Free Lord Monroe's Dark Tower: The Albright Sisters: Book 2 by Elf Ahearn Page B

it had gone, she tried to rise.
I have to help the others
, she thought.
Get up now!
    Struggling to her knees, Claire inched toward the mournful cries of other sufferers. Then her arms gave out and she lay still, panting and watching her pain like a shower of meteors beneath her lids.
    She woke, what she guessed, was hours later. The horizon wore a thin bracelet of silver — enough to illuminate the white mounds of human misery, lying like battlefield casualties on the lawn. A bone chilling cold shook her from the gut outward, and her teeth chattered.
    Only dimly aware of movement, she realized Flavian was nearby and that he’d pushed himself onto his elbows. His face was pale and his eyes, red rimmed. As if unable to focus, he gazed at her blankly until recognition seeped through his pain. “Are you all right, my love?” he said, at last.
    My love,
he’d called her
, my love.
The words burned a path of joy through her body. “I’ll be fine,” she told him.
    He started to crawl towards her, and she towards him. When they met, his comforting arms wrapped about her shoulders. They both shook with chills, but her body drank the heat of his nearness. She put her cheek against the thin fabric of his nightshirt, and the powerful thud of his heart calmed the tremors that rattled her frame.
    “You’re all right,” he whispered, “Thank God.”
    A piercing scream split the morning. “Vav,” Abella shrieked, “Help me!”
    Claire scanned the field. Not far from where Flavian had been lay Abella, her face green with sickness. She dragged herself toward them, clawing the sod, inching forward as she tore the tender roots. Her hair was matted, her eyes wild and desperate, her nightgown soaked with filth, and when she looked at Claire, her face contorted with fury.
    Flavian let Claire go, struggled to his feet, and stumbled toward Abella.
    Where his arms had been, cold now soaked to her core. Wanting to help, Claire started to rise then froze at the sight of Abella. If the girl had screamed in her ear, the message in her look could not have been clearer:
You have been warned
.
    • • •
    A few hours later, Claire stood bedside in the ruined tower. Upset over the illness of the household, Flavian had permitted Abella to recuperate where she pleased. Claire couldn’t help thinking the girl exploited Flavian’s emotional state to bend him to her will.
That’s uncharitable
, she chastised herself.
    “I will not drink,” Abella exclaimed when Claire handed her a mug of salted chicken broth.
    “But why not?”
    “You and your poisons … why I trust you again?”
    A lady’s maid straightening piles of Abella’s things in the tower bedroom turned a wide-eyed look at Claire.
    “Betty, you may go,” Flavian told the maid.
    “Don’t you leave,” Abella screamed. “Don’t you leave me alone with them!”
    “Contain yourself.” Flavian cast a nervous glance at the servant who moved to the gap leading from the room.
    Abella, pale and delicate beneath the pile of ragged quilts, extended a slender arm. “Betty, hold my hand. Don’t let her make me sick again.” The girl raised herself on an elbow and glared at Claire. “I see you stirring in kitchen. Stirring and dropping little powder in pot.”
    Flavian’s mouth dropped open. “Surely you’re not suggesting Lady Claire had anything to do with the household becoming ill?”
    “Where this sickness come from, if not her?” Abella said. “One day we fine. Then she start this cooking, this brewing. ‘Drink’ you all say, and then everyone get sick.”
    Claire couldn’t believe her ears. Of all the outrageous accusations! “But you were the only one who took my medicine.”
    Focusing her attention on Betty, Abella continued her tirade. “In what pot she put her herbs? Call Apple Bess. Ask if she use pot for dinner. Is a witch’s brew and make us sick!”
    Betty shivered and held her arms.
    A worried look from Flavian made Claire’s stomach tighten.
    “I did