Chapter 26 The Clippings #3
Patsy hustled in with a first aid kit. “I’ve put the kettle on. Nice spot of tea will do you good.” She knelt in front of me, set the kit on the floor and took hold of my wrists. “These are going to need a bit of cleaning. Just a tick and I’ll have some nice warm water and soap.”
She got up, reached for a throw, tossed it around my shoulders and took off again.
I looked out their windows.
Just dark night. No colored lights.
The cold of my wet clothes and hair hit me and my teeth started chattering.
Patsy came back, and was in the middle of bathing my hands when Prue and Chassie rushed in.
“Oh my goodness!” Prue cried. “What happened to you?”
“I—”
“Kettle’s boiled,” Patsy interrupted me. “You girls, make us all tea. Be sure to make one for Christian too, for when he gets back.”
“Christian?” Chassie asked.
“Please just make the tea, dear,” Patsy said.
They both ran to the kitchen.
“Just a lot of cuts, luv,” she said to me. “Nothing too deep. Might be hard to type for a few days, but it won’t be long until you’re good as new.”
“My knee really hurts.”
She looked to my knee.
I looked to my knee.
On my right one, my jeans were torn and blood was oozing.
Shit.
Totally went down hard.
“I’ll get to that next,” she said.
“The cats are outside,” I told her.
“We’ll have a look for them in a tick.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
She grasped hold of my wrists firmly, and I focused on her.
“You’re safe, Vivi, all right?”
I took in a super deep breath.
And I nodded.
She reached for the Germolene to put on my hands.
* * *
I was pacing the green salon.
Not true.
I was limping through the green salon (my knee hurt like a mother) and doing it back and forth.
Prue, Chassie, Fitzy, Patsy and Scotty were with me.
We were here because it was at the front of the house, and we wanted to see when Christian and Harry got back.
Fitzy had called the steward’s cottage and sent the men out to help Christian.
As Patsy tended to me, the police came.
They then left, with Christian and Scotty, because they caught whoever it was who’d been fucking with me, so they all went to the station.
We were now waiting for them to come home and give us the lowdown.
I’d toweled my hair, but it was a frizzed disaster and still damp (hair didn’t dry very fast in England, just sayin’), and I’d changed into a knit lounge set to keep warm.
I’d had four cups of tea.
But it wasn’t those that made me revved.
Phantoms in the ballroom.
Someone chasing me through the night.
And I knew, down to my soul, those phantoms were dancing to warn me to get to the house.
Do not ask how I knew that, but I knew.
They were a beacon to guide me to safety.
I just hadn’t noticed them until too late.
What I did notice was that they went away when I was in the house and safe.
That was why I was revved.
Outside the good news that the men had caught whoever-the-fuck was dicking with me, when Fitzy went out to see if he could find the cats, he didn’t have to go far. They were wet and cranky (cranky because they were wet) and loitering by the door off the ladies’ lounge.
So they were in there with us, along with Soot, Greystoke and Floofy.
Chassie, at the window waiting for Christian, abruptly turned to the room.
“They’re back.” Her attention came to me. “Battie is with them.”
Battle?
It’d been hours, but…
He was in London.
How was he here?
“I called him, luv,” Fitzy told me.
That explained that.
But…shit.
Battle was going to be flipped out, and I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
About a minute later, I would find I was right when he stalked into the room appearing homicidal.
He did a head count but landed and stayed on me.
“Are you all right?” he asked tersely as Chassie ran to Christian, who came in behind him, followed by Harry.
“Were you at the police station?” I asked in return.
“Are. You. All right?” he gritted between clenched teeth.
I went to him and put my bandaged hands on him. “I’m all right, baby. Now tell us what’s happening.”
He didn’t tell us what was happening.
He took my wrists in a gentle grip and looked down at my bandaged hands.
That muscle in his cheek danced, then it did it again.
Oh boy.
“Battle, honey, I’m fine,” I stated. “Really. But I’d like to know what’s happening.”
His gaze lifted to mine and he said one word.
“Chelsea.”
I gasped.
Prue gasped.
“What on earth?” Chassie whispered from where she was tucked with Christian’s arm circling her shoulders against his side.
“She hired someone to mess with Vivi,” Christian shared.
I pulled my hands from Battle’s hold and snapped, “Oh my God! Seriously?”
“He’s been watching you for a few days,” Christian said.
“Getting your habits down. He crept up to the house, locked the door you usually use. He cut the electricity and phone line to the studio, doing that just to spook you, but also to get you out of the studio. And when you took off, he stalked you. As he was ordered to do.”
“This will be explained,” Battle said dangerously Harry and Scotty’s way.
Both had hangdog faces.
