Free If You Were Mine by Rebecca King

between his much larger ones. “I’m so very tired,”
her whisper trailed away as she settled once again into slumber,
feeling more secure than she had felt in a very long
time.
    “ Rest on my love, we have all the time in the world,” Dominic
declared softly, not sure if she had heard him. He surreptitiously
wiped away the single tear that had gathered in the corner of his
eye and gazed down at her for several moments. She was free, and
that was all he needed to know.
    “ Thank God,” Dominic placed a tender kiss on her brow. “We
will be together,” he moved to sit beside her, easing her
slumbering form gently into his arms. Staring out of the window, he
watched the soft flurry of snowflakes gently drift past and began
to plan.
    Sometime
during the night, he was woken by a strange noise. Wincing at the
sharp, stabbing discomfort in his stiff muscles as he sat upright,
he warily glanced around the room trying to place the noise. It was
a strange, almost like a rattling noise that whispered hauntingly
through the still night air. Something he had not heard before.
Quickly, he rose and crossed to the window, cursing fluidly at the
heavy snowfall drifting past the window pane.
    Drawing
the curtains closed, he crossed to the fireplace and stoked the
fire, shivering at the ferocious sound of the howling winds
outside. By the sound of it the storm was a fierce one. He didn’t
envy anybody caught outside on such a night.
    Squatting before the fireplace he paused and considered just
what implications a storm such as this would have had on Isobel had
he not discovered her. Already she was seriously ill, without the
freezing temperatures and dampness of the snowfall. She would have
most certainly succumbed, even if she had managed to find a warm
enough place to wait out the storm, what then?
    He
frowned as he listened for the strange noise again. It had stopped.
He went cold all over when he realised what the noise had meant.
Racing towards the bed, he frantically lit the candles on the table
beside the bed, cursing fluidly as their meagre light encased
Isobel in a soft halo of golden colour.
    “ Sweet Jesus,” Dominic whispered, his voice laced with horror
as he studied her alabaster features. Placing a palm against her
cheek, his concern rose alarmingly as his fingers touched her skin.
It was like cold, damp marble. She had indeed been sweating but now
was so very cold, despite the warmth of the room.
    “ Isobel?” Tugging several times upon the bell pull, he paused
briefly to light more candles before returning to the
bed.
    “ Isobel, darling? If you can hear me, open your eyes.” He
hated to acknowledge the fact, but he had witnessed a complexion
like hers many times on the battlefields. Soldiers mortally injured
had become pale and unresponsive moments before succumbing to the
great Lord. Frantically grabbing her shoulders, he sought to awaken
her as quickly as possible and shook her gently. He desperately
needed to see her beautiful blue gaze once more.
    “ Isobel!” Shaking her shoulders far harder than he ought, he
watched as her head fell back helplessly against the soft mound of
pillow behind her. “Isobel, please?” His knew his voice was
pleading. Carefully lying her back down on the damp sheets, he
placed his hand in the hollow between her breasts. It took several
moments before his blind panic eased enough for him to feel her
faint heartbeat. “Thank God!” It was weak, but still
there.
    Seconds
later, a soft knock upon the door heralded the arrival of a
dishevelled Manvers. “My Lord?” he queried, his face
stark.
    “ Go and fetch Mrs Holcombe. Isobel’s taken a turn for the
worse!” Dominic’s voice was brusque. “Quickly man!” he snapped,
carefully tugging the blankets around Isobel and sitting beside her
on the bed. He didn’t quite know what he expected Mrs Holcombe to
do, but she was wise and had readily helped tend to Isobel since
her arrival with a calm matter of fact manner that