“What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted angrily, pulling the club from my hands and throwing it to the floor. I limped sideways, letting out a cry of pain, and he stopped and stared at me, as though seeing me for the first time.
“Miss Mallory?” he asked, looking me up and down with some concern. I grasped at the edges of my gown, badly torn and rent, so naked skin could be seen peeking from the ripped edges. I pulled it about me, casting my eyes to the ground and flushing in shame. “What happened to you and Anna?” he asked, pulling a cloak from his arms and throwing it about my shoulders. I gathered it in my hands and pulled it about me, then stopped when I realised it was my own cloak.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, looking up at him.
“I found it,” he said, gesturing impatiently, “back there on the coast path. Now answer my question. Where the devil have you been? And where is Anna? We’ve the whole house out looking for you, you’ve been gone all day!”
“We were caught in the storm, sir,” I said, my voice shaking. “And we wandered into the forest. There was something in there, sir, a beast of some kind, perhaps a wolf. It attacked me but then it ran off. Anna fled for fear. I tried to follow her, but I fell and bruised my ankle, but look!” I held up the scrap of cloth rather wildly before his eyes and pointed at the ground. “And here, you see? She ran this way. We have to find her, sir, she’s lost and afraid and the creature might come back.”
I bent down and grasped at the wooden crutch on the floor, lifting it and placing it under my arm as I prepared to hobble off on Anna’s path again, but Bartholomew put out a hand and stopped me. “You’re not going anywhere on that ankle,” he said, almost gently with none of the teasing aspect which was so common to his character.
“Miss Feria is my charge, sir,” I said stiffly, “and I will not abandon my duty or responsibility to her. It was my fault that we became lost, so the responsibility is mine to find her.” I turned and started to move to the path, but his hands grasped me, pulling me back to face him. Once more I cried out as my ankle jarred. His expression was fierce as I faced him, and he almost spat as he shouted at me.
“Stop, you little fool!” he shouted. “You will go no further, I say. I will take you back to the house and return to find Miss Feria.”
I gasped. “You will do nothing of the sort,” I said, almost shouting at him in astonishment and anger. “I will not have that little girl left out here by herself without friends, without protection! With a wild beast on the loose and any other danger that might happen upon her? No! I will not go back to the house, sir, I will not!”
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