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TWO THINGS OF note here: My head hurt and antiseptic made my stomach churn. I fluttered open my eyes, feeling ready to pass out again and that a pack of leeches had mobbed me. Blood loss was officially a bitch.
I tried to sit up but a warm, firm hand eased me back down.
“You need to remain still,” Sophie whispered, tone gentle and commanding all at once.
I was lying on something soft, my head on a cushion. “I feel like someone hit me in the head with a hockey ball.” I had loved hockey. I used to be the goalkeeper. That was the type of woman I was, suit me up and fire hard projectiles at me and I loved it.
“More likely the stick,” Raquel said somewhere to my left. “You have splinters that Sophie has been dilly-dallying about removing.”
“Splinters?” I looked up at Sophie who held me in place. Her smile was less “you’re dinner” and more “stop being a baby” as she let go and ejected fluid from a needle.
I didn’t like needles, in fact, I hated them. Now, I was going to be a baby.
“It will hurt more without it.” Sophie smiled down at me, almost maternal crossed with manic-doctor. “The healthcare system is less than satisfactory.”
“And you’re qualified to use that?” And where did she get the supplies to fill the needle? I was no doctor but I knew substances that needed injecting were usually controlled.
“Yes.” There was the razor like smile. Now I felt like dinner. “I don’t mix it with adrenaline. It stings more but I don’t want to take risks.”
“I’ve no idea what that means.” I tried to roll my head to plead with Raquel but Sophie took hold of my chin.
Wooziness flooded through me and nausea joined the party.
“Best you recover before you try that.” Sophie eased the needle into the side of my face and my eyes watered. The stinging intensified until it spread through my jaw, my scalp, then my whole head went numb.
“Ow.” I glared up at her. I was glad it was numb and didn’t hurt anymore but ow.
“Can you feel this?” She tapped something to my head if the movement of her hand was anything to go by.
“No.”
“Good. Please keep still or you will have your eyebrow attached to your hairline.” She held me steady with her right hand and then there was tugging.
“She had a wayward youth,” Raquel said with a chuckle. “Sometimes it comes in handy.”
“I’ve dealt with a lot of wayward kids and adults but I’ve never ever known them to stitch people’s wounds.” I tried to frown but Sophie’s fingers held my eyebrow still. More tugging.
“Not wild enough then. I’m disappointed. I expected such an elite detective such as yourself to have met hardened criminals.” Her tone was detached like a surgeon’s. “Seven stitches. Not a bad scratch at all.”
“Seven?” I winced as she attached some kind of dressing. “That’s nowhere near the amount on my arm but it feels worse.”
“Would it make you feel better if I said I glued some areas?” She placed something back on a hard surface behind her. I tried to focus my blurry vision. I hadn’t seen this room before. Looked like a living room, a huge one, with the fireplace. “You tend to wiggle your eyebrows around carelessly so I needed to be sure it didn’t reopen.”
“I don’t wiggle my eyebrows carelessly.” Did I? Was there a careful way to do it?
“I took the liberty of examining your prosthesis for damage and your arm.” She tapped me on the shoulder. “I’d like to keep an eye on the insert that looks to be attached to the ulna nerve. I’m uncertain if it may need antibiotics.”
“You looked at my arm?” My voice sounded small. Trin could barely stand the prosthesis let alone the sight of my scars.
Sophie flicked her eyebrows as if confused. “Yes, you sustained a blow to it.”
“Guess that wasn’t a pleasant job.” Now I was getting defensive. I felt vulnerable and thinking she could be disgusted by my arm made me teary.
“I dislike you being hurt if that’s what you mean?” She said it like she didn’t understand what I was saying.
“Morgan feels you may recoil at her injuries, dear niece,” Raquel said with a tut.
Sophie scowled at me and I flinched. “I should hope not.” She thrust something fizzy into my hands and eased me to sitting. “For the pain.”
I held onto her hand and knocked it back. Why did things supposed to be helpful taste so disgusting? Why couldn’t they taste like chocolate?
Sophie kept me steady, a strong arm around my shoulder as she handed a shaking maid the tray with bloody swabs and needles. I had bled a fair amount . . . head injuries were mean.
The maid took the tray like it would bite her and bolted.
Raquel rolled her eyes. She was in a dimpled chair beside a large window. Couldn’t see much beyond through my blurred vision. “If a maid with those bosoms had been in Oakfield, your uncle would have had some fun with her.”
Sophie scowled again, eyes dark, glinting.
Raquel sipped at a glass of something amber. “Oh, stop with the daggers, girl. Like you wouldn’t enjoy it.” She winked at Morgan. “How is the head?”
“Enjoy what?” Came out instead of replying I was fine or thanking her and saying that my head didn’t only feel like I’d taken a hockey ball and stick but that I’d collided with the goalpost too.
Sophie raised a dark eyebrow and rubbed her thumb over the base of my head. Her other hand held my right one. It felt soft, warm, to my clammy, sweaty palm.
“Baiting the staff,” Raquel said as she came into view more clearly. She had her feet on a footstool and was reading Rebecca. The dusk cast a pink hue over the forest and lake.
I shivered.
