Read Online And Then She Fell (Cynster 19 Cynster Sisters Duo #1) by Stephanie Laurens - Free Book Online Page A

everything else she didn’t need to feature in tomorrow’s more scandalous on-dits.
    Lady Marchmain wasn’t a major hostess because she couldn’t rise to the challenge of a near disaster averted. In strident tones, she ordered all her other guests back to the house and waited, hands on broad hips, until they complied. Then Lord Marchmain came puffing up with the blankets he’d clearly been dispatched to fetch. He handed them over to his wife with a meek “Anything else, dear?”
    “Yes,” her ladyship snapped. She pointed imperiously at the house. “Get all those malingerers inside, and then send them home. It was an accident, but thanks to James, Henrietta is safe, and they’re both in my hands, so there’s nothing more for the others to see, and they can all go home with my blessing.”
    In the weak light, James couldn’t tell if Lord Marchmain smiled, but he sounded quite chuffed when he said, “Yes, dear. At once.” Turning on his heel, his lordship strode away into the darkness, back toward the house.
    Lady Marchmain came down the bank as far as she dared. Setting the blankets down, she shook one out and held it wide. “There, now. Out you get, Henrietta—we’ll have you up to the house and into a hot bath in no time.”
    James glanced down at the bedraggled lady he was still holding securely in his arms. He met her gaze, saw her lips weakly curve, then she nodded and, together, they struggled to their feet and clambered up the bank.
    As Lady Marchmain decreed, so it was done. By the time, wrapped in the blankets but shivering hard, they staggered into the house—led to a private side entrance by her ladyship—carriages were rolling in a steady stream up to the front door, and then away down the drive and back out onto the road to London.
    “I don’t know what Louise will say if I allow you to catch a chill—either of you.” Lady Marchmain shepherded them through the library, into a corridor, and around to a secondary stair, apparently unconcerned by the trail of drips they were leaving behind.
    James still had his arm around Henrietta, and she was leaning against his side. She didn’t think she’d yet regained sufficient strength to stand on her own, much less walk. Much, much less climb the stairs.
    She’d never have made it if not for James . . . she shuddered as she realized just how true those words were. Whether she would have made it out of the stream alone . . . in truth, she didn’t think she would have.
    Once on the first floor, Lady Marchmain led her to a bedchamber ablaze with light and with a huge tub already half filled with steaming water. “There, now, dear—lean on me.” Sliding her arm around Henrietta, her ladyship drew her away from James. “James, dear, there’s another bath and some of my son’s clothes waiting for you next door.”
    James nodded.
    Henrietta met his gaze. She couldn’t yet find the strength to say thank you, but she let her eyes say it for her.
    He smiled slightly and nodded at her to go on.
    Turning, she allowed Lady Marchmain to steer her into the room. Two maids were waiting to help her strip off her ruined gown. About to step into the tub, she remembered, and suddenly frantic again, raised a hand to her throat—but the necklace was still there. She sighed with relief and climbed into the tub.
    On a soft groan, she sat, then slid deeper into the welcoming warmth.
    Lady Marchmain, deeming herself in loco parentis, fussed. More than an hour passed before Henrietta, dressed in a warm day gown appropriated from her ladyship’s daughter’s wardrobe and further bundled up in a warm pelisse, with a knitted scarf about her throat and wound over her still damp hair, with someone’s half boots on her feet, was allowed to walk down the main stairs to where James and Lord Marchmain waited in the front hall.
    Henrietta noted that, although decently clad, the clothes James wore fell far short of his usual standards of sartorial excellence, a point over