Page 68 of An Icy Christmas Engagement
Caroline rushed to Harrison’s side. Cedric was covered in soot, his clothes singed and there was a line of blood running from his temple. His eyes fluttered as he looked at her before they drifted close.
Her heart stopped. She couldn’t breathe. “Is he…”
Harrison shook his head. “He’s breathing. He’s just unconscious.” Looking over his shoulder, he bellowed, “Help me carry him to the carriage!”
“I’m coming with you.”
He was already shaking his head. “I understand your worry, my lady, but I think it would best if—”
“You may say what you wish but it will fall on deaf ears. I am coming with you. Even if I have to follow behind your carriage on foot.”
The determination in her voice must have convinced him because he sighed. “Very well.”
With a grunt, he heaved Cedric to a stand, but his large body nearly had Harrison crumpling back to the floor. One of the other men swept in to assist and together, they brought him to the waiting carriage.
Caroline couldn’t take her eyes off him. She waited until they’d propped him up in the seat before she climbed in after them. His heavy body slumped against hers. The only thing that calmed her a little was his soft breath against her cheek.
She tried to calm the distressing thoughts that raced through her mind. She didn’t know where they were taking him and she didn’t care. Anywhere he went, she would follow. She couldn’t leave his side until she knew he was well.
At last, the carriage pulled up to a stately townhouse—Lady Hutton’s, she realized. Harrison and the other man carefully brought Cedric out of the carriage while the coachman rushed off to inform the servants inside. Lady Hutton was already meeting them at the door by the time they arrived.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice sharp.
“A fire at the office,” Harrison explained, grunting as he hurried into the house. “You should send for the physician.”
Caroline hovered at the door, staring after Cedric as he was brought up the stairs. She wanted to go after him but her manners kept her where she was. She couldn’t just barge in without saying anything to Lady Hutton.
Lady Hutton turned her eagle-like eyes to her, frowning.
“I cannot leave his side, my lady,” Caroline explained softly. “I know it will be seen as scandalous, but I simply cannot.”
She was almost certain Lady Hutton would send her away. Any proper lady of society would.
So Caroline felt a jolt of surprise when Lady Hutton nodded and said, “Come along then. There is no use standing at the door.”
She turned and followed after the men. Caroline hurried behind her. They went to the spare room Cedric had been brought in and her heart collapsed in her chest at the sight of him lying prone on the bed. Caroline immediately went to his side, taking his hand. Despite the heat he had emerged from, he was cold to the touch.
The physician took entirely too long to arrive, in her opinion. She was bouncing anxiously in her chair by the time he made it. He demanded privacy and it took a lot of convincing for her to leave. Only when he told her that he was likely to strip Cedric to search for any more injuries or ailments did she give in.
But the moment he emerged from the room, Caroline flew back to his side. She listened as the physician informed Lady Hutton that there was not much he could do, that it was simply up to Cedric to wake up. She felt her heart splinter into pieces at those words but she held on to that small glimmer of hope.
Cedric was alive. He was breathing. He was within reach.
So in the end, he had to be all right.
***
Voices brought Cedric from a dark pit of nothingness. Two of those voices he recognized. The other he did not.
He opened his eyes. For a moment, his mind was a haze. He couldn’t understand what he was looking at, nor could he come to terms with where he was. The voices grew louder and he realized that they were coming from the left.
Cedric turned his head slightly. He recognized his aunt, standing with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed as she listened to what the tall man before her was saying. Harrison was by her side, looking uncharacteristically serious. Cedric couldn’t make sense of what the man was saying, nor could he see him fully since his back was turned.
There was another person present. She sat right by the bed, but her back was turned to him paying attention to what was being said. Cedric studied her from behind, a comforting warmth spreading through him. He wanted to reach out and touch her before he even realized who she was.
“He claims that this is important, my lady. And he wishes to speak directly with Lord Colenhurst.”
“For God’s sake, he can speak to me,” Harrison said. “Did you not tell him that Cedric is currently indisposed?”
