Blood Marriage by Richards Regina

Author:Richards, Regina [Richards, Regina]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-12-24T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-One

A desperate cry stabbed through Elizabeth's mind, its urgency pulling her up out of a deep sleep. She sat up in bed. Faint moonlight bathed the room. She was alone. She remained still, listening. The sound didn't come again, but its faint ghost seemed to echo around her. The remnants of a dream? It had seemed so real, frightened and desperate. Was that an effect of the drug Dr. Bergen had given her?

The last few moments before she slept flashed through her mind. Fear wound around her heart. Fielding had sent Katie to watch her, insisting Nicholas join him downstairs. How long had she slept? What had happened in the meantime? Was Nicholas still free or had he been arrested, placed in irons and taken to London?

Elizabeth hurried to light the lamp on the bedside table and smooth the wrinkles from the dove-gray morning dress she still wore. She was searching for her shoes when a sound seeped out of the shadows. Moaning. Low and mournful. Coming from her mother's room.

She was through the connecting dressing room in seconds, her hand rattling her mother's doorknob. Locked. Had someone locked it by accident?

The moaning ceased.

"Mother!" Elizabeth pounded on the door. Where was the maid Cook always sent to sleep on the couch? Why didn't she open the door?

Then Elizabeth remembered. The murder had frightened away most of the servants and sent Cook to her bed. Had no one been sent to stay with her mother? Had she been left alone?

Elizabeth threw her shoulder against the door. It didn't budge. She rushed back through the dressing room to her bedroom and yanked open the door to the hall.

The corridor was dark, the house eerily silent. It was as if not only the servants, but the family and guests as well, had fled. No one had even bothered to light the wall sconces. Something inside her knew the hall door to her mother's room would be locked before she even tried the knob. She screamed in frustration and thought she heard a responding moan from the other side.

"Mother? Mother! Someone open this door!" Elizabeth pounded at the solid oak until her hands hurt. Giving up, she raced along the corridor in desperation. She stopped at each door in turn, beating on the polished wood panels, yelling for help, throwing the doors wide. The rooms were empty. She tried the rooms she knew belonged to Harriet, Countess Glenbury, Amanda and Leo, and other rooms she wasn't even sure were occupied or if so by whom. No one came. No one answered.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her mother was alone and in trouble, possibly dying. Where was everyone? Elizabeth picked up her skirts. Ignoring the pain in her joints, she ran back down the corridor to the stair landing.

Despite the panic constricting her throat, she screamed down at the empty pool of moonlight on the entry hall floor. "Nicholas! Lennie! Doctor Bergen! Please! Someone help her!"

Below, the front door opened. Hope surged. A man stepped into the oval of moonlight at the bottom of the stairs.

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