Both nodded.
I’d have a word with Battle later about Scotty and Harry. They weren’t responsible for this, and they couldn’t be expected to have a mind meld with every inch of The Downs so they knew when there was an intruder.
But that wasn’t for now.
I should have known from the way she was staring hatred at us at the wedding reception that Chelsea would pull something.
But this?
The woman was deranged.
“How did you see Vivi?” Chassie asked Christian.
“I was up late, working on my paper,” he told her. “Good luck, I was looking out the window when I saw a shadow trying to get into the armory. I couldn’t tell who it was, until I went out. Then I saw it was someone chasing Vivi in the rain.”
At this moment, I realized my mistake at allowing Chassie to request the story before I calmed my man down, because hearing Christian say that, Battle prowled to the teapot, picked it up, and hurled it violently into the fireplace, shattering it with splashes of the remains of the tea wetting the stone.
It was probably Limoges or something.
Yikes.
“That bloody, fucking cunt!” he exploded.
I moved to him to put a soothing hand on his back. “It’s okay. I’m okay, honey.”
He turned furious eyes to me. “It is not okay, Vivienne. It’s fucked up.”
It was that.
“But I’m fine and the bad guy was caught,” I reminded him.
“As will be the true villain in this scheme, darling,” he said sinisterly.
“We’re pressing charges against Chelsea.
I don’t give a fuck we’ll be splashed all over the tabloids, she will be.
She’ll be humiliated. Ridiculed. And hopefully, after she faces the likely minimal consequences she’ll receive for her part in this plot, she’ll need to retire to some island like my mother to escape the scandal. ”
But…
He couldn’t do that.
He worked so hard to protect their privacy.
Nevertheless, I didn’t think now was the time to remind him of that.
“How about we all get some sleep and discuss it tomorrow?” I suggested.
“We can do that, but I won’t change my mind,” he replied. “They’ve already phoned the Met. They’re picking her up in London for questioning tonight.”
Well, that was happening, and I wasn’t about to stop it.
Chelsea needed a good, hard scare.
“Okay, then everyone is all right. Everyone is safe. We can’t do anything about that, not that we’d want to, so let’s all get some rest,” I suggested.
“A good idea,” Fitzy decreed as Patsy started gathering the unbroken china onto a tray. “Sleep helps all ailments.”
“It’s so lucky you’re so diligent in your studies,” Chassie whispered to Christian in a my hero tone.
“Let’s go to bed,” I whispered to Battle in an I’m fine and I love you’re so pissed on my behalf, but you can chill tone.
My tone didn’t work. He scowled at me.
I hooked my arm in his and looked to Patsy and Fitzy. “Thank you guys for taking care of me.” I turned to Christian. “So much.”
Chassie beamed.
Christian nodded.
Fitzy and Patsy tutted and herded everyone out.
I guided Battle to our room.
Once inside, he turned the light on by the bed.
I sat on it as he stalked to the bathroom.
I stayed where I was as I saw the light go on there and then in the closet.
Not long later, the lights were extinguished, and he came out in blue and white thin-striped pajama bottoms.
I knew it wasn’t the time, but just to note, I would never get tired of my hot guy unintentionally modeling his never-ending supply of pajama bottoms.
“I hesitate to say this,” I began carefully, “but, love of my life, you need to chill.”
He jerked to a halt two feet in front of me.
And his head slanted sharply to the side.
“Love of your life?” he asked.
“Well…yeah,” I answered.
“Love of your life.” It was a statement this time.
“Um, I love you,” I said. “I love you very much. I love you more each day. I’ll probably love you more every day for, like, eternity. I hope we have a boy and a girl we can name Noble and Fury. So, since I believe that’s the definition of the love of someone’s life, you’re mine.”
He moved then, lifting me off the bed, pulling me into his arms and kissing me hard.
I had arms with bandaged hands wrapped around his neck when he was done.
“You chill?” I asked.
“I’m pissed as fuck,” he answered, then his lips twitched. “But the thought of that bitch being taken to the station in the middle of the night, needing to phone for a solicitor, which means needing to phone her father, and then being questioned because she was caught, helps a bit.”
I smiled. “Helps me too.”
He got serious. “And you’re all right.”
“I am,” I confirmed.
“And you’re probably exhausted.”
I was still coasting on four cups of exceptional earl grey tea.
I didn’t say that.
I said, “I could use some sleep.”
Of course, Battle didn’t mess about in making that happen.
It was dark, the cats had joined us, and I was in Battle’s arms when I said, “Thanks for driving from London in the middle of the night for me.”
His response.
A hefty arm squeeze and “Darling.”
That was it.
Then again, that was all he needed to say.