The Tempting of Thomas Carrick by Stephanie Laurens Read Free Book Online

fuel.
    Setting the lamp back down, Thomas walked into the kitchen. There had to be matches and surely another lamp.
    Joy Burns lay curled on the stone floor.
    She looked even worse than her patients.
    Thomas swore. For a moment, he simply couldn’t think, then his brain started working again. Stepping around Joy, he crouched by her side. “Joy?”
    He lifted one of her hands. It was limp, without life.
    He touched her face; her skin was deathly cold. He patted her cheek lightly, then more firmly, but her lashes didn’t flicker. Her features didn’t shift.
    She was breathing, but so shallowly he could barely detect it. He couldn’t see any signs that she’d emptied her stomach, but the way she lay—arms and legs curled tight, her skirts tangled beneath her—suggested she’d been in extreme pain. He searched for a pulse at her throat; all he found was a thready tremor.
    The Bradshaws might be sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, but he’d known none of them, even the children, had been unconscious.
    Joy—the healer—was.
    The situation was bizarre.
    Also beyond serious. Eight lives—seven Bradshaws plus Joy—hung in the balance, and of them all, Joy seemed to have the most tenuous hold on life.
    Thomas had no ability to help any of them—not directly.
    Cursing softly, he levered his hands under Joy, praying that, unconscious as she was, he wasn’t causing her more pain. Straightening, he lifted her. She was a tallish, well-built woman, now a dead weight, but he managed to angle her through the kitchen archway and around the dining table.
    Gently, he laid her on the worn sofa before the cold hearth.
    Stepping back, he glanced at the grate, debated whether spending the time to get a fire going would be well spent—decided against it.
    His clansmen desperately needed help, and given their healer was among those struck down, he knew of only one place he could get that vital help from.

    * * *

    He rode hell for leather for the Vale, striking east to join the road near the village of Carsphairn, then thundering south before veering down the long drive that led to Casphairn Manor.
    It had been over ten years since he’d last ridden that way. Then, he’d trotted slowly, balancing two squirming deerhound puppies across his saddle. He’d given the pups—Artemis and Apollo—to Lucilla and her twin brother, Marcus. As the manor rose before him, he wondered if the dogs still lived.
    Pulling up immediately before the front steps, he swung out of the saddle. He released Phantom’s reins, knowing the horse wouldn’t stray, then climbed the steps and grasped the iron chain that connected with a bell somewhere inside; he tugged the chain and heard a distant clang .
    In less than a minute, footsteps approached, a measured tread, then the door opened, revealing the butler—the same one Thomas remembered from his last visit.
    The butler looked at Thomas and, somewhat to his surprise, smiled in recognition. “Mr. Carrick, isn’t it?”
    Unable to keep the grimness from his features, Thomas nodded. “I—my clan—need help. I’ve just come from the Bradshaws’ farmhouse to the north. The entire family—Bradshaw, his wife, and their five children—are all gravely ill and in pain.” Thomas had to pause to haul in a breath against the constriction banding his chest. “And our healer is there, too, but I think she’s dying. She’s unconscious, and I couldn’t revive her.”
    “Good gracious!” The butler was as shocked and as concerned as Thomas could have wished. “You’ll need Miss Lucilla, then.”
    Thomas managed not to frown. “I was hoping Algaria might come—or, if not her, then Lady Cynster.”
    The butler’s expression grew commiserating. “I’m afraid, sir, that Algaria passed on several years ago, and Lady Cynster is holidaying with Lord Richard on the Continent. It’s Miss Lucilla who is—so to speak—holding the fort, healer-wise. But I’m sure she’ll aid you—of course, she