The Heiress - Lynsay Sands [119]
Still, Richard asked, “Why the devil would he try to choke you? He couldn’t marry a corpse.”
“He took offense to something I said,” Suzette answered primly.
“Or perhaps several somethings,” her father muttered.
Much to Suzette’s relief, Daniel didn’t ask what she’d said and turned toward the inn with her. Heading for the door, he said, “I’ll see her settled in a room and then come back. Danvers should have been here by now. We will have to search the woods.”
Unsure whether they were staying or not, they hadn’t rented rooms at the inn and had to tend that now. Even so, they were soon upstairs in a room and Daniel was setting her on a bed.
“We need to speak when I get back,” Daniel said quietly, pressing a kiss to her nose before straightening. “But I need to go search for Danvers now.”
“You need to remove your coat and shirt and let me look at your back,” his mother countered, leading Christiana, Lisa and Cedrick Madison into the room. Christiana and Lisa carried water and cloths and bandages, while her father just looked bewildered as to why he was there.
“My back is fine,” Daniel said grimly, turning toward his mother.
“What is wrong with your back?” Suzette asked with a frown.
“He was shot. That is why he didn’t return to the inn as expected,” Lady Woodrow announced.
“Shot?” Suzette gasped, looking Daniel over more carefully. She couldn’t see his wound through his clothes, but he did look a little pale, not so much she would have guessed he’d been wounded though. The fact that he’d been shot explained why he hadn’t returned as expected, however, and Suzette immediately wondered if Danvers had done it. He had shot his driver in the back after all. Apparently, the man didn’t like to face the people he tried to kill. Well, except her: they’d been face to face when he’d tried to choke her.
“You are not leaving this room until I see your back, Daniel,” Lady Woodrow said grimly. “You have been riding about and lifting Suzette up and down and I am sure it has probably reopened. Now strip.”
When Daniel scowled and looked as if he were debating ignoring the order, she threatened, “I will send for Richard and Robert and have them hold you down while I tend it if I must.”
“Oh very well,” he snapped and began to shrug quickly out of his jacket.
Satisfied, Lady Woodrow then turned to Suzette’s father. “What about you, my lord?”
Cedrick Madison stood a little straighter. “Me?”
“Did you sustain any injuries that need tending?”
“Oh no, I’m fine,” he assured her quickly, sidling toward the door.
“Then why did I notice dried blood in your hair when you dismounted out front?” Lady Woodrow asked pointedly. “And why are you limping?”
“Oh, I just . . . the leg is an old injury. As for the head, well, I took a blow earlier,” he admitted reluctantly, and quickly added, “But that was hours ago and I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll just—”
“Sit down and I shall take a look at it after I tend Daniel and Suzette,” Lady Catherine ordered firmly.
Cedrick Madison sighed, his shoulders slumping, and then moved to sit in one of the chairs by the fire.
Suzette, Christiana and Lisa had been watching this all rather wide-eyed, but as Lady Woodrow moved to a now topless Daniel they all glanced at each other and suddenly burst out in grins. They had grown up pretty much without a mother, and really, Lady Catherine Woodrow was a revelation of sorts.
Chapter Seventeen
Suzette opened her eyes to a warm fire-lit room and glanced sleepily around, wondering where she was.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
The comment drew her gaze to a chair by the fireplace and the woman getting up from it. Daniel’s mother. Lady Woodrow had tended Daniel’s back and let him leave, with a firm admonishment to be careful, as he’d headed out to help Richard and Robert search the area for Danvers. She’d then tended Suzette’s head wound, cleaning it but deciding it didn’t need stitching, before