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She closed her eyes like she was exhausted, and she probably was. All that movement, it was unnatural. It had to hurt and take tons of energy.
“No,” she answered.
“Okay, rest. Help will be here soon, and we’ll figure out what’s happening.”
She opened her eyes. “You need to get up. You can’t stay down here with me.”
“Watch me.”
“Then I’ll get up.”
She made to move but Ian’s hand came to her shoulder, and he said gently, “No, Lou. Please stay where you are, love. I want professionals checking you out before we go anywhere.”
The house was far away from everything. It’d take half an hour for them to get there and the draft on the floor was something fierce. Not to mention, the silk, likely priceless rug we were lying on was thick, but it was damned uncomfortable.
I lifted my head to protest. “You can carry her to the bed.”
“I can, but I don’t know if she did harm to herself, darling,” he said tenderly, the same expression on his handsome face, and I really wanted to take time to enjoy it, but I couldn’t. “There’s an ambulance service in the village. They’ll be here in only five minutes more. I promise.”
This mysterious village must be a lot closer than I expected and somewhere tucked away, since I saw hide nor hair of it driving to the house or on my walk on the moor.
“My goodness!” I heard Stevenson exclaim.
Ian rose. “Good. You’re here.”
He moved away.
I squeezed Lou’s hand again because her gaze had grown distant.
She focused on me, and I let out the breath I started to hold. I was terrified she’d seize again.
“Did you hear that? Five minutes,” I told her.
Her fingers tightened around mine so hard, there was pain, and shock, since I didn’t think she had that in her right then.
“You know I love you,” she said, a fierce undercurrent running alongside her feeble tone.
For the second time since I hit that room, my chest caved in.
“Shut up.”
“You do, right?”
Tears stung my eyes.
“Yes, Lou. And you’re going to be fine. Just fine. Four minutes now, okay?”
“Okay, lovey.”
I lay on the floor, held her hand and her gaze.
Ian had not lied.
Within a few minutes, rolling a stretcher with them, the paramedics were there.
The good news about hanging with an up-and-coming earl at the local community hospital while your stepmother was being looked over by doctors, you didn’t have to brush shoulders with the rabble in any old waiting room.
We were in an office. A nice one. Probably the hospital administrator’s or the head of medicine. Likely a doctor if the degrees on the wall were a reliable clue. And we’d been brought coffee and biscuits.
