Page 2 of Kept 3
“I’ll have to see about getting you some straws,” he smiles.
“You haven’t answered my question,” I frown, my voice now stronger, more like it should be.
“I apologise,” he laughs gently, “I am Dr O’Rourke, a friend of the family,” he waves his hand around the opulent bedroom, “Lord Montague called me when he found you hurt in Italy.”
“Found,” I mutter, “that’s an interesting take on events. Tell me,doctor, what was your diagnosis for my friends? What happened to them, do you think?” I know my tone is acerbic, but I’m pushing to see how much this doctor knows and if he is in on kidnapping me.
“I’m afraid, if you mean the two people who perished in the fire, I believe their bodies were burnt beyond recognition. I understand they were friends of yours. I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”
“Fire,” I croak, “yes, that would do it.”
“Now,” he smiles, pulling up a chair, “let us talk of more pleasant things. You are heartily on the road to recovery, should you stay still and placid,” he cocks his head to one side when he says this, indicating that is exactly what I need to do, “and I anticipate you will be able to walk around, albeit in a shoulder sling, within a few days. In fact, by tonight, when the sedatives have completely worn off, with aid, you may rise and attend to your ablutions.”
“Ablutions?”
“Toilet and shower,” he smiles, pointing to the side of the room at a vast white oval bath sitting on a polished timber dais. It features a commanding view through wall-length windows of an extensive park which seems to go on forever. I see in the corner of the room a toilet and bidet, and beyond, a clear-glass shower recess with two large, round showerheads. The entire bath section of the room is bigger than my apartment in Boston.
I know where I am, I’m in Ereston Manor, and having peeked into quite a few bedrooms in this manor, and yet seen nothing on this scale, I am fairly confident in my assumption that I have been installed in the State Bedroom. I hoped to hell this isn’t also the preferred bedchamber of a certain bloodthirsty bastard known as Lord Nicholas Montague.
“What aid do you suggest I might have?” I ask, my voice dull because I’m sure as eggs it’s not going to be anyone who will also ‘aid’ me in my escape.
“Nurse Orion is here to attend you when I leave,” he smiles, “she’s Scottish, and a real card. Would you like me to call her in now?”
“Sure,” I sigh, leaning back in the pillows, my eyes glued to the window. I am determined that the moment I can think straight I am going to throw one of the lovely antique day chairs currently pulled up to my bed, right through those panes, and shimmy myself the hell out of here. But no need to alarm the doctor, ‘still and placid’ is all he needs to think.
Later that evening, having attended to my ‘ablutions’ with the aid of my nurse, and been helped to dress in a sheer, white satin nightgown; the only choice I’m given, I broach the subject of my incarceration.
“Where are the clothes that I came in?” I ask politely, “I’d feel better dressed. I don’t want to look like an invalid.”
“Dear me, you look anything but,” she laughs, “this nightgown is lovely, so soft and pretty, and the little patterns, tiny fleur-de-lis all over it – they were even printed on the big white box it came in. Goodness, you have wonderful taste. No dear, you don’t look like an invalid, you look beautiful.”
“I didn’t choose this gown, and I don’t want to look beautiful,” I mutter, deciding there was no harm in trying to beg for help. “Nurse Orion, I’m a prisoner here. I want to leave. I want to go to a regular hospital.”
“Och, you won’t find better care than here, lassie,” she says gently, “and you are no prisoner, you are the special guest of Lord Nicholas Montague.”
“He’s a vampire. I know you won’t believe me, but he’s a vampire and a murderer. He’s killed my friends, and he’s going to kill me.”
“Och, but you’ve had a nasty bump on your noggin,” she smiles, benignly, “back into bed with you now.”
I sigh and do as I am bid. Let’s face it. If someone had talked to me of vampires a few months ago, I would have said they were brain damaged too.
I wait until she leaves, hearing her turn the key in the lock, and rise from the bed. I accept the fact that I cannot escape through the window – I am three floors up, and a broken collarbone precludes any sheet ropes or any other imaginative ways I might have come up with to free myself from this gilded cage.
The nurse said it might take ‘a few weeks of ice, pain relievers, rest and physical therapy’ before my collarbone mends; fortunately, it was not a bad break and hadn’t required surgery. As for my head injury, I have headaches, the back of my neck hurts like a bitch, but other than that my mind is clear – and I am going to need a hell of a lot more than physical therapy if Lord Montague gets his way with me.
I try the door, but I heard right, it is locked. Morosely I wander back to the bed to lay down, exhausted just from the effort of rising and dressing, and await whatever my vampire captor has in store for me. I’m in quite a bit more pain now; the painkillers haven’t kicked in for the evening yet. The sun is beginning to sink below the horizon, and there is just a faint pink glow through the massive windows. As I notice this, my stress levels rise exponentially, as does the pain in my head, and my pulse begins to race. I know he will come tonight, and I know I haven’t got a hope of fighting him off if he tries to bite me. But I won’t go down completely without a fight. I’ve secured the little scissors the nurse used to cut my fresh bandages and hidden them under my pillow.
‘At the very least, I might injure him enough to allow me to run out the door and hide…’
Even as I think this, I know I’m fooling myself. Rather than exacerbating my headache by stressing any further, I sit and bite my nails and wish I had something to read to take my mind off the whole situation. But everything I owned is back in Sicily, and if a fire had been lit in Ricardo’s house to cover the evidence of his horrendous death, then all was lost.
‘But I’m not lost. Because to be lost you have to have someone looking for you, wanting to find you, and I have no one, no one at all.’
As my thoughts begin to become more and more depressing, I turn my face into my pillow and cry, but I don’t have long to wallow. The moment the sun sets, I hear the key turn in the door.
He enters the room quietly, but his presence seems to fill the vast space, and looking up, I am once again, reluctantly, struck by his beauty. Tonight is the first time I have seen him in anything but a suit, and the black skivvy he wears with tight blue jeans, accentuate his broad shoulders and lean, muscular legs. If I didn’t know him for what he is, if I wasn’t so appalled at his murder of my friends, well, I’d have a hard time resisting someone this attractive – but I do know.
“Josephine,” he smiles, walking close and pulling up one of the bedside chairs, “how do you feel?”
