by Starla Kaye
And then she lost her balance.
She struggled to grab hold of the railing, but it was too far away. Her foot got caught in the hem of her long gown and she slipped. Gasped in panic. She felt herself falling and glanced up in horror.
“Ashlynn!” her father cried out, rushing in her direction. “Oh, dear God!”
Her brothers were right behind him, but all of them were too far away to help her. She couldn’t stop herself. The long skirt tangled around her legs; her slipper still caught in the hem.
“Help her!” her father ordered her brothers, even as she knew they would get to her too late.
She tumbled to the hard marble steps, rolling, struggling to stop, whimpering in pain. She rolled some more unable to stop the momentum; her skirts sliding on the smooth surface of the stairs. Then in a final attempt to free her foot and end the tumbling, she banged her head, hard. She saw stars and cried out.
“Ashlynn! Oh God in heaven!” her father called out as if in torture.
From the corner of her eyes, from the fuzziness threatening to overtake her, she saw that they were only a short distance away. Still too far. Too late. She tumbled yet again down the final few steps, landing at their feet, gazing dazedly up at them, gasping, “Sorry.”
Her entire body screamed in pain. She wanted to say something to them, but her mind couldn’t focus. Her head throbbed and she could barely see. It all became too much for her and she crumpled, fading into darkness, whimpering, “Blaine.”
***
“Grab whatever you must have. We are leaving within the hour.” Blaine strode briskly into the dining room where Abigail and Catherine were already seated and eating breakfast.
Both young women looked up at him in confusion. “We are leaving? You are taking us with you somewhere?” Abigail asked, setting a half-eaten biscuit back on her plate.
He hadn’t slept a wink all night. Since their arrival yesterday and their mutual insistence that he needed to talk to Ashlynn and settle whatever there was between them, he hadn’t been able to think of anything else. And he’d experienced a sense of panic the moment he’d finally climbed out of bed. Something was wrong. Something to do with Ashylnn, he felt it in his gut.
“We are going to Payton House as soon as the coachman is ready.” His head throbbed, almost blinding him with the pain. It wasn’t like a normal headache. Something different, unexplainable. But horribly painful.
“Are you all right, Your Grace?” Catherine stood and hurried to his side. “You look…I don’t know…in great pain.”
He struggled to sit down with her assistance, putting a hand to the side of his head. “It’s like I’ve hit my head, hard. Yet I haven’t.” He looked at the two frowning sisters now hovering next to him. “I can’t explain it. Or the sense of urgency that came over me a short while ago.”
Abigail paled, moaned, and leaned against Catherine. “It’s…it’s Ashlynn. Something has happened to her. I can feel her pain.” She looked at him in horror. “She’s badly hurt.”
He shot to his feet and ignored the pounding at his head. “We leave now!”
Panicked, he ran from the room and headed for the stables. He didn’t care if they caught up with him or not. He was going to the woman he loved before it was too late. God, please do not let it be too late!
***
Edmond sat in a chair beside Ashlynn’s bed, where he had sat for the last two days. He had only left her side out of absolute necessity. He hadn’t eaten, not slept. His sons were worried almost as much about him as they were their sister, having tried to spell him from his watch and get him to seek his own bed. But this was where he belonged. This tragedy was his fault. He didn’t think he could ever forgive himself.
Regina, her loyal maid, walked warily into the room, carrying a tray of tea and sandwiches. She had been here almost as much as he. She only went to rest when he insisted upon it. Her face was nearly as pale as Ashlynn’s and her eyes red from a combination of weariness and from crying.
“Cook insisted that I bring this food up to you.” She set the tray on the dressing table, understanding that he didn’t want it. Her gaze shifted to the bed. “Has she stirred any more?” she asked hopefully.
He shook his head, unable to voice the words. Regina had been with him late last night when suddenly Ashlynn had blinked her eyes open for but a few seconds. She had glanced at them and then attempted to look around the room. Not seeing whatever she’d been looking for, she had simply closed her eyes again and not roused since.
“She longs to see him,” Regina said quietly, her lips trembling. “She was determined to go to him. Although she has never admitted it out loud, I am certain she has strong feelings for His Grace. Maybe even loves him.”
Edmond stood and went to put his arm around the sobbing young woman. He’d never been an overly demonstrative man, but he shared her distress. And he wished he’d hugged his daughter—each of his daughters—when he’d had the chance. If Catherine were here, he would do so now. But then they had learned that she had left Payton House over a week ago. They had also learned that she’d received a missive from Abigail wishing them to meet and go confront Blaine. Clearly all three of his daughters needed a session with his strop.
As if she understood his troubled thoughts, Regina moved away from him, blushing at the impropriety of her master holding her in any manner. She tipped up her small chin. “Lady Catherine and Lady Abigail meant well, Your Grace. They were worried about their sister.”
He drew in a steadying breath and nodded. “I know.” He returned to his station beside the bed and stared down at Ashlynn, willing her to open her eyes again. There was so much he needed to say to her.
He turned away, unable to keep watching her too-still form. “They both acted foolishly in going off basically by themselves.” And he would punish them both for doing so, for scaring him nearly to death. But he might settle for a stern lecture and a spanking.
