Page 50 of The Wolf of Mayfair
“You’re awake, dear child.”
Dear child?
Helia looked about for the owner of that cheerful pronouncement.
A kind-eyed, regal-looking older woman, dressed in the attire of a housekeeper, smiled at her.
Helia tried desperately to place her identity, but that, too, remained as futile as sorting out her surroundings.
The woman hastened over to the opposite side of the room. Helia attempted to follow her steps, but all the muscles of her neck ached, making it impossible to keep up with the quick pace the servant had set.
Helia raised her right hand and began to rub at the tight muscles along her neck and the bottom of her skull.
What in blazes happened to me?
But the answer to that remained as unclear as the one pertaining to her whereabouts.
Suddenly, the smiling woman reappeared at her side, with a carved crystal goblet filled with water.
Then, for the first time, Helia registered past her discomfort and achiness to her unbounded and terrible thirst.
She struggled up onto her elbows.
The servant instantly set the glass down upon the nightstand with a little plink and looped an arm about Helia’s waist. “Slow as you go, my dear.”
She helped guide Helia back several inches so that the Venetian, painted, gilt headboard provided a steady surface on which to rest her weary frame.
“Who are you?” Helia asked, her voice thick and hoarse and dry as it had never been.
“Mrs. Trowbridge,” the kindly servant offered. “Now, here,” she continued, reaching for the elegant glass she’d previously set aside. “I trust after the time you’ve had of it, you’re more parched than our Lord himself had been in that desert he once wandered.”
Mrs. Trowbridge slid an arm about Helia’s shoulders and then, with her free hand, began to proffer the drink as if Helia were a babe.
In actuality, Helia felt as weak as one of those helpless creatures.
The moment the water passed her lips, she gulped and swallowed, welcoming that glorious cool liquid as it slid down her throat.
“Slower, my dear,” Mrs. Trowbridge gently admonished. “You do not want to choke.”
Choking might in fact be the preferable fate to this insatiable thirst.
Still, she made herself sip more slowly from the goblet the servant held to her lips.
When she’d downed its contents, Helia collapsed into the headboard. After Mrs. Trowbridge deposited the glass back on the nightstand, she bustled over to the opposite side of the room.
Helia ran a tired hand over her eyes and tried to sort out where—
And then, with all the force and enormity of a headfirst collision with a stone wall, it hit her.
Her parents’ death.
Mr. Draxton’s arrival.
Her desperate flight to London and the godmother she’d never met.
And the son who’d been there to greet her instead.
Lord Wingrave. Surly and menacing and unsmiling ...
