She remained unresponsive and he feared he was too late.
Tears stung his eyes as he lifted her into his arms.“Tulip, please.Breathe, my love.”
She hadn’t taken a single breath and her lips were beginning to turn purple.
No, he would not accept this.
True love had to win out.
He ran with her onto dry ground.
“Breathe, love,” he repeated time and again.“Please…breathe.”
He set her down as soon as they were safely on higher ground, and began to compress her ribs in the hope of forcing the water out of her lungs.
He refused to believe he was too late.“No, no, no.”
But she still wasn’t breathing.
Tears clouded his eyes.“Tulip, please.Live for me, my love.Don’t leave me.”
Someone knelt by his side.
It was the doctor.
“Let me take over, Your Grace.I–”
Tulip coughed up water just then and began to take big gulps of air into her lungs.Her throat and lungs were obviously sore, for she was breathing and coughing at the same time, as well as coughing up water and mucus and who knows what else.
The doctor smiled at him.“She’s alive.She’ll live.Look, her color’s good.She must have been conscious enough to hold her breath as the waves washed over her.”
Alex’s heart was still pounding through his ears as he lifted her into his arms once again to carry her back to their bedchamber.
As he looked around, he saw the two constables dragging Ernfield’s lifeless body out of the marsh waters.
Who had shot him?
He turned back toward the house where his estate manager was standing.Beside him was William Hester with a rifle in his hand and a look on his face that warned he was completely unapologetic.“I protect my family.No one harms my niece and lives to boast of it.”
“Uncle William,” Tulip croaked, her eyes now open as she smiled at him.
“Tulip, my sweetheart.”Her uncle now burst into tears.“I knew something had to be terribly wrong when I heard Ernfield had never come for the doctor.He was always an odd fellow, but we never suspected he was capable of such lunacy.Puts everything we thought about the deaths of the dukes into doubt, doesn’t it?”
“More than those deaths,” Carver intoned.“But that’s for His Grace to discuss with the magistrate.”
William appeared confused.“More?What else has he done?”
“I think the magistrate must reopen all the deaths that occurred here at Thornwycke while Ernfield was in service,” Carver replied, perhaps not yet aware that his own daughter’s demise was suspicious, too.As well as the death of Edward, the poor lad who had delivered food to Martha daily from Thornwycke.
Well, it would all come out now.
Alex felt sorry for Carver, for he was about to learn that Martha’s death had not been due to a natural illness.
Or did such a thing matter?
His daughter was gone and that would not change.
And what of William?Had he been in love with Elspeth as rumored?Or had that been a lie spread by Ernfield?