“Papa…”
Had his ears deceived him? Had he really heard his beloved daughter call out to him with the name she hadn’t used in too many years? His eyes were blurry with tears when he looked frantically down at her.
“Papa…” She opened her beautiful green eyes and found him. Her brow pinched in pain. She attempted to reach a trembling hand up to her head, but it fell back to the bed with her weakness. “My head…”
He immediately glanced at Regina, who was already headed for the door. “Fetch my sons. Have the steward send for the doctor,” he briskly ordered, his tone losing its harshness with his emotions.
As soon as he heard the maid racing away, he turned back to his daughter. She was watching him now, in obvious pain and cautious. He felt tears of relief sliding down his face and didn’t care. His long, desperate prayers had been answered.
Every inch of her body throbbed, her head most of all. Ashlynn vaguely remembered calling out “Papa,” something she hadn’t called her father in years. But she had been fighting her way out of a deep sleep that threatened to pull her back into it. She had felt him nearby and longed to see him, to experience his comfort. When she’d been ten and he had been visiting her family in Virginia, she had fallen deathly sick with a fever. She recalled how Abigail and Daniel had slept on the floor in her room, too worried about her to leave. Her mother had spent many hours caring for her, wiping her heated body down with cool rags, telling her stories, singing to her. And her father had sat beside her bed watching her with such love in his eyes—the same love she saw there now.
She tried to lift her hand again, but the effort was just too much. “I…I’m sorry.”
He reached down to take her hand, to squeeze it. There were tears wetting his face, yet he ignored them. “I’m even sorrier, daughter. I only pray that you can forgive me.”
In that tender moment, she knew they would be all right. They would always have their differences, but they could get past them. Now if only she could speak with Blaine… It seemed like he had been in the dreams that h
ad kept her lost for so long. She met her father’s eyes. “I need to see—”
Her father released her hand only to gently touch her cheek and smooth back a strand of hair. He swallowed hard, finally reached up to dash away his tears. “I have sent riders to each of the Duke’s homes.”
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway and then Daniel and Braden both burst into the bedroom. Their gazes landed on the bed, seeking her. “Thank God,” Daniel said on a heavy sigh of relief, as he rushed over.
“You scared a dozen years off my life, falling down the stairs like that.” Braden’s eyes glistened, too, as he hurried to the other side of her bed.
Regina sped into the room, bustled to the foot of the bed, beaming at Ashlynn. “’Tis glad I am to see that you’ve decided to join us again. You’ve had more than enough sleep, m’lady.”
Ashlynn smiled, seeing the sheen of tears that had been dashed away. “Oddly, I am still very tired.” She frowned, looking at her father, noting how rumpled he looked. “How long have I been…sleeping?”
“Two very long days and nights.” His answer echoed with the depth of his concern. “Nearly the longest days of my life. Except for when…”
She gave him a weak smile, understanding that he, too, had remembered that awful time with her fever. “Now that I am better, I do believe it is time for you to seek your bed, Father.”
“Papa,” he said quietly, hopefully.
She sensed the others watching them, wondering, but focused only her father. “Papa,” she acknowledged, pleased to see the loving look he gave her in return.
He faced the others, appearing the commanding father and duke they all well knew. “Regina, if you will see to whatever my daughter needs, my sons and I will give you some privacy.” He motioned Daniel and Braden away from the bed. “I believe I will take a much needed bath and sleep for an hour or two. Then we need to meet downstairs and talk about your wayward sisters.”
“What about them?” Ashlynn asked anxiously, drawing their attention. She tried to sit up but didn’t have the strength. “Has something happened to them?”
Her father and brothers had no sooner faced her than she gasped, “Abigail is coming!” She blinked, sorting her way through the strange twin sensations that were coming at her now. “She is frightened…about me. She is racing to get here.”
“Which means Catherine is coming as well,” her father said, sounding relieved and worried at the same time. “The Duke of Ashcroft will be with them.”
Her heart raced. She didn’t doubt her father for a second. Somehow she knew, too, that Blaine was coming to see her and bringing her sisters with him. And they would arrive soon, she knew that as well.
“A bath!” she gasped. “I need a bath. I need my hair washed. I need—”
“All in good time, daughter,” her father countered, but she saw the pleased look in his expression. “I doubt the duke will care about your appearance. If he is coming here with the urgency I sense he is, all he will care about is that you are back among the living.”
Daniel caught her attention and grinned, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Although you do look quite a fright.”
“He’s right. What with those bruises and wild bed-hair,” Braden added, also grinning.
“Out! The both of you,” their father chastised, waving them toward the door. He did glance at Regina before he followed his sons. “Perhaps you can at least brush out her hair.”
***
Blaine felt exhaustion thrumming through him as his coach made the turn up the long, winding drive to Payton House. He was certain Catherine and Abigail were every bit as weary. They had traveled the distance from his home to here in record time. His coachman had understood his urgent need and had driven the horses nearly to death. They had stopped at inns along the way to change horses twice, but had otherwise not even bothered to stay the night at the inns. Their tension-filled trip was over, at last.
