Myles slowly lowered her to the ground. He watched her the whole time and saw her instinctive wince when her feet touched the ground. When he would have released her, he kept his hands on her waist to hold her steady when she was at last back on her feet but swayed alarmingly. Mabel, suddenly releasing Estelle’s problem, hurried over to the bed and tugged the covers back.
“Come on now, let’s get you in here. How about a nice hot cup of tea?” Mabel murmured as she tugged the blankets down to reveal the pristine white sheets beneath.
They looked so inviting that Estelle sighed. She yearned to be able to just curl up beneath the heavy blankets, get warm, and sleep all of her cares away. It was going to be difficult to get there, though, because each time she moved, her feet hurt and the room began to sway.
“Come on, I’ll help you,” Myles murmured. Rather than risk making her dizzy some more, Myles held his elbow out to her. “Just take your time.”
Estelle hobbled over to the bed and sat down with a huge sigh of relief.
“Let me take a look at those feet,” he suggested, kneeling before her. “I need to see if these need bathing, or if you need something for them.” He turned to the housekeeper. “Mabel, Estelle needs to sleep in here because when she woke up earlier she was disorientated and confused. I don’t want her wandering around the west wing at night. In here, I will be able to hear her if she does wake up and try to move around,” he explained.
“I am here, you know,” Estelle reminded him gently.
In spite of her pique, she couldn’t bring herself to be angry with him for his high-handedness. Still, it was not something she was inclined to allow him to continue to do.
Myles acknowledged her slight rebuke with a brisk nod. “My room is only next door. If you take ill in the night just shout out if you cannot reach the bell. Don’t take any risks by trying to push yourself too hard and go in search of someone. It is easy to get lost in a house like this. Just get some rest.”
“I can get Bobbi and Katie to keep watch, if you like, in case you take poorly? If you do then we will send someone off to the doctor, fog or not, but it might take a while. There is a storm promised before tomorrow. It has already started to rain. If those winds pick up the fog will lift but we will be just as stranded.”
“I wouldn’t recommend anybody heading across the moors on a night like this,” Myles sighed, fervently hoping that the predicted storm was nothing more than a rain shower.
“I will help her with her boots,” Mabel added. “It would be more appropriate, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Myles nodded and stepped back. “Let me see them, though.”
He was aware of Mabel’s curious look but didn’t explain. He looked at Estelle, who appeared so tired he suspected she would fall asleep at any moment.
When he turned around and walked to the door, the effort it took was alarming. It was the first time he had actually left any woman and felt a physical wrench by doing so. Because of that, rather than leave and go to speak with his father, he hesitated and watched Mabel remove Estelle’s boots.
“Here, let me see those,” he ordered softly when Mabel dropped one boot onto the floor and set to work on the other. He stalked across the room and caught sight of several bruises on Estelle’s feet. “You need to soak them,” he murmured in concern.
Estelle studied her aching feet and sighed. She knew they were sore, but she hadn’t expected the myriad cuts and bruises which covered her feet.
“These are ruined,” Myles murmured as he studied her boots and poked one finger through a small hole. “Whatever you ran over was sharp.”
He shook his head and dropped the boot onto the floor. Unsurprisingly, the other boot was just as bad but, thankfully, they had protected Estelle’s feet enough for there not to be any lasting damage. She would heal with time and rest.
“What are you thinking?” Estelle murmured when she saw Myles staring angrily down at her ruined footwear.
Myles met her curious gaze. “I think that wherever you ran in those woods, it was a long way. Something must have frightened you a lot for you not to stop, or even notice the discomfort of standing on something so sharp it would tear your boot.”
He didn’t say as much, but in his book the state of her boots was proof she had been telling him the truth. Unfortunately, it put the hooded figures outside in a different light. They now posed more of a danger than he had first thought. They didn’t just look sinister, they were dangerous.
“Let me see the back of your head,” he murmured, wondering if she had fallen and hit her head, or someone had tried to hit her with something. In this fog, if someone fell over and didn’t get back up and remained silent and still, it would be damned near impossible to find them again. Had that saved her life?
Estelle sat perfectly still while Myles poked around in her hair.
“I cannot see anything,” he murmured a few seconds later. “Show me.”
Estelle dutifully parted her hair where it hurt the most.
Myles studied the duck-egg on the back of her head and only just managed to muffle his epithet. He didn’t touch it because he knew already that it hurt her. Strangely, now that he had seen it, he didn’t think he had been the one to cause the injury.
“Get some rest,” he murmured. “You have hit your head on something somehow but haven’t pierced the skin. We will keep an eye on it. As long as it doesn’t get any bigger, you should feel no more discomfort than what you have already. If it does get worse, or you start to fell ill, send for me.”
Myles would have to get her some more professional medical attention, and if that meant going to find the doctor himself then he would. He almost relished the possibility of crossing paths with the people in the cloaks once more. Next time, though, he would be armed, and have one or two of the more heavyweight men in his employ with him.
At the door, he paused. His gaze was somewhat hardened when he pierced Mabel with a stern look. “Has there been any other unusual activity going on around here while I have been gone?”