Marrying His Cinderella Countess

He had snatched his hand away, backed into the wheat until he had no longer been able to see it. But he could not stop touching Ellie, and before much longer he was not going to be able to support himself away from her body either.

‘Blake?’ The voice in his ear was puzzled. ‘What the hell happened?’

‘Jon!’ The relief that he was well enough to speak was almost physical. ‘We went over the bank. Polly scrambled out and I heard her speaking to someone, but that was perhaps half an hour ago. Eleanor is trapped beneath me and I can’t move.’

‘Not surprising with me on top. Hold on. The damn writing case has landed on my gut. Sorry—this is taking an age. I’ve been out of it for a bit—must have banged my head.’

There was a heave, a loud and violent curse, and then most of the weight shifted off Blake’s back.

‘I’ve broken my confounded arm. If I can just—Sorry.’ His booted foot ground into Blake’s cheek. ‘Damn difficult with one hand. There—the door’s open.’

More scrabbling, more curses and then light flooded in.

‘Right, can you get out now?’

Warily Blake felt around, got a handhold and levered himself up and away from Ellie. The coach was on its side and she was against the window which, thankfully, had been open, so the glass had not broken.

He got one arm through the open door above him, heaved and was out. Jon looked appalling, his face pale under a mass of blood from the cut to his head and his left hand supporting his right arm, but he seemed alert and otherwise uninjured. Blake pulled him close, looked at his eyes. The pupils were normal, thank God.

‘Are you hurt, Blake?’ Jonathan was looking him over with as much concern.

‘No, just bruises and scrapes. I’ve had a lot worse in Gentleman Jackson’s after a round of sparring. I just hope and pray Eleanor is all right.’ There was total silence from inside the coach. He climbed up and leaned in. ‘Eleanor?’

She lay where he had left her, on her back, her eyes wide, her freckles standing out against her dead white face. ‘Yes. I think so.’

Her voice was a mere whisper.

‘Move your arms and legs,’ he ordered, suddenly convinced that he must have broken her spine, crushing her like that. And what had it done to her crippled leg?

Obediently she moved her hands and feet, then sat up. ‘Nothing is broken.’

‘Then take my hands.’ He lay down flat and reached in. ‘Try and stand as I pull.’ Behind him he could hear horses, raised voices. ‘Help is here.’

There was the merest hesitation before she reached up. He took her wrists and pulled, his bruised body screaming in protest, and she came up, using her legs without any sign of pain, out of the door until she could slide onto solid ground.

Blake got to her just as she folded neatly and quietly into a dead faint.

* * *

She hurt all over. That was the first thing she was conscious of. Then it all came back—even before she opened her eyes. The terrifying lurch and slide, the impact, the falling bodies and the blow to the head that had stunned her. And then coming back to herself in the gloom to find a man’s body plastered to hers—intimately, heavily, his hands on her shoulders, his face against her cheek, his breath hot on her face, his...maleness all too evident.

Ellie’s eyes flew open. It was daylight. Above her was a ceiling, beneath her a comfortable bed. And someone was in the room with her. She sat up too fast, and almost whimpered at the pain from her bruises. Blake was sitting on a chair in the far corner of the room.

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