Afterthought - M J Marlow (pdf to ebook reader .txt) 📗

going. That adds up to those two…” “Enough,” Sterling hissed as he finally had enough of waiting. His niece and nephews had not asked anything he had not been asking himself. How could his sons have done something so thoughtless as to leave their cousin in a well? “Start calling around to see if you can’t locate the monsters. They should be here whether they put her down there or not.” He entered the exam room where the on-call doctor, Nathaniel Lyndon, cousin of lord Sterling and his siblings, was cleaning the gash on Evangeline’s knee. He had already checked her head and found the lump there. She looked so small lying there; Sterling thought as he made his way to her side. She looked up at him with such pain in her eyes that his heart nearly broke. He took her hand in his and waited as the doctor and nurses worked. “Well?” “Eva is lucky, Alastair,” Nathaniel told him bluntly. “The worst of it is that she was in that cold water as long as she was. She’s running a fever. I’d like to keep her here in case it gets worse…” “No,” Evangeline broke in, her eyes wide with panic. She gripped Sterling’s hand tight. “Please don’t leave me here, Uncle.” Sterling looked at the terror in her eyes and wondered why she was feeling this way. She was safe now. She should be feeling relieved. He sat with her as the nurse finished bandaging the knee so Nathaniel could move to the ankle. Evangeline went white as his hands touched her. Sprain, at the very least; he decided. He turned as the door opened and Alexander came into the room. “You must really like our company, girl,” Alexander said softly as he came up to Evangeline’s side. “But you don’t need to hurt yourself to come see us.” He had been off making his rounds of the neighborhood and only just heard of her accident as the news filtered down from the estate to the villagers. He looked at his older brother coldly. “Another ‘clumsy’ moment?” He smiled at the girl gently. “What happened, Eva?”Images flooded into her mind and they were confusing and unconnected. All was overlaid with darkness and water; fear and despair. She could not recall how she had gotten into the well. All she knew was that she had been wet and injured and overcome by worry that she would never be found; that she would die down there. She looked at her uncles as they waited for her to give them some answer. “I don’t know,” she forced out and whimpered from the pain. She saw their disbelief. “Honestly,” she insisted, refusing to let the pain keep her silent. “The last thing I remember was that I was on my way to dinner and I woke up in the well.” “Douglas said you were not feeling well and would have dinner in your room,” Sterling frowned. It worried him that she could not remember. The blow to the head had obviously done more damage then they realized. “Sylvie said you might have gone out for some air.” “I honestly don’t remember, Uncle,” Evangeline sighed. She could feel the chill still seated inside of her despite the blankets covering her. Even wrapped in her thick warm robe, she was freezing and every part of her body ached. “I’m so cold.” Nathaniel took her temperature again and frowned. He showed it to Alexander and told him what it had been. Alexander got the medication and he gave her an injection of a fever reducer and painkiller; then he checked her over quickly. Her condition was deteriorating but he did not let her see that they were worried. He and Nathaniel worked in tandem now to keep her from falling any further into decline. “We’ll soon have these nasties dealt with,” Alexander said to her, as he continued to check his younger cousin’s work and nodded. “Nate has done an excellent job. We’ll just get the cast on…” “Cast?” Sterling flinched and looked at Nathaniel. “You didn’t say anything about a broken bone, Nate.” “It’s not surprising you missed it, Nate,” Alexander said as he showed him what he had missed on the scanner he pulled over and focused on Evangeline’s ankle. They could all see the sign of damage now. “She must have slipped on the rocks down there. She’s sprained her ankle and cracked the bone,” he pointed on the picture, “just there.” “She broke her ankle?” Sterling was incensed now. He was livid with his sons for being so thoughtless. “Just a crack,” Alexander repeated. “She’ll be off of her feet for a while until it mends. Bandaging it as a sprain would work as well, but we’ll make certain it heals properly by putting a soft cast on it.” He tried to keep an unconcerned look on his face. “It’s easy to miss, boy.” Alexander laid his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Eva has other injuries that were more apparent and needed tending as well. Just get the cast on it.” Sylvie came in now, her usually calm face showing her anguish. She was told what had happened and she went to Evangeline and sat next to the table, stroking her charge’s hand. No one said a word to her. They could see in her eyes that she was quite prepared to hurt someone over this. Sylvie had been with the family for most of her sixty plus years. She had taught French to all the Sterling family children, acted as companion to those children she took a liking to, and been a confidant, confessor, and champion. Even Sterling would not dare cross the woman. When Aileen left her husband, Stefano Roza, but refused to come back to her family, Sylvie had gone to her aide. It was Sylvie who had sent word to the family five years later that had Adam bringing Aileen and