Whatever the reason for her absence Sterling’s disappointment was so deep, he seriously considered telling Whitlow he suddenly felt indisposed himself and would not be staying for dinner after all.

  He would have done so immediately if not for the fact Whitlow was sure to then realize the real reason for his hasty departure. He doubted giving the earl even that much insight into Sterling’s desire to be with Elizabeth again would be wise. Not when he believed Whitlow was the sort of man who would use a man’s weaknesses against him.

  Elizabeth had become such a weakness for Sterling.

  He could never remember wanting a woman in the way he wanted her. To now find himself denied spending even a few hours in her company had totally soured Sterling’s temperament, resulting in Whitlow spending the evening trying to entertain a taciturn and autocratic dinner guest.

  He failed miserably.

  So much so that Sterling refused the offer of brandy and cigars and instead abruptly excused himself.

  He paused before entering the carriage to turn and look back at the house. There was evidence of candles being alight in a room on the third floor, but he had no idea whether or not that was Elizabeth’s bedchamber.

  Wherever she was, he sincerely hoped she felt better soon.

  Tears fell silently down Elizabeth’s cheeks as she lay in bed and listened to Sterling’s carriage departing.

  In the same way those tears had fallen when she had heard his carriage arrive two hours earlier.

  On neither occasion did she have the strength to actually leave her bed to cross the bedchamber so that she might look outside and see the man himself. No matter how much she might have longed to do so.

  Having wrapped a bandage about her sprained ankle, she had made an effort during the day to play down her injuries for Christopher’s sake. Mary, his nursemaid, had already told the little boy that Elizabeth had fallen down the stairs and hurt herself before she brought Christopher to her bedchamber. Initially he had burst into tears at the sight of the bruises on his mother’s face and arms, but Elizabeth’s reassurances that they only looked bad but didn’t hurt had soon soothed him.

  Even if those reassurances were a total fiction.

  None of them had spoken a word to each other of their plan to leave the house and Cornwall during the night.

  At least, Elizabeth hoped they would be able to do so.

  They had to, she told herself determinedly.

  Even if Elizabeth believed she hurt more now than she had this morning, after a day of playing games and reading to her young son. She hadn’t been able to accompany him to the beach in the afternoon as she usually did, but he had seemed content to have the company of both Mary and Peggy instead.

  During their absence at the beach, Elizabeth’s father-in-law had let himself into her bedchamber without so much as attempting to knock first.

  She had expected to feel fear when she next saw the earl, but instead, the predominant emotion was disgust. She again wondered how a man as kind and loving as Thomas could ever have been the son of such a selfish and contemptuous one.

  Whitlow strolled confidently across the room until he stood beside the bed where she was once again resting. “Might I enquire how long you intend sulking in your rooms?”

  “Sulking?” she repeated incredulously, pulling herself farther up the pillows even though it hurt to do so. “You calmly went to bed yesterday evening and left me lying unconscious at the foot of the staircase!”

  He gave an unconcerned shrug. “And yet here you are, apparently none the worse for it.”

  “I am covered in bruises, my ankle is sprained, and I cannot stand without assistance.” She knew that to be true because Peggy had been helping her to use the chamber pot all day. “I might have died.”

  The earl’s nostrils flared. “It is a pity you did not.”

  “What did I ever do to you that you hate me so much?” Elizabeth choked.

  “You eloped with my son and heir.”

  “I am also the mother of your grandson and heir!”

  “More’s the pity.” He shook his head. “At the time, I had begun negotiations with the Duke of Norwich for Thomas to marry his youngest daughter.” He made no attempt to hide his contempt as his gaze raked over her. “Instead, Thomas eloped with the daughter of an impoverished lord.”

  “We loved each other.”

  “Love!” Whitlow scorned. “Thomas should have married Norwich’s daughter and kept you as his mistress.”

  She winced. “You would not know love, for Thomas or anyone else, if it were to slap you in the face!”

  “Perhaps not, but I do know lust,” he deliberately taunted.

  Rage welled up inside Elizabeth, threatening to overflow like lava from a volcano. “I will not allow you to continue molesting my maid.”

  Whitlow reached out to grasp hold of her wrist, his fingers squeezing tightly about the bruised flesh. “You really are an unsightly mess,” he told her disgustedly as tears of pain instantly filled her eyes. “And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do to stop me from doing exactly as I please in my own household.”

  He was wrong. She could leave. She must leave, and take Peggy with her, along with Christopher and Mary.

  The earl dropped her arm back onto the bed. “I will make your excuses to Bristol this evening.”

  Elizabeth was surprised by the lack of concern in his voice at that prospect. “I thought you wished me to encourage the duke’s attentions?”

  A shrewd glitter appeared in Whitlow’s eyes. “It never pays to appear too eager when a man like Bristol is involved. Especially when it comes to women. All of the Ruthless Dukes are elusive in that area. No,” he added decisively. “I am more than happy to make your excuses this evening.” He smiled his satisfaction with the arrangement before the smile disappeared and he viewed her through narrowed eyes. “Do not think for a moment that I have forgotten your disobedience regarding the gown you wore yesterday evening. You will come to my study at ten o’clock tomorrow morning for your punishment.”

