorboards by a gleaming silver knife. Louisa knelt atop her still form, her hands around Ellen’s throat.
Ellen’s face was blue.
Louisa looked up at him, her mouth opening, but what she would have said would have to remain unknown. Thomas had never in his life struck a woman, but he didn’t think twice before grabbing Louisa by the shoulders and throwing her bodily across the room.
Falling to his knees beside Ellen’s still body, Thomas cried out her name in utter despair.
“Thomas,” Clarice said from the doorway, and then as she took in the scene, “Oh, dear God in Heaven.”
“It is all her fault!” Louisa cried from across the room, where she had fallen when Thomas flung her off Ellen. “She would not choose!”
“What have you done?” Clarice cried, utterly distraught. “Oh, Louisa, what have you done?”
“My lord?”
Thomas glanced up to find his valet Kenneth at the head of a crowd of servants, all with shocked expressions on their faces.
“Send for a doctor,” he ordered, “and take her,” he pointed a shaking finger at Louisa, “and lock her up somewhere until I can find a magistrate.”
Clarice set up a terrible wail, but Thomas had no time for her. The danger of Louisa dealt with, he turned his attention back to Ellen. She was terribly still, but the blue colour was fading slightly from her face, giving him hope that she might yet live. Leaning down close to her face, he turned his head to the side, hoping to feel her breath upon his cheek.
There; the faintest whisper of air! “She lives,” he gasped in relief.
“Miss Ellen!” Susan shrieked as she pushed her way through the crowd of shocked, whispering servants and fell to her knees on the other side of Ellen’s body. “Oh, Miss Ellen! Whatever happened?”
Thomas couldn’t answer her, only shaking his head as Kenneth manhandled a strangely silent Louisa from the room with the aid of a burly footman. He could hear Mr Henry issuing orders, sending several footmen running to find a doctor as fast as possible, but everything seemed very far away as he knelt be
side Ellen’s still form, placing his hand gently against her pale cheek.
“M’lord,” he looked up as Susan spoke loudly. The maid was pale, but her hands were steady as she reached out to him imploringly. “M’lord… if we wait until the doctor gets here, it might be too late.”
Thomas frowned, not sure what she meant, at least until she pointed to the steadily spreading pool of blood beneath Ellen’s arm.
“We have to stop the bleeding, m’lord, or she might bleed to death before they find a doctor.” Reaching behind her to untie the strings of her apron, Susan nodded at him. “I can bandage her arm with this, for now, if you will pull out the knife.”
Thomas felt queasy at the mere idea, but Susan was quite right, and at least Ellen seemed to be unconscious, so hopefully she would feel no pain. Taking a deep breath, he grasped the hilt of the knife, trying not to think about the force with which Louisa must have stabbed Ellen, to have the knife go right through her arm and jam in the floor.
Not wanting to wiggle the knife about and maybe do more damage, he gave it a single, sharp yank with all his might. The knife popped free and he threw it aside, unable to bear touching it for a moment longer than necessary.
“Hold this,” Susan said, handing him one of the apron strings. Grateful that she seemed to know what to do, Thomas obeyed, watching as she wrapped the folded cloth tightly around Ellen’s arm, covering both cuts. Tying the strings off once she had finished, she sat back on her heels and bit her lip nervously. “Perhaps you should move her to the bed, m’lord?”
“Not in here.” Thomas didn’t want Ellen to wake up in Louisa’s room. “Her own room.” A little colour was returning to Ellen’s pale cheeks, though he could see purpling bruises springing up on her throat. Gently, he gathered her in his arms, giving Susan a grateful smile when she carefully lifted Ellen’s injured arm and placed her hand across her stomach. The maid hurried ahead of him, urging other shocked servants out of their way and holding doors open wide, pulling back the covers on Ellen’s bed as Thomas prepared to lay her down.
“Thank you,” Thomas said as Susan removed Ellen’s shoes. He should leave, he supposed, particularly as the housekeeper came bustling in then with several more maids, but he couldn’t bear to let Ellen out of his sight.
“Anything for Miss Bentley, m’lord. She’s been right kind to me.” Susan sniffled slightly, but Thomas did not comment on the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“She’ll be fine,” he said bracingly, as much to himself as Susan. “She’s strong. And we’ll take good care of her, won’t we?”
“The best, m’lord,” Susan said fervently. “The very best.”
Chapter Thirteen
*
The doctor seemed to take forever to come. The housekeeper tried to shoo Thomas out, but he refused to leave Ellen’s side, afraid she might perish if for even a moment he took his eyes from the faint rise and fall of her chest. The white apron bandage wrapped tightly around her arm was slowly turning crimson with blood. How much had she already lost? How much could a person lose, and live? Would the doctor be able to close the wounds properly? Sitting beside Ellen on her bed, her hand clasped in his, Thomas bowed his head and prayed that Ellen would recover.
“The doctor is here, m’lord,” Mr Henry said from the doorway, and Thomas lifted his head to see a small, grey-haired man wearing a slightly threadbare suit and thick glasses.
“Doctor Smithee, at your service, m’lord.”
Thomas appreciated that the doctor didn’t waste time bowing and scraping, but came briskly forward, stopping at the bedside and eyeing him. “It’s probably best if you leave the room, m’lord. No doubt your staff can amply assist me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Thomas said firmly. “Miss Bentley is my ward, and my responsibility.” And the guilt was his too, he acknowledged privately; he would always blame himself for not pressing Clarice earlier, discovering Louisa’s predilection for violence. He’d trusted blindly and put Ellen in danger because of it.