her child home to Sterling Manor. She sat there in her usual uniform of dark gray dress with the white lace collar caught up in a cameo daring them to hurt her girl. Alexander took his brother out into the waiting room where his son and daughters, and Andrew’s son; were waiting anxiously for news of their cousin’s condition. As usual, Alastair’s three children were the ones who were missing. And they were the most likely suspects in what might have started as a harmless prank but had become a life-threatening event when Evangeline had hurt herself. It was more than Alexander could handle. He turned on Alastair and decided to do something he had promised he would never do; vent the full force of his anger on his older brother. Sylvie beat him to it. “I have stayed quiet over the years of bumps and bruises she’s suffered, ” she said coldly; “thinking it was a phase and those monsters of yours would grow out of it. But this is too much.” She actually poked her finger at his chest, her pale blue eyes cold. “If you do not do something to make them stop hurting this child, I will take her away from here! I will make certain that you never see her again!” She stormed back into the exam room and there was stunned silence for a moment. No one had ever seen Sylvie take on Sterling over anything before. They knew she was serious and they were glad that they were not the responsible parties. Douglas and Dustin were going to be in a lot of trouble with the old woman when they came back home. “She did not fall down that well by herself, Alastair,” Alexander continued what Sylvie had started. “Evangeline may not remember what happened,” he saw the children go pale at this news; “but those boys need to be questioned.” Sterling nodded. He knew he had let this go on too long. It had only been a minor annoyance when Evangeline was five, but it had become enough of a worry with Daria that he had sent his daughter to a counselor. He still remembered catching nine-year-old Daria telling Evangeline that she wasn’t wanted and she should just go away. His daughter had actually packed her cousin’s suitcase and was dragging Evangeline downstairs to make her leave. He’d watched her as she threw the suitcase outside and shoved Evangeline after it. He had never believed a child of his could be so nasty until he had witnessed that. He had an uncomfortable feeling that Daria still made Evangeline feel like she shouldn’t be here. His sons were no better, but they did with little ‘pranks’ what Daria did with words. And Evangeline had taken it all without a word of complaint. It was time for this nonsense to stop! “I’ll call Andrew,” the lord Sterling agreed. He looked at his nephews and nieces. “Any word on their whereabouts?” “Nothing from their usual haunts, Uncle,” David the responsible young 24 year old reported. “I’ve left messages with their friends telling them to let the monsters know that Evangeline’s been hurt and they need to come home immediately.” His eyes were dark with anger. “I’ve already called the Constable for you. Father said he’d have his men looking for them, as well.” “Good boy,” Sterling nodded. “Eva is running a fever,” Alexander continued his report. “With that broken ankle, she is not going to be on her feet for a while; so I want all of you to see what you can do to help Sylvie to care for her.” The children all nodded solemnly. “I am not going to sugar coat this, children. Your cousin is seriously ill after this little stunt,” Alexander saw their expressions and knew they understood how serious this was. “If she had been down there much longer, we could have lost her.” He thought of the way the fever had been rising and frowned. “We still might.” “She’s going to get better, isn’t she?” Jessica asked her father. She had been the cousin who had usually soothed Evangeline’s fears after most of the pranks played on her. She had a truly gentle nature and it wounded her to the heart to think that Evangeline could be seriously hurt. “That depends on how long it takes for her fever to break,” Alexander replied. “Nate and I will be checking on her off and on during the night.” He ran his hand through his thick brown hair. “I tell you, Alastair; that child must have an army of angels watching out for her. She could have broken her neck ‘falling’ into that well.” “Evangeline fell into the well?” Daria was standing in the doorway, her face deathly pale. She was taking off her rain slicker for the Butler as she spoke. “Thank you, Hurst.” He took the slicker with him and she turned to see their accusing looks and she was stricken with horror. “I had nothing to do with it!” She turned to her uncle, her cornflower blue eyes filled with worry. “She isn’t seriously hurt, is she?” “Not as badly as she could have been,” Alexander frowned. “She’ll be off her feet for at least three weeks so that the bone in her ankle can heal. What worries me most is the fever.” He saw Daria’s expression as he continued his report, and realized the girl was truly concerned about her cousin. “You started this little nightmare with your earlier attack, Daria,” he said sternly. “You should have known better!” “I never meant…” Daria looked around the room and knew they did not believe her. She quit her protests and sat down. Then she looked up again in anguish. “You think Douglas and Dustin had a hand in her fall, don’t you?” She thought it over and paled. It was not unknown for her brothers to cover for her. “Oh no!” “Are they here?” David hissed. “If you know where they went