“Please do not worry.” Sophie squeezed my hand. “We are looking for who hurt you.”
“Hopefully Jake finds him and shoots him,” Raquel said with a curt nod. “And hopefully he’ll shoot him somewhere it will take a while.”
I flinched at her tone. “What makes you say it’s a man?”
“Oh, it had to be a man, a woman would have made a better job of it.” Raquel winked at me like it was normal to attack people.
It was meant to help but I felt sick. I felt scared and vulnerable like I had after the attack on Wood. I’d barely been able to leave the house for months. It had taken as many months not to shake every time I was in public.
“You will remain in the house this evening. You will stay in one of the guest rooms near me,” Sophie said to me, making no move to pull away from me. “Mick will oversee your duties until I feel you are fit enough to return.”
She held my gaze and that intense bolt of attraction shot down my spine.
“You should inform the police,” I managed, averting my gaze. “They need to know it’s not you.”
Sophie’s smile was a knowing one. “Now, why would you feel they suspected me of anything?”
Then it registered. She’d said I’d been an elite detective. Uh oh.
“I . . .”
Sophie held up her hand.
Raquel held up her glass to me. “Rumbled, my dear.”
“I know Edwina and it didn’t take a lot of deducting to conclude you know the detectives.” Sophie furrowed her dark brow. “However, do not expect me to assist you in your task.”
“Fiona wanted me to help you.” I hoped my wince-come-smile would win her over. “She thinks you’re wonderful.”
Sophie’s eyes softened. “Ah, of course, little Fiona. Should have known.” She looked at Raquel who sported a matching doting smile. “In that case, if she likes you enough to send you here, we need to keep you in one piece, yes?”
“Then you know it is important I tell the police that you didn’t attack me.” I was glad not to hide anything from Sophie, which set off more warning bells that I liked her far too much. I hunched then winced when it pulled at my head. “It would help them understand it’s not you. I don’t know why they haven’t released you on what they already have.”
“We have nothing useful to tell them.” Sophie lifted me up by my right elbow onto my feet: swift and easy, like she hadn’t lifted ten stone one handed.
I let go and stared at her. “I think if my fiancé sees me with a head wound, she might ask questions.” Maybe. If she paid enough attention. But, whether or not Sophie liked Wood, someone had tried to crush my head. That was a police matter. “I mean it, ma’am. If I tell them you helped me, it will carry some weight at least.”
“It will only make them suspect that I’ve enchanted you.” Sophie held out her hand.
I shook my head, then stumbled off balance.
“If you refuse my help, you will fall and then I will have the pleasure of injecting you all over again.” Charcoal eyes, knowing smile, raised eyebrows . . . and arrogance. Why was that so appealing?
I grabbed her hand to stop myself toppling onto the coffee table. “I can look after myself.” Only I crashed into the edge of the sofa with my thigh.
“So I see,” Sophie said as she righted me.
“Get some rest,” Raquel said, her voice softer. “I expect an escort so don’t think I’ve let you off.”
I smiled and let Sophie lead me from the room. To the left was Frank at his desk. He didn’t so much as look up as Sophie led me to the black marble stairs.
“So, were you investigating me under the Willow-Blossom?” she said, more arrogance pouring through her voice. “Or were you waiting for my company?”
I tensed and looked up, only to fix on her lips. The upper edge of her top lip dipped perfectly in the centre and her lips curved smoothly to the corners which eased up into a seductive smile.
“A girl was running . . .” I was sure that was the case but my memory was foggy. “Some man chased her . . . they were playing . . . I think.” I followed the plump bottom lip which had a faint scar underneath it almost like a piercing. The white, soft shape of the scar was more like a decoration. “But she was running to the trees so I was trying to tell the gun club to stop while I was sprinting.”
“Yet then you lingered beneath the tree?” Her lips eased apart into a dangerous smile which showed her teeth, perfectly natural in shape but perfectly formed smooth white too.
“I was trying to fix my radio,” I mumbled and met her eyes. Yes, they were charcoal but the irises held hints of amber in the pinkish light through the window.
She leaned closer. “Of course. You have a fiancé . . . or so you say.”
“It’s the DS . . . one of the detectives.” I shrugged, somehow feeling guilty about it. She nodded as if I’d said sorry and she was accepting it. Was I sorry?
“I can imagine she is supportive that you’re finding your feet again.” She stroked a warm fingertip over my numb chin.
“I’d love to say yes to that but . . .” I held up my prosthesis. “She hates this.”
“It is beautiful.” Sophie tutted at me and grabbed my chin like she wanted to kiss me. Instead she tapped my lips with her finger.
“You rescued me, again,” I whispered back at her.
Exhale, pause; exhale, pause.
Sophie turned away and helped me up one stair at a time. “Yes.”
“You carried me back here and you took care of me.” I threaded my fingers through her elegant ones.
She looked down at our hands, her long eyelashes flicking, her stark white hair falling into her bronze face. “Yes.”
I stopped, leaned up, and kissed her smooth, warm cheek. “Thank you.”
Her eyes softened, then smouldered, then affection filled them and she smiled; not a dangerous one, not a seductive one, but a genuine, kind smile. “You are most welcome.”