Dr Smithee seemed to accept his pronouncement and moved around to the other side of the bed, displacing Susan who stood wringing her hands while the doctor examined Ellen’s neck, humming quietly under his breath. Someone had obviously informed him of the situation before showing him into the room, for which Thomas was grateful.
“Nasty,” Smithee said finally, “but the bruising is not so severe as to put her life at risk, I believe. Cool compresses of water and witch hazel will be beneficial.”
The housekeeper sent a maid scurrying from the room at once, and the doctor turned his attention to Ellen’s arm.
“Quick thinking, to bandage it so tightly,” he said approvingly. “Your handiwork, m’lord?”
“I cannot take credit; it was Miss Bentley’s maid, Susan, who suggested we stop the bleeding and used her apron as a bandage,” Thomas nodded towards Susan, who blushed and ducked her head.
“Good work, girl. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a career change? Good nurses with common sense like yours are hard to find.”
Susan looked quite startled, but shook her head emphatically. “I’m happy being a ladies’ maid, sir,” she said shyly. “I shouldn’t want to leave Miss Bentley, besides.”
“No doubt she will be glad of your service. Now, let’s have a look here. A narrow blade, hm?” The doctor peered closely at the wound on the upper side of Ellen’s arm as he uncovered it.
“It was a letter-opener, I believe,” Thomas said bleakly, thinking even as he spoke that Louisa must have secretly sharpened the blade, making sure she always had a lethal weapon on hand. Whatever was he do with her? Perhaps he should ask the good doctor’s advice, after Ellen had been taken care of.
By the time Dr Smithee had finished putting several stitches in each side of Ellen’s arm, the other maid had returned with a basin of clean water mixed with witch hazel. The doctor took one of the clean cloths the maid proffered and soaked it in the water, squeezing it out before placing it carefully across the bruises on Ellen’s throat.
“Change the cloth every half hour,” the doctor instructed Susan. “Now, let us see if we cannot bring Miss Bentley back to her senses, hm?” Removing a small vial from his bag, he uncapped it and held it under Ellen’s nose.
The strong scent of sal ammoniac made Thomas’ eyes water, and it seemed to work even on Ellen in her unconscious state, because her eyelids fluttered and she coughed.
“Ellen,” Thomas said urgently, squeezing her hand. “Ellen! Open your eyes, dearest.”
Her eyelids fluttered again, and he realised inconsequentially that he had never noticed how long and dark her lashes were, a thick fan brushing the paleness of her cheek.
“Tho-Thomas?” she whispered thickly, before coughing again. “Uh.” She tried to lift her hand towards her throat, but he squeezed her fingers gently.
“Don’t try to talk, dearest. Your throat is very bruised.” Gazing at her, he tried to smile reassuringly as she opened her eyes fully at last, looking directly at him.
“I feel so tired,” Ellen whispered, and her lashes drifted down again. Panicking, Thomas looked at the doctor, who nodded reassuringly.
“After blood loss like that, she will be weary for some time. Beef tea every day will soon see her right, though of course you must watch carefully for infection.”
Thomas listened carefully as the doctor spoke, outlining what must be done for Ellen’s care. He promised to attend every day to check on her until she was entirely recovered from her ordeal, too.
“I wonder if I might speak to you regarding the, ah, perpetrator?” Thomas said quietly as Dr Smithee began to pack his things away in his bag again. He did not wish to leave Ellen, but gently laid her hand down and eased off the bed, moving over to the window and beckoning the doctor to join him.
“I take it someone told you who attacked Ellen?” Thomas asked softly.
“Indeed.” The doctor peered at him over his spectacles. “Forgive me for saying so, my lord, but
it sounds as though Lady Louisa may be somewhat, ah, disturbed.”
“I trust we can rely on your discretion in the matter? I will make it worth your while.”
Dr Smithee looked properly horrified. “Of course, my lord! My patients’ confidentiality is of the utmost importance!”
He wouldn’t be a doctor to the aristocracy otherwise, Thomas supposed. Word would soon spread of his inability to keep secrets.
“That’s good,” he said aloud. “My aunt has made me aware that this is not Lady Louisa’s first episode of violence. She came horrifyingly close to killing Miss Bentley today, and it is obvious to me that she must be withdrawn from society and treated for her illness. I was wondering if you had any recommendations?”
Smithee squinted a little and sucked on his teeth. “I understand you are an American, my lord—have you perhaps heard of the Bethlem Hospital?”
“Bedlam, you mean? I have, but surely such a remedy is entirely unsuitable for a young lady such as my cousin, however disturbed her mind!” Thomas had read of the infamous hospital for the insane in the newspapers, and indeed going to tour the facility had been suggested to him, though he could think of nothing more grotesque.
“Indeed, I should never recommend such a place. Bethlem is the most famous, but there are several treatment facilities for those of unsound mind, both in London and in the countryside. A friend of mine I attended medical school with is the senior psychiatrist in residence at a small facility on the Isle of Wight. They accept only a few patients from the upper classes at a time, who are looked after very well, of course. Perhaps I should write him a letter and enquire whether they might have a vacancy?”
“Thank you,” Thomas said gratefully. “We shall be leaving London as soon as Ellen—Miss Bentley, that is—is fit to travel, and I should hope to have somewhere to take Lady Louisa before that.”
Ellen coughed from the bed, and Thomas turned away from the doctor immediately, eager to return to her. Though he knew Louisa would have to be dealt with—and he would have to talk seriously with Clarice, too—right now, he couldn’t bear to be away from Ellen’s side.
An Earl For Ellen (Blushing Brides Book 1) Page 9
