Hot Earl Summer by Erica Ridley

Author:Erica Ridley [RIDLEY, ERICA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2024-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

22

Elizabeth awoke with a gasp. She kept her eyes shut tight. Slowly, carefully, gingerly, she began the inch-by-inch inventory ritual. She started with her toes. Not a full wiggle—a slight, experimental flex.

Her knees twitched in response, which caused her hip to jerk, which caused her lower back to grip her in the sharp talons of a vicious muscle spasm.

Perfect. Splendid.

She didn’t bother checking the rest of her body. She just lay there, concentrating on evening out her breaths, in through her mouth, out through her nose, slow, steady. There. Like that. She would get through this. She always did.

She cracked open one eye. Early morning sun streamed through the windows. She’d survived the night. Somehow.

Her fingers flopped at her sides, then found something light and smooth and sticky. Her flask of gin. Empty. She’d probably guzzled its contents in one swallow.

Now there was nothing to take the edge off. Her head was pounding, her mouth thick, and her body ached as though she’d spent the night being beaten with a mallet.

It was tomorrow, then. Twelve or more hours of semi-consciousness had slipped away. The bedchamber door was locked tight. She vaguely recalled several knocks at it, intermittently. And a voice. Probably Stephen’s. She’d called out that she was fine. Unless she’d dreamed the interactions.

She forced open the other eye. The high stone ceiling greeted her. Relentless gray. Cold. Pitted. Unfeeling. God, she hated this castle. Why had she ever thought she liked castles?

A few minutes passed. Or an hour.

She tried her toes again, slower this time. Her knees tensed, but didn’t flinch. Which meant her hips stayed stable, and the muscles of her back didn’t rebel against her.

Good. An excellent sign. Moving her toes meant she was at fifteen percent Elizabeth. Sure, it sounded like a lot less than fifteen percent, until you factored in that she’d moved her toes without pain. That was the key. If she took it slow, she might get up to twenty percent today, or twenty-five. Maybe even thirty.

The problem was, holding still only tempted her muscles to stiffen. The more she babied her limbs, the more vehemently they reacted when she tried to use them. On the other hand, doing too much too fast was the quickest way to drop back to zero. The trick was to do the gentlest of stretches. As constant of motion as she could stand, without pushing her body too far. Coaxing it back to life. Limbering one joint, one muscle at a time.

It was a good plan in theory. Backed by years of firsthand experience. It was also boring as bloody hell. Lying here, doing nothing. Stretching her toes, testing her wrists.

Usually her upper body was all right. But not her lower back. Her hips were often a mess, and the knees not so great, but the rest of her often returned to form within a day or so of the first onset of a flare-up.

She tested the theory by moving one arm, then the other, then raising them toward the ceiling.

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