  “I doubt I will be well enough,” she protested.

  “I suggest you do everything in your power to ensure that you are. If I am forced to visit your bedchamber again, I will be bringing my whip with me.”

  Leaving Elizabeth in no doubt that the earl meant to see her dead.

  A warning to Elizabeth that no matter whether she felt well enough or not, she had to go through with the plan to leave here during the night.

  Or risk the true danger of her father-in-law succeeding in killing her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sterling had no idea what had roused him from his fitful slumber.

  A noise outside, perhaps?

  Or one inside?

  He could not be certain it was either when he could no longer hear anything other than the usual unnatural quiet of what, after a quick glance at his pocket watch, he knew to be the very early hours of the morning.

  But something had woken him, and with the rest of the household asleep in their beds, whatever it was needed to be investigated sooner rather than later.

  As his preference was to sleep without clothing Sterling paused long enough, once out of bed, to pull on a pair of pantaloons and a loose white shirt before lighting a candle and stepping out into the shadows of the hallway.

  His footsteps echoed as he held a single lit candle aloft to light his way down the wide staircase to the cavernous entrance hall below.

  “—are we to do now?”

  “Wait till morning, I expect.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know, do I? I’m just doing as I’m told, as should you.”

  Sterling didn’t recognize any of the two female and single male voices he could hear whispering down the hallway from the direction of the kitchen. The voices all sounded young, and his housekeeper was an elderly lady. It could be two of the maids and a footman, he supposed, although he had thought the former lived in the village with their families and only came to the house to work during the day and early evening.

  Whoever they were, he had no idea what they could possibly be doing in the kitchen in the middle of the night.

  He was quite unprepared to stand in the doorway of that room and find a young man and not two, but three young ladies, none of whom he recognized as belonging to his household. All were seated about the table in the middle of the kitchen, illuminated only by the light of a single candle.

  The youth had fair hair, one of the ladies had dark hair, the second a redhead. The third woman was slumped over the tabletop, a cascade of loose golden hair covering her features. Sterling realized there was also a small dark-haired boy present, possibly aged three or four, who appeared to be fast asleep on the lap of the red-haired woman.

  Sterling might not be able to see the face of the woman slumped over the table, but as he had spent hours two nights ago admiring that particular shade of golden hair, he knew exactly who the third woman was.

  Elizabeth.

  “Oh my Lord,” the dark-haired young woman gasped, having glanced up to see him silhouetted in the doorway.

  “Close,” Sterling drawled softly.

  She rose to her feet. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, Your Grace.” Revealing she knew exactly who and what he was.

  “How did you get in?” Sterling had every confidence that Rogers would have locked all the outer doors of the house before he retired to bed.

  The brunette blushed. “Luckily, the back door was only locked, not bolted, and my older brother taught me how to pick locks. Just for fun, you understand,” she added hastily.

  “That doesn’t explain why you chose to pick my lock.” He was now sure he had never seen any of these young people before.

  “Lady Elizabeth obviously isn’t well enough to travel at the moment,” the brunette dismissed. “And we can’t go back there.” She shuddered.

  “Not well enough to travel where?” he prompted sharply. He crossed the room to place his lit candle down on one of the wooden work surfaces.

  “Back to London,” the young man supplied, with obvious eagerness to be there.

  “Lady Elizabeth fainted the moment we arrived at the stables,” the redhead explained. “Jimmy here had to help her into the carriage.”

  “She passed out from the pain is what she did,” the other young lady defended. “You might have done so too if you had as many bruises as she does.”

  “I meant no offense,” the redhead apologized.

  Sterling was no longer listening to them after hearing the words “pain” and “hurting” used to describe Elizabeth.

  He approached her slowly, his touch gentle as he reached out to carefully smooth the swath of hair back from her face. He drew in a hissing breath the moment he revealed the first of the dark bruises on her cheek. That hiss turned to the clenching of his teeth once he could see the full extent of the numerous bruises on her face and throat.

  “Who did this?” he demanded hollowly, having a feeling he already knew the answer but needing to have those suspicions confirmed before he killed the wrong man.

  “Lady Elizabeth fell down the stairs,” the redhead explained.

  “The earl punched her in the face, she lost her balance, and then she fell down the stairs,” the brunette corrected indignantly. “After which he calmly went to his bedchamber and left her lying unconscious down in the entrance hall,” she added with obvious disgust for the deed. “None of us knew what had occurred until the morning.”

  “When did this happen?” Sterling demanded to know.

  “The evening before last,” the brunette supplied.

  The same evening Elizabeth and Whitlow had joined him here for dinner.

  Sterling thought back to that evening and his concern when Elizabeth had mentioned the earl’s displeasure over the gown she was wearing.

  Within minutes of them leaving here and arriving home, it seemed Whitlow had struck Elizabeth hard enough to cause her to fall down the stairs.

  It sickened Sterling to now think that he had slept the night through in the knowledge he was to see Elizabeth again the following evening, totally unaware she was lying at the bottom of a staircase, badly injured.

