She staggered back, ready to pivot and run, but she tripped over a rock on the trail, stumbling onto her backside. He darted forward and she braced, ready to feel his weight come down on her, his knife through her. But it didn’t. Before he could crash down over her and do whatever horrible things he had planned, the figure of a man flew from the woods and hit her attacker, flinging both men off the path and into the tangled woods.
Flora rolled to her knees and her breath caught. It was no stranger who had interrupted this attack. It was Roarke! And now he and the scarred man were struggling over the villain’s knife.
“No!” she screamed, and got to her feet. She should have run, of course, but she didn’t want to leave Roarke. Her attacker was bigger than him and now he looked enraged, like a bull in a paddock. She started to scream, “Help! Help!” over and over.
Her attacker looked up at her, clearly annoyed, and that seemed to give Roarke a chance. He tugged the knife free and stabbed it into the attacker’s shoulder. The man howled in pain and began to curse as he pulled the knife from his body, and then swung the handle across Roarke’s forehead. The wooden handle cut open a gash across Roarke’s eyebrow and he fell off the attacker with a grunt.
The man glanced toward the big house, looked at Flora and smiled. “See you soon, Your Grace!” Then he bounded off into the woods.
Flora hurled herself forward, off the path to where Roarke lay. He was awake, but his gaze was unsteady as he struggled to sit up. Blood poured down his face from where his forehead had split open, dripping from his chin.
“Roarke,” she whispered, reaching up to press her hand against the cut on his forehead. “Oh God.”
“You have to go,” Roarke murmured. “He might come back.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she said. She looked back over her shoulder at the house. A servant was running toward them, likely drawn by her screams. Perhaps the attacker had seen the man and that was part of why he’d run off. “Hurry!” she cried out.
The young man reached them and his eyes went wide. “Your Grace!”
“Mr. Desmond and I were attacked,” she explained without preamble. “Hurry, fetch the duke and his party! And tell them to call for a doctor.”
The young man gasped and then stammered, “Y-Yes! Right away!”
He took off running back up the path at full speed.
“Go with him,” Roarke insisted, and tried to get up. He staggered and went back down to his knees.
“No,” she insisted. “Please just wait here, Roarke. Let them come help you, you’re hurt.”
“I don’t want you out here where that monster could return for you,” Roarke insisted, and clung to her arm. Together they managed to get him up. He wobbled, but she buoyed him up as they slowly moved toward the house. It felt like a snail’s pace and she could see him wobbling in and out of reality as they moved. She had to keep him with her because if he fell she’d never get him back up.
“Roarke,” she said.
“Hm?”
“Stay with me now. Why in the world were you here?” she asked, trying to hold him up with one hand and press the other to his gushing head wound.
He grunted. “My cousins,” he gasped. His voice broke a little. “I…I heard they were sending someone here to…to hurt you.”
Flora’s ears began to ring at those words. Her stepchildren had created this situation? They hated her so much that they would hire someone to hurt her? Kill her? Her stomach turned and she fought not to cast up her accounts.
Roarke was still talking. “So I…I followed you…found him…stopped him.”
He said nothing more because at that point there was shouting from up the path. Relief filled Flora as Callum and Theo came into view, running at full speed toward her, calling out for them.
“What the bloody hell?” Callum said as he stared at Roarke.
“We were attacked!” Flora called out as the two dukes reached them. “Roarke saved me.”
He staggered then, and Theo jumped forward and caught him. Together he and Callum gripped Roarke beneath each arm and moved him up the trail. It was only when she no longer had to physically support him that Flora began to shake. Even when they reached the gate back into the safety of the garden, she couldn’t stop trembling.
Servants were gathering, flowing from the house, running around, looking for direction. Callum began shouting orders, calling for a room to be readied, insuring someone had gone for the doctor.
She hardly heard any of it now that she didn’t have to be in charge of taking care of Roarke. All she could do was follow, staring at his blood on her hands, thinking about what would have happened if he hadn’t come. What had happened when he did. And why he’d said she’d been attacked.
Her stepchildren. They were so bound by their hate and greed that they wouldn’t stop at humiliation and heartbreak. They wanted physical pain. They wanted death even, because that was what Flora had seen in that man’s eyes when he moved on her. He was going to kill her.
And only Roarke had prevented that inevitability.
They entered the house and Bernadette and Valaria came running into the foyer. Their horror at seeing the blood on Roarke’s face was clear. He continued to wobble and then he started to slide to the floor.
He looked toward Flora, his eyes wide, and he said, “Please, protect my mother.”
Then his head lolled back and he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 16
“What happened?”
Flora blinked as Valaria asked the question but didn’t look away from the door in front of her. Behind it was a chamber where the dukes and a few servants had carried Roarke what felt like a lifetime ago. No one had exited since, though the doctor had been brought in when he arrived a few moments before.
And through it all, Flora had stayed there, staring, praying that someone would come out, would tell her that Roarke was well. She didn’t know much, but she couldn’t believe that losing that much blood was a good thing.
“Flora.” Valaria’s tone was gentler. “Please.”
“Why don’t we come away, dearest?” Bernadette said. “Theo said it would be a little while when the doctor arrived. We can clean you up.”
“I don’t need to clean up,” Flora whispered.
“You’re covered in blood, sweet,” Valaria said.
Flora blinked and looked down at herself. She’d known her hands were bloody, but now she saw there was also blood on her gown. And grass and mud stains. Because she’d been attacked. Because Roarke had been injured.
She wobbled a little and Valaria caught her, shoring her up. “Come,” she ordered, and drew Flora up the hall just a few doors to the chamber Valaria had been sharing with Callum. “We won’t go far. And I’ll tell a servant to let us know as soon as the doctor has finished.”
Flora let them take her. She sat where she was directed to sit in the chamber and watched as Valaria rushed back out to tell the servants what to do. There was a basin of clean water by the window and Bernadette got a cloth. She returned to sit across from Flora and slowly began to wipe her hands clean.
But even as the blood was washed away, Flora feared she would never be the same. Because of what had happened to her and because it had been Roarke who rode to her rescue.