A Raging Madness by Jude Knight

Author:Jude Knight [Knight, Jude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-473-39367-0
Publisher: Jude Knight

21

Light was filtering through the curtains when Ella woke. Her head felt stuffed with rags, and her thoughts skittered away from any kind of coherence. She had dreamed her nightmare, the old nightmare of the moment her girlhood ended. But this time, her assailant was not Gervase, and Alex was in the crowd and did not turn away in disgust and horror.

She pulled herself up to sitting and leant back against the pillows to give her head time to stop spinning. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something that should not be in her bed chamber.

Was that Alex? Sleeping in her chair, with his head back and his mouth open? She shook her head and looked again. He had not faded like her other dreams, and besides, she had never dreamed him here, in her bed chamber in the Redepenning townhouse. And in a chair at that, not tucked beside her in the large comfortable bed.

She had a screaming thirst on her, as if she had been drugged again… And with the thought came disjointed memories from the previous night. Nothing in sequence or in detail but enough that she whimpered, and Alex was awake in an instant.

“Ella, I have you safe. We will sort it out.”

Those words were among the memories, repeated over and over again in Alex’s dearly beloved voice. Something was very wrong that he felt the need for such reassurance.

She tried to speak, but her mouth was too dry, and it came out as a croak. Alex filled a glass from the jug on the side table and brought it to her.

“What happened?” she asked, when she had her voice. “What is wrong, Alex?”

“What do you remember?” He pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat beside her, possessing himself of one of her hands, and she clung to him as she tried to sort her fragments into a coherent picture.

“There was a man. Mrs Fullerton gave me something to drink, and… It was laudanum, was it not? And then the man… Did he try to force himself on me, Alex? I remember people staring, and then…” Nothing. A blank, shot through with occasional glimpses of Alex, his voice saying comforting things. “Edwin and Constance? Were they there?”

“They were in collusion. The Braxtons. That bastard Farnham, whom I should have had arrested in Cheshire when I discovered he had been stealing from Rede. And Patrice Fullerton. Farnham has been mouthing off around town about our trip together on the canal, and the Braxtons have been claiming you are an addict and free with your favours. They thought to prove it last night.”

Ella shut her eyes, but the knowledge pounded in her head, and she whimpered. “They succeeded.”

Alex squeezed her hand. “No, Ella. Father circled around them and ambushed them from the rear, and they have, all four, been arrested for their conspiracy and their assault. Only… You might not be pleased at how he saved you. I am sorry, Ella.

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