An hour later, the doctor brought Angelica to the foyer, half carrying her. “Hellloooo again, Your Grace,” she slurred with a silly smile on her lush lips.
“The young lady’s ankle is not broken,” Dr. Sampson announced briskly. “But it is badly sprained. I’ve given her a dose of laudanum, and I will instruct her parents that she must stay off her feet for at least a week. She may have use of a crutch by tomorrow, God willing.” He inclined his head in gratitude as Ian handed him a banknote. “I will take her to the carriage now.”
“Good-bye, Miss Winthrop.” Ian kissed the back of her hand.
“I shall miss you, Your Grace,” Angelica giggled, swaying from the effects of the laudanum. “Even though you bit me.”
The doctor raised a brow, and Ian shrugged his shoulders as if he had no idea what she meant.
He watched as she was loaded into the waiting carriage. I think I will miss you too, Angel. Perhaps he would steal a dance when she was healed.
***
Albert, Burnrath’s coachman, was able to hold his silence for nearly twenty-four hours. But the news that a young lady of the Quality had been carried out of the duke’s house dressed like a boy and with a sprained ankle was too juicy a tidbit to hold in. Especially since the duke himself had been partially undressed. Albert told his current ladylove, who was the Cavendish’s parlor maid, while walking with her in the park on her day off.
The maid told Lady Cavendish at her first opportunity. The countess often shared her chocolate bonbons when presented with titillating news. By the next evening, the ton was speculating on just who the young lady was. When callers were turned away from the Winthrop house due to Angelica being abed with a sprained ankle, gossip raged through the nobility like wildfire. Since the last news one usually heard was about oneself, the Winthrops and their household were blissfully unaware of their slaughtered reputations.
Seven
Angelica hummed a merry tune as she wrote “The End” at the bottom of the last page of her story, “The Haunting of Rathton Manor.” When Liza returned, she would have her deliver the manuscript to Colburn and return with her twelve pounds. “The Ghost of the Highwayman” had already been published and had received excellent reviews to her delight and her father’s pride. Her mother, for once, had kept her lips pursed in silence, only muttering her disapproval in the background. Now that she’d confessed her writing success to her parents, Angelica had renewed her hope that she could convince her father to let her use her dowry for her writing career instead of marriage.
For the tenth time this afternoon, she peered out her window at Burnrath House. The mansion loomed behind the budding hawthorn trees in silent vigilance, guarding a vampire during his day rest… a vampire who had drunk her blood then apologized for it… a vampire who had nearly kissed her and probably would have apologized for that as well. Instead of a horrid monster who slaughtered innocents, he had been a gentleman who’d summoned a doctor, seen that her injuries were treated, and sent her safely home.
Angelica smiled as she thought back to that night, five days ago, when the doctor had helped her out of the carriage and into the arms of her frantic parents. The look on her mother’s face as she took in Angelica’s masculine attire had been so comical that her face had burned with the effort of suppressing the giggles. She had dozed on and off as she was hauled into the house, muzzy-headed from the medicine the doctor forced down her throat and only half hearing her mother’s tirade.
Papa had looked so frightened and concerned that she had longed to tell him some good news. On a flight of inspiration, she had informed them about the publication of her first story as if the happy event had occurred that very day.
“You will be a published author?” Papa’s eyes had lit up once they were settled in the drawing room. “Well done, my dearest!”
“Do not encourage her!” Margaret shrieked, doubtless on the verge of hysterics. “If anyone knows she penned that story, she will be ruined beyond all hope.”
Angelica’s head had nodded back and forth in slow motion. It seemed that she could see everything in double. She feared she would fall out of her chair. She gripped the sides of her seat in a futile effort to stop the swaying.