Page 43 of The Phantom Duke
He gently gathered her in his arms and lifted. She winced at some pain, reaching for her ankle. Then, she was unconscious again. Damien climbed the steep slope, teeth bared and refusingto let the trap beat him. He clutched Maria close to him. When he reached the top, he looked back. The caltrop grinned up at him, its single point defying him.
He stalked back through the woods, carrying Maria back to safety. He resolved on that walk that she would get her wish. If she wished to know more about him, then he would tell her. But he did not expect her to want to remain at Winterleigh for long once she discovered his secrets.
CHAPTER 13
“She is awake, Evelina! Welcome back to us, Maria!”
It was Anna’s voice. Maria stirred in sleepiness. She felt warm and surrounded by comfortable softness. Then, she remembered the tripwire and the pit into which she had tumbled. Her eyes opened. She lay on her bed, propped by pillows and nestled in blankets. Her friends sat around her, faces shining with excitement and happiness.
“Oh my, this must be another dream,” Maria said, “I have had so many of them. I dreamed…I dreamed that Damien…”
She faltered, realizing that her dream must have been reality.
“Damien rescued me!” Maria exclaimed, scarcely able to believe it.
“And he wrote to us, entreating us to come and see you,” Evelina said.
“He made a very emotive case. I was surprised to read such language from a man like that,” Theodora said.
“He showed much compassion and concern,” Anna put in, “and welcomed us to this house…personally!”
Maria sat bolt upright in surprise.
“You saw him!” she asked.
They all nodded.
“Despite the mask, he is as handsome a man as I have ever come across,” Evelina said with a wink.
Anna gave her a disparaging look.
“He forced Maria to marry him, and who knows what he has perpetrated against her in this ghastly house.”
“He has perpetrated nothing,” Maria said. “In fact, I have hardly seen him since I arrived.”
She glanced towards the open window and remembered their encounter on their wedding night. She wondered if he was in his room now. Or beneath the oak tree below the window. Could he hear them?
“So, what on earth happened to you?” Anna demanded. “Your dress looks like it has been through a hedge backward!”
Maria had not realized that she was wearing only her chemise. Her gown was draped over the back of a chair and bore all the scars of her misadventure. It was stained with dirt, bark and leaves. She could see several tears that she did not remember happening.
“I must say I think your housekeeper is very shoddy to leave it in such a condition all this time,” Theodora sniffed.
“Mrs. Whitby is an excellent housekeeper. She would not have left it like that for one minute. I can only assume she does not know about it,” Maria said.
“But I am certain your maid would have taken it for laundering?” Theodora asked.
Maria frowned, trying to recall the name of the maid. They had spoken only briefly. With a flash of embarrassment, she remembered it. “Sally would, so she too must be unaware. Damien must have banned them from disturbing me and…oh!”
Evelina’s eyes widened at the same time as Maria’s. Both had come to the same conclusion. Theodora looked confused. Anna frowned, and then a moment later, her mouth opened in a circle of surprise.
“Oh, indeed!” Evelina said.
“You are married after all, but I would not want my missing husband doing the same if he’d ever returned,” Anna said.
“Whatever is the matter with you all? We were talking of inefficient servants, not husbands and their depredations,” Theodora said in innocent confusion.
“Theodora, please!” Evelina chided. “If the maid and the housekeeper do not know about the gown, then they did not help Maria out of it. Who did?”
