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Chapter Eight
Belle didn’t know how much time passed since Stephen left. She kept glancing at the door, anticipating his arrival and the sour disappointment that stabbed her chest when he didn’t walk through the door was growing too much to bear.
When she wasn’t pining for him to return soon, she was resisting the urge to rub her aching ankle, her mind flitting back and forth between last night and this morning. The kiss they had shared…her first kiss.
Belle never thought it would be so…explosive. She’d heard rumors before, heard the maids in the manor whisper about their own romances and she’d always yearned for it herself. She’d always wondered how it would feel to have her heart skip a beat, and the pit of her stomach grow tight and enflamed with need. She’d never, not for a single moment, expected it to be quite like that.
Why isn’t he back as yet? It has felt like ages.
She couldn’t decide what made her so eager for his return: the physician he would be bringing, or the need to see him again. To think that a stranger was making her feel such odd things in her chest…Belle didn’t know what to make of it.
Sighing, she leaned over to reach for the pitcher of water. There was no cup on hand, so she would have to drink straight from its mouth—if she could reach it, that was. She tried her best not to put too much pressure on her ankle, nor to shift it around if she didn’t have to, which had her reaching awkwardly down for the pitcher, her fingers barely able to touch its side.
That was when she heard a noise from outside. Despite the rickety nature of it, it sounded a lot like a carriage, horses whinnying lightly, and Belle’s head shot up at the sound.
He’s back!
Pulling herself back up straight proved more difficult than she expected it to be. She’d leaned down to the ground, with one hand pressed to the floor to steady her while she reached for the pitcher, but now she couldn’t muster the courage to push herself back up without disturbing her resting leg. Even now as she tried, ears cocked to the voices she heard outside, she stretched as far as she could for the pitcher and ended up shifting her leg slightly in the process, though she tried her hardest to keep still. Belle gritted her teeth through the pain.
The door opened with a loud creak. Belle twisted her heard around and could only see half of Stephen’s body.
“Hannah?” he rushed over to her, large hands grasping her shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“I seem to have gotten myself in quite a pickle trying to reach for the water,” she said, huffing a laugh in embarrassment. Stephen righted her easily.
“Oh, the water.” He picked it up. “I must not have realized how far it was from you when I set it down. Here.”
She gave him a smile as she took it, one that fell instantly off her face. She felt…awkward. Or perhaps nervous was the right word to use.
What does he think of me now that I kissed him like a complete harlot?
Unable to meet his eyes, Belle distracted herself by taking a few sips of the water. How funny. She hadn’t even remembered that she had been thirsty.
“I brought the physician,” Stephen announced, taking a few steps away from her. That was when another man stepped into her line of sight, a middle-aged fellow with graying hair and a weathered face riddled with wrinkles and old, fading scars.
“Good day,” the man said, hunkering down to his knees. “I heard you’d gone and gotten yourself thrown off your horse. Banged up your ankle?”
“It wasn’t my finest moment, I’ll admit,” she said to him. The man wasted no time examining her ankle, his large, rough-looking hands oddly gentle.
“Well, don’t you worry. My name is Robert Stanton and I’ve been a physician ever since I was in the military. If I can tackle those terrible war wounds, my dear, then I’ll surely be able to help you with your injury.” His broad grin brightened his eyes and Belle instantly felt at ease. “And what is your name, missy?”
“Hannah,” she told him. “Hannah Brown. You were in the military, you say?”
“That I was.” He began to take off Stephen’s makeshift bandage. “Served for nearly five years before I decided to return home and stop giving my wife grief. Been working as a physician ever since.” He jerked his head at Stephen. “He came to me in a huff, Miss Brown. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this worried.”
Belle glanced up at Stephen who had taken up position on the adjoining wall, his arms folded. She tried to ignore the way her heart beat at the worried look on his face. “The military, you say? Is that how you met Stephen?”
Mr. Stanton’s eyes widened a little and he glanced up at Stephen before returning his eyes to her and offering her a small smile. “We did meet in the army, yes,” Mr. Stanton told her.
He began to squeeze the swollen area, which had turned a nasty purple-bluish color. Belle tried to keep her groans of pain to herself. “When we came back,” he went on, “I thought I’d never see him again, so you can imagine my surprise when he came knocking on my door in London in a carriage he borrowed from a farmer.”
“Why did you think you’d never meet again?” Belle asked. Partly because she wanted to know, partly because she needed a distraction from the pain. “If you two became friends, wouldn’t it make sense to keep in touch?”
“As he said, he lives in London.” Belle looked at Stephen, who’d cut in. He pushed himself from the wall and came to join Mr. Stanton by her throbbing ankle. “How does it look, Mr. Stanton? Is it broken?”
“It’s only sprained, which is a good thing. But it means you’re going to have to stay off it for a while, Miss Brown. Make sure to get a lot of bed rest.”
Belle nearly sagged against the couch. She couldn’t get bed rest. She needed to get to London and then to Scotland before her father found her.
