Chapter 4
Sunny couldn’t decide what was more painful: his aching arm or the fact that he’d come to escort Mantheria to help her find her son, and so far, he’d been completely useless.
Perhaps he would not be a very good stepfather or husband after all.
She’d gone for help, and he’d sat in a dark carriage with his dark thoughts.
Nearly an hour had passed before he heard the sound of horses’ hooves coming his direction.
Cursing at the stabbing pain in his arm, he managed to get to his feet and stick his head out of the window and take a peep.
Mantheria and her driver were sitting on the perch of a wagon, and there were two riders following them.
Mr. Walpole pulled the pair of horses to a stop by the carriage that was on its side. Mantheria jumped down, and Sunny expected her to run to him in relief. He held out his one good hand so that he could grasp hers.
Instead, she went first to the groom, who was groaning on the ground near the carriage.
“Robert, Robert. It’s all right. We are here. These two nice men from an inn are going to put you in the back of the gig and take you to a doctor.”
“Th-thank you,” the groom muttered as the pair of strangers picked him up and began to carry him to the wagon.
Sunny wished that he had rescued Mantheria, but it appeared that she was going to need to rescue him.
His right shoulder hurt like the devil, and with only one working arm, he hadn’t even been able to extricate himself from the overturned carriage.
“I have tried to get out, but I can’t seem to manage it. ”
Exhaling, Mantheria nodded. “I’ll climb back in and get on my knees. You can step on my back, and our two extra hands can help pull you up from the top of the carriage. I will help push from the bottom.”
Sunny didn’t like this plan at all, but he could not think of a better one.
Mr. Walpole appeared to be injured, and the pair of blokes from the inn were not small men.
There was no way for their girth to fit through the carriage window.
He stepped aside as he watched Mantheria shimmy up the side of the carriage and swing her lovely legs through the window.
She dropped easily to the floor. Then she got on all fours.
He hesitated. How could he possibly put his weight on her back? He weighed over twelve stone, and she couldn’t be more than eight stone.
“We haven’t got all night, Sunny. Climb on my back.”
Putting his good hand on the frame of the window, he tried to hold as much of his weight as he could with it as he stepped onto Mantheria’s back, and she sagged underneath him.
Sunny almost got off of her when two pairs of beefy hands grasped him underneath his shoulders and hauled him out like a sack of wheat.
The movement caused exquisite pain in his right arm, but he gritted his teeth to keep his scream inside of him.
He didn’t want Mantheria’s opinion of him to sink any further.
The hired hands eased Sunny down the roof of the carriage and onto the dirt road.
Mantheria needed no such assistance. She climbed out again on her own and down to the road.
Shame covered him like sweat. Without a word, the two men hauled Sunny into the back of the gig with Robert.
Glancing down at his right hand, it was swollen to nearly twice its usual size. It was worthless, and so was he.
He watched her set the two bandboxes in the wagon bed beside him. Then Mantheria climbed onto the perch next to Mr. Walpole and took the reins. Sunny wished that he could help her instead of being another burden for her to carry.