  Dear God, he had spent this evening at Whitlow Grange, and all the time, Elizabeth had been lying upstairs. Not indisposed by her womanly courses, as Whitlow had told him she was, but unable to rise from her bed due to the injuries she had received upon returning home the previous evening.

  No. The brunette claimed the order of things—and Sterling had absolutely no reason to doubt her—was that Whitlow had struck her mistress prior to Elizabeth falling. Which meant the earl was totally responsible for what had happened after hitting Elizabeth.

  Sterling should have known something was amiss this evening. Damn it, he should have demanded to see Elizabeth.

  And Whitlow would have been perfectly within his rights to refuse that demand.

  Sterling was going to kill the bastard.

  No, first he was going to make Whitlow suffer, in the way Elizabeth had suffered these many months, before he granted the older man the sweet release of death.

  “Lady Elizabeth made an effort to play with Christopher today”—the brunette gave the sleeping little boy an affectionate glance before sobering—“but I could see how much it pained her when I assisted her into her clothes earlier so we could leave Whitlow Grange, and then helped her down the stairs. Luckily, Jimmy had the carriage waiting, as promised.” She gave him a grateful glance. “Unfortunately, Lady Elizabeth fainted the moment we were all inside.”

  “But before she fainted, Lady Elizabeth asked that we bring her here to Bristol Manor.” The redhead sounded puzzled by her mistress’s request.

  Sterling, on the other hand, felt a rise of emotions inside him, ones of both gratitude and happiness, at hearing Elizabeth had believed she could safely come to him for help.

  He glanced at the groom. “Jimmy, you shall go into town for the doctor. I will carry Lady Elizabeth up the stairs, and you, young ladies…” His gaze turned to what he now realized must be a lady’s maid and a nursemaid. “You will both follow me and help to get your mistress undressed and into bed. Bring the boy with you.” No doubt Elizabeth would wish to ensure her son’s welfare the moment she became conscious.

  “I don’t come from around here, so I don’t know where the doctor lives,” Jimmy explained as he stood up, obviously willing to do as he’d been asked, just clueless as to exactly where he needed to go.

  “On the opposite side of the road to the church. Next to the vicarage,” Sterling supplied distractedly as he assessed the best way to move Elizabeth so as to cause her the least pain.

  It was testament to how deeply unconscious Elizabeth was that she didn’t stir or give so much as a groan as Sterling carefully slid his arms beneath her shoulders and knees before lifting her so that he could cradle her tenderly against his chest.

  He was the one to draw in a sharp breath as Elizabeth’s head dropped back, her golden hair cascading loosely over his arm and fully revealing the extent of the bruising to her face and throat.

  “Go now,” Sterling instructed the younger man harshly as he continued to stare at Elizabeth’s battered and bruised visage. “Tell him it is urgent he come to Bristol Manor immediately. Do not take no for answer,” he added firmly before striding from the room.

  “Go,” he heard the brunette hiss before slippered feet and a flickering candle followed him down the hallway.

  Sterling vowed that if it was the last thing he ever did, Whitlow would suffer for what he had done to Elizabeth.

  Slowly.

  Excruciatingly.

  And soon.

  “I am sorry, young lady, but I must move you in order to be able to examine all of you.”

  Elizabeth heard an unfamiliar male voice apologize regretfully.

  “I will not allow you to do a single thing that might cause Elizabeth a moment of unnecessary pain or discomfort,” a second, now-familiar voice, warned harshly.

  “My dear man—”

  “I am not your dear anything,” that arrogant voice bit out tersely. “Nor do I care to be spoken to in that patronizing tone.”

  Elizabeth, still caught in a fog of darkness, but becoming more aware with every second that passed, had no idea who the first man was. But she had absolutely no doubts that the second voice belonged to Sterling Bishop, and that he was extremely displeased.

  “Of course not, Your Grace,” the first man’s voice soothed. “I was simply going to explain that the extent of the lady’s injuries means that if I am to examine her properly, there is very little movement that will not cause her discomfort.”

  Ah, the second man was a doctor.

  Injuries?

  What injuries?

  Had she been in an accident of some kind—

  No, it had not been an accident!

  Elizabeth remembered it all now.

  Whitlow’s anger. His striking her. The horror and pain of the tumble down the stairs before she stilled and then lost consciousness. Waking in darkness and pain. Crawling to her bedchamber. Peggy’s shock the following morning when she saw Elizabeth and learned what had happened. The day that followed as Elizabeth tried to keep the worst of her injuries from Christopher. Whitlow’s callousness that evening, along with further threats. Peggy helping her to dress later so that they could all make their escape.

  Except Elizabeth had known, after only a few steps outside on their way to the stables, that she would never be able to withstand the long and bumpy journey back to London.

  She also now remembered that her last words before the blackness consumed her had been “take me to Bristol Manor.”

  Was that where she now was?

  If so, where were Christopher, Peggy, and Mary, and the young groom who was to drive them?

  The need to know what had become of all of them was enough to pull her out of the last of the protective fog and into the realm of painful reality.