Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Lily nodded. “Thomas is well aware of what his demise would mean to Jonathan. Have no fear. Mr. Longbottom is with him.”
Yes, Longbottom was there an hour ago when Tricia and her mother were visiting Thomas. But was he still there? “Are you sure?” she asked Lily.
“Of course. Where else would he be?” Lily grabbed Tricia by the shoulders. “My darling, you really must calm down. You’re upset, you’re recovering from the fire…”
Tricia wriggled out of Lily’s grasp, coughing again. “I must see for myself, Lily,” she said with a rasp. “Please.”
Lily looked Tricia up and down, frowning. But she cocked her head and her countenance softened. “Of course, love. Anything for my future sister.”
35
Tricia and Lily made haste to Thomas’s suite of rooms. Lily knocked on the thick wooden door.
“Mr. Longbottom?” Lily said. “Are you in there?”
A moment passed. Lily knocked again. And then again.
Anxiety curled through Tricia. Where was Thomas’s valet? Shouldn’t he be in the suite tending to Thomas? Shouldn’t a physician be here? Or Thomas’s mother, the dowager countess?
Where was everyone?
Thomas’s valet was always in the suite. Where was he now?
Tricia turned the doorknob.
“Tricia, love,” Lily chided her. “We can’t go in uninvited.”
Tricia looked back and forth from the closed door to the duchess’s concerned face. “I’m worried sick over him, Lily. Someone means him harm.” She knocked again. “Where is Mr. Longbottom? Why is no one answering?”
“I shall go and fetch another male servant. He can go in and check on the earl.” Lily turned around, lifted up her skirts, and bolted down the hallway.
Tricia turned back to the door.
It really would be improper for her to enter this suite uninvited, even with the large diamond adorning her left hand indicating her commitment to her future husband.
And she was dressed in little more than a robe.
“Lily?” she called down the hallway. “Did you find someone?”
No response from the duchess.
Damn it all. There was a time and place for propriety, and it was not now.
Tricia turned the knob, and it opened. She walked into the sitting area. “Mr. Longbottom?”
Tricia walked toward the door to the bedroom, her slippers padding on the Turkish rug covering the hardwood floor.
The door to Thomas’s bedchamber was cracked slightly, and Tricia peeked—
“No!” she yelled.
A figure clad in black stood over Thomas, holding a pillow to his face.
Tricia couldn’t think. She could only act. She quickly grabbed the large Ming vase from Thomas’s night table, ran forward, and just as the figure was turning to meet her gaze, she brought it down with a crash over his head, watching it shatter onto the carpet and onto Thomas’s bed.
She gasped when the man fell to the floor. It couldn’t be…
But he was up in no time, his hands closing around her neck. “You little bitch. Now you’ll have to die with him.”
36
Thomas gasped in a breath. Sweet air! He’d been sleeping, and then…
A dream.
A nightmare.
He was underwater, struggling to breathe…
But he was awake now. Weak, but awake, and—
“Thomas!” A throaty gasp.
Ignoring his shortness of breath and the pain from his burns, he leapt out of bed wearing only his britches.
Tricia was here, and someone was on top of her with his hands around her neck.
He winced as he stepped on something jagged, but he forced the pain away as he garnered all his strength and grabbed hold of the man who dared lay hands on his beloved, forcing the assailant’s face into view.
Thomas gasped. “It can’t be.”
It wasn’t Jonathan Jameson.
It wasn’t Viscount Polk or his son Victor.
It was Albert Montague. His butler.
For a second, everything was still. No one moved. Thomas was so taken aback that no force in this earthly domain could move him.
Montague took advantage of the earl’s bewilderment and kicked him squarely in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs and sending him to the floor. Thomas hit the floor with a loud thud, his naked back scraping up against pieces of white and light-blue porcelain which dug into his skin like an angry hive of bees. Thomas looked up to see that Montague, his face a mask of cold resolve, had reclasped his gloved hands firmly around Tricia's neck. Her eyes bulged in terror, her desperate gasps for air echoing in the stillness.
Ignoring the pain and the small pool of blood that had formed under him, Thomas quickly got back to his feet. "Montague, release her at once!”
Montague's eyes flicked towards Thomas, his grip momentarily loosening. Tricia collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. Montague straightened and met the Thomas’s gaze.
“Why are you doing this?” Thomas asked. “You’ve served this family loyally for years. We’ve paid you well, treated you like family.”
Montague’s face darkened, and he bared his teeth like a bull about to charge. “If only that were true, my lord.”
Montague lunged forward, his right fist aiming for Thomas’s jaw. Thomas sidestepped his attack, grabbing a silver candelabrum from a nearby table and swinging it towards the butler. Montague ducked just in time, the heavy object whooshing past his head and crashing into a mirror, shattering it. He then grabbed Thomas’s arm, forcing him to drop the candelabra, and kicked him onto his knees, directly on top of the broken glass.