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“I-”
Myles interrupted Estelle when she tried to speak. “She needs to see a doctor.”
Barnabas immediately looked at the bell pull, but Myles moved to stop him.
“It is too dank outside to send anyone out there. It was because of the fog that I didn’t see her. Besides-” Myles sighed and looked at the staircase.
“What?” Barnabas demanded.
He knew there was much more his son wasn’t telling him. In normal circumstances, Barnabas would happily be patient and wait until Myles was good and ready, but then he had never seen his son in such a stunned state before. Neither had he ever stumbled home with a wild look in his eye, carrying an extremely beautiful woman he had run over. Nor had he ever had that determined, possessive look whenever he had gazed at a woman before either.
“Good Lord above,” Barnabas whispered; unsure what shocked him the most.
“I am alright,” Estelle assured them both. “I just feel a little dizzy, that’s all.”
Barnabas looked at the woman with renewed interest.
She really is rather stunning, he mused. His thoughts were interrupted by Myles who now looked thunderous.
“What’s going on, father?” Myles asked without preamble.
“I don’t know, son. You tell me,” Barnabas invited.
Myles shook his head. “I need to get her settled into a guest room.”
Barnabas looked at the woman thoughtfully.
“I think it would be better to put her in the family quarters right now, don’t you? Until she can see a doctor, it isn’t wise for her to come into contact with Vernon, don’t you think?”
Estelle glared at them balefully. She wanted to tell them both that she really was awake, and could speak for herself.
The way they kept talking around her as though she wasn’t there annoying to say the very least.
“I am alright,” she repeated. “I just ache a little. That’s all.”
“You are hurt,” Myles soothed. “We need to find out how badly.”
Estelle glared and struggled against the need to pertly remind him that she was a grown-up and could find that out for herself. She would have done too, if each time she looked at him she was able to retain a single thought in her head. As it was, he only had to look down at her with those mesmerising eyes of his and her mind went blank.
What kind of hold does he have on me? She mused a little dazedly. A high hold given you are several feet off the ground, you fool.
“The garden room,” Myles murmured.
He had forgotten about his rather eccentric uncle. Vernon could be somewhat disconcerting to anybody who was hale and hearty. To someone like Estelle, who was already mired in a world of confusion, his uncle’s strangeness could well make her run out of the house screaming.
“I think that would be wise,” Barnabas replied.
“Pardon?” Estelle said blankly.
Before Myles could say anything, Barnabas spoke.
“Good. The garden room it is then. Then you can come back and talk to me. I want more details.”
There was an air of command in Barnabas’ voice that warned Myles he would get badgered and plagued by his father until he had told him everything. Not that Myles minded. He needed some answers from his father as well. First, he had to make sure that Estelle was alright.
Estelle, he mused thoughtfully. It is a gently rounded name for a gently rounded woman.
Indeed, the more he held her the more Myles became uncomfortably aware of the low cut of the bodice of her dress, and each dip and hollow of her gently feminine curves pressed so tightly against him.