He looked toward Catherine, who twisted her hands in her lap, worried her lower lip. “She will be all right. I will not have it any other way.” He silently prayed that would be true. He dared not think otherwise else he feared he would lose what was left of his sanity.
Abigail stared at the imposing house and closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them a smile spread over her face almost identical to Ashlynn’s. “She is still in much pain, but she is getting better.” Her smile grew bigger and reached her eyes. “I believe she knows we are coming. She is wanting to preen for you, Your Grace.”
Leaning his head against the coach back, he drew in his first true breath in two days. “Thank God.”
As the coach drew up in front of the entrance, he and the sisters all looked out the windows. The large, double doors of the house opened and Braden stepped out onto the wide stone porch. Daniel moved beside him. “It appears your family has arrived here as well. For, I suspect, your father is here, too.”
He shook his head at the two young women now appearing concerned for more than their sister. “I would imagine that the duke will have a mixture of feelings when he sees you two. Pleasure at seeing to you safe. Irritation at probably knowing what each of you did.”
Abigail tilted her chin up and squared her shoulders while the coach stopped and her brothers approached. “He will do what he must, but I would do it all again.”
“As would I,” Catherine inserted, also looking ready to face the men in her family with grim determination.
Blaine felt a moment’s pride in the women, but then went back to being anxious to see Ashlynn. “I doubt there is much I can do to help, but I can at least assure your father that you both arrived at my home quite safe and sound.”
The coach door opened and Braden looked directly at him. They shared a look of understanding before his friend said, “She is finally awake, getting better now.”
“Finally awake?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an explanation. Even though it was quite rude of him, he didn’t linger for the women to be helped from the coash. He climbed out and rushed to the house, hurried by Daniel and the steward, and aimed for the staircase.
He all but flew up the stairs, down the hallway, and nearly ran into an upstairs maid, offering a hasty apology, and hurried toward the room where he heard voices. Edmond was gently chastising his daughter about staying in bed. Ashlynn—Lord, the precious sound of her voice—argued right back that she needed to get up, get properly dressed.
His heart pounded with the anticipation of seeing her again and he was a bit out of breath. Yet as he stepped into the room, he said boldly, “You will not step one foot out of that bed.”
Edmond gave him an oddly amused glance and moved out of his way.
Ashlynn—his beautiful, contrary Ashlynn—smiled in pure pleasure for a hairsbreadth of a second before scowling at him. “You cannot order me around, Your Grace. I will get out of bed if I so choose.”
The rest of her family stepped into the doorway behind him, but he ignored them all. This was his moment with the woman he loved. “I shall burn your sweet butt if you do.” He didn’t care who heard him. She had nearly died, of which Abigail had been almost certain…as had he. “You will stay in that bed until your physician approves you leaving it. Which I assume he has not yet.”
Now he looked toward Edmond. “Am I right in this?”
Edmond nodded. “Dr. Waverly was here to check her over only an hour ago.” He focused on Ashlynn, now appearing quite annoyed but lying back against several pillows propping her up. “He proclaimed my daughter much improved. But he gave her strict orders to remain in bed except for attending to necessities for at least another week.”
She snorted in obvious disapproval. “He worries over much.”
He sensed her siblings walking closer, knew her sisters were worried and needed to see and hear her for themselves. Still, he wasn’t ready to step aside and give them time alone with her. He needed to make something clear. “As do I. You have caused me—and your sisters—a great deal of distress and we do
not even know exactly what happened to you.”
He moved right next to the bed, drawing in a sharp breath when he noticed the fading bruises on her chin and her cheekbone. Although he couldn’t see them, he suspected there were many more over her small body. It sickened him.
“I am on the mend,” she quietly reassured him and gave him a weak smile. “Before long I will be—”
His heart racing, straightening his shoulders, he cut her off. “Before long you will be saying your vows to become my wife.”
She opened her mouth, narrowed her eyes as if to protest and he braced for an argument. He felt the tension from her family behind him. Everyone waited for her usual objection. But then she surprised them all, especially him.
“And, Your Grace, will be saying your vows to become my husband.”
He blinked, uncertain if he’d heard her correctly. “What did you say?”
“She finally agreed to marry you,” Braden stepped beside him, patting him on the back. “I guess it took a hard bang on her head to have her thinking sensibly.”
Her sisters scurried around him, forcing he and Braden to move out of their way. They smiled tearfully down at Ashlynn. She smiled back at them but her gaze found him again. “Just so you know, I was on my way to see you.” She frowned at her father and brothers at the foot of the bed. “Their arrival here put an end to that.”
Edmond flinched at that and then corrected in a voice husky with emotion, “Actually, it was the fall down the stairs that stopped you from leaving.”
Blaine’s knees went weak and he felt himself paling. “Good God! You fell down the stairs?” He had to get closer, had to touch her.
As if they sensed his need, Catherine and Abigail eased back and allowed him to move beside her once more. His hand shook as he reached to touch her face, imagining the horror of what had happened. He could have lost her. She could have died.
She caught his hand, captured his gaze and for the first time he saw what he believed to be love for him in her eyes. “I. Will. Be. Fine.” She spoke the words distinctly, slowly, wanting to him to understand.
