when she thought about Stephanie, but that couldn’t be helped. She’d given Kit her word and she intended on keeping it. They were friends.
Please let him be all right. That was all that mattered.
Kit woke with a start from confused dreams about Hattie, his uncle and various jumping-jacks. A single candle shone by the bed and there was an engraving of some biblical scene hanging on the opposite wall. The room was small and austere, a sickroom and utterly unfamiliar.
His entire body ached and his right eye was swollen shut. And he was dressed in a voluminous nightshirt, unlike the sort he normally wore. His head ached like the very devil.
He searched his mind, trying to figure out how he’d arrived here. The events of the afternoon came flooding back. As far as bright ideas went, taking on four men was not one of his better ones. But try as he might, between landing the first punch and to just now, his mind was a blank.
He put a hand to the back of his head, probing. A huge pain shot through him, blinding in its intensity. He’d obviously banged his head. But beyond a few aches and pains, he would survive. There was no reason to stay here, helpless and at the mercy of some unknown quack.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed and started to push his protesting body to a stand.
‘Oh, no, you don’t. You are to stay in bed and get well.’ Cool hands pushed him back down on to crisp linen sheets. He turned his head in case his fevered mind had conjured her up.
The candlelight made her blonde hair shine and highlighted the hollow at the base of her throat. An angel. No, an angel would not wear a sprigged muslin. An angel would be dressed in flowing robes. It was Hattie in the flesh and blood. Her sewing had fallen to the floor as she stood to enforce her command. The sheer domesticity of the scene made him want to weep.
He rubbed his left eye and tried to open his right to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He could not remember the last time when someone volunteered to look after him. Since an early age, it had always been someone who was paid and done out of duty, rather than for any other reason. A sense of great humbleness filled Kit. Hattie had done this for him.
‘Where am I?’
‘At my house.’
‘Your house?’ Kit searched his mind, but the big black well prevented him. ‘What am I doing here? The last thing I remember is getting into a fight with a stubborn drunk.’
‘You are to stay in bed until the doctor says that you can rise.’ She crossed her arms and glared at him. ‘I’d be grateful if you obliged me in this if nothing else.’
He tried to catch her hand before remembering how she’d walked away from him and settled for clutching the sheet instead. He refused to beg. He had deliberately driven her away.
‘Hattie? Why am I here? How? You live miles away from Stagshaw. The last thing I recall is the fight near the cockpit. And that drunk with his paws on you.’
‘Not too far.’ She turned her face from him, revealing her slender neck. ‘I had them bring you to my house. It seemed the best place. A bit closer than Southview. I was being practical after … after the fight. You couldn’t be left on your own, waiting for the doctor to show up.’
‘I thank you.’
‘It was the least I could do in the circumstances. I’d do it for any wretch who risked their neck to save me.’
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