her upwards to a place she wanted to go, yet something, someone, held her firm, preventing her from floating away. She was cocooned rather than imprisoned. Safe.
She felt something warm trickle down her throat. She couldn’t taste it. Strong arms around her. More of the warm liquid. Letty. Try to swallow, sweetheart. Sweetheart? That was nice. Nobody had ever called her sweetheart before. We need to warm you up. Now that she considered it, she was cold. Every part of her ached. Not surprising considering what had happened to her. Bainbridge. The carriage. The woods.
Panic came afresh. What if they had found her? She forced her eyes open. Intense blue eyes met hers. You’re safe, Letty. They were beautiful eyes. Troubled eyes. Reassuring eyes. I am going to look after you, sweetheart. I promise. The deep lilting voice crooned against her ear. She sighed. It was all she had the strength to do and her eyes fluttered closed again. The painful gag was gone. And he was holding her.
There were worse ways to go.
One month and one day remaining...
Letty experienced the sensation of falling and it woke her with a start. It took her a few moments to focus in the daylight, but when she did two pairs of identical blue eyes were staring down at her. Frightened, she had intended to scream; the strangled mewling noise she managed was really quite pathetic.
‘Shh...’ said one of the pairs of eyes kindly. ‘Everything is all right. You are safe here.’
She could make out the blurry edges of the speaker’s face. Dark hair. Smiling. Next to him stood another man who looked strikingly similar. They were definitely related. The same dark hair, the same deep blue eyes, but he was frowning. She knew those eyes.
‘My brother rescued you from the road,’ the smiling man said, stroking one of her hands, ‘You have had a bit of a fever and you are badly bruised, but miraculously you have made a very fast and splendid recovery. What you need to do now is rest. Give your body time to heal. In a few days, you will be as fit as a fiddle.’
Letty tried to speak, to ask where she was. However, her mouth felt so woolly, her tongue would not move. Her eyes flicked to the frowning man and he continued to frown, until the smiling man next to him gave him a sharp nudge in the ribs and he forced himself to smile. It did not touch his eyes. Letty could not quite make out whether the emotion swirling in those fathomless blue depths was concern or annoyance.
‘Why were you tied up and wandering in the woods?’ The smile slipped off his face as he stared down at her.
Again her stupid tongue would not move and she made some garbled sound.
‘Leave her be, Jack. You can interrogate the poor girl once she is better.’
Interrogate? Were these men her enemies, too? She did not recognise either of them as her uncle’s or the Earl of Bainbridge’s men—yet that didn’t mean they were not in their employ.
‘Here, Letty, take this medicine. It will help you to sleep.’
She was powerless to stop the spoon being pressed against her lips and recognised the bitter taste of the liquid. Laudanum. The exact same drug her uncle had forced down her throat before he had handed her over to Bainbridge. Letty struggled as best she could. To her surprise, it was the frowning man who came to her aid. The one with the familiar deep blue eyes.
‘Stop it, Joe. If she doesn’t want it, you shouldn’t force it on her,’ he commanded.
The young man instantly withdrew, concern etched on his handsome face. ‘I don’t want her to be in pain, Jack. She needs to sleep.’
Apparently, enough drops of the liquid had already entered her system because her eyes were suddenly very heavy. She felt another hand touch her face softly. She knew immediately whose hand it was and also knew she liked this man’s touch.
‘That’s a good girl. Close your eyes, sweetheart. Everything will be all right...’
* * *
It was still dark when she woke properly, but not so dark she could not see. Opening both eyelids, however, proved to be problematic. The left one would not open at all. The room was strange. The bed was warm and comfortable, and every bone in her body hurt like the devil.
The only illumination in the room came from a solitary candle on the nightstand and the moonlight streaming through the uncovered window panes. Letty tested her arms and found that she could, in fact, now move them. The tight cord her uncle had bound her with was gone then. Those bonds had left their mark on her wrists though; they were both sore and painful. She reached her other hand over to touch the opposite arm and felt her left wrist bound with bandages. More bandage bound her upper arm. She attempted to sit up, but gave up when her head began to spin and pound once again.
Bringing her hand to her face, Letty felt her swollen lip. It was sore still, although the cut caused by Bainbridge’s signet rig was healed over. She must have been here asleep for hours for that to happen. Or days? Further probing led to the discovery of a huge lump on her temple. It was hot and tender, the bruising spread over the front of her forehead and just above her left eye. The lid felt swollen and explained why it was so difficult to open. She probably looked a fright. Her hair felt gritty and matted with a substance she did not recognise, but suspected was mud. She was also beyond thirsty.
For a few minutes she simply lay there, wondering what to do and trying to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. The bedchamber was large and simply decorated. There was a plain, mahogany dressing table against one wall and a matching, and equally enormous, wardrobe on the opposite one. The small nightstand next to her and the bedstead were the only other pieces of furniture. The heavy curtains at the leaded windows hung open, giving her a good view of the night sky beyond. The steady patter of raindrops on the glass suggested that the dreadful weather had not improved at all. The window was closed, but not barred or locked. That was a good sign surely—unless she was so high up escaping from the window was an impossibility. There were lots of castles in Scotland, after all, and the walls and ceiling did have an air of the ancient about them, although the ceilings were too low to belong to a fortress.
Letty scanned the rest of the room for clues. There was one large rug on the wooden floor. It looked to be good quality despite its obviously advanced age. The lack of artwork on the walls or little knick-knacks strewn about gave the room a distinctly impersonal feel. She had no idea whether she was in an inn or a private house and, as she was completely alone in the room, there was nobody to ask. There was also nobody to help her. However, the bedchamber door was open, which made her feel better. If she was a prisoner, then her captors would hardly leave her unattended with the door open—not after what had happened in the carriage. Perhaps she was safe at last?
Slowly, Letty shuffled her body to a more upright position, pausing to let each new wave of dizziness pass. Her shoulder throbbed, the wrist on her left hand was still immensely painful and her left ankle was also a bit tender, but other than that she had escaped the carriage remarkably in one piece. Stretching out her good arm, she could just about touch the rim of the cup on the nightstand. She used the soles of her feet to push forward a little more until she could grab the top of the cup with her finger and thumb. Judging by its weight, she thought the vessel must be filled with liquid. However, the flimsy grip she had on it was not strong enough. The cup slid out of her fingers and crashed to the wooden floor below, taking the precious fluid with it.
The noise created a flurry
