Married By Morning (The Hathaways #4)(90)

Althea let go of the leather hose and hugged herself.

“My brother never came for me,” she said plaintively, perspiration and tears seeping through the powder on her face, turning it into a creamy paste. “You can’t have her.” But her gaze chased off to the side, in the direction of the stairs leading to the third floor.

Galvanized, Harry rushed from the room and up the stairs. A blessed waft of cool air and a ray of natural light came from one of the two rooms at the top. He went inside, his gaze sweeping across the stagnant room. The bed was in disarray and the window had been thrown open.

Harry froze, sharp pain lancing through his chest. His heart had stopped with fear. “Cat!” he heard himself shout, running to the window. Gulping for air, he looked down at the street three stories below.

But there was no broken body, no blood, nothing on the street below except rubbish and manure.

At the periphery of his vision, a white flutter caught his attention, like the flapping of a bird’s wings. Turning his head to the left, Harry drew in a quick breath as he saw his sister.

Catherine was in a white nightgown, perched on the edge of a winged gable. She was only about three yards away, having crept along an incredibly narrow sill that was cantilevered over the second story below. Her arms were locked around her slender knees, and she was shivering violently. The breeze played with the loose locks of her hair, glittering banners dancing against the gray sky. One puff of wind, one momentary loss of balance, would knock her off the gable.

Even more alarming than Catherine’s precarious perch was the vacancy of her expression.

“Cat,” Harry said carefully, and her face turned in his direction.

She didn’t seem to recognize him.

“Don’t move,” Harry said hoarsely. “Stay still, Cat.” He ducked his head inside the house long enough to shout, “Ramsay!” and then his head emerged from the window again. “Cat, don’t move a muscle. Don’t even blink.”

She didn’t say a word, only sat and continued to shiver, her gaze unfocused.

Leo came up behind Harry and stuck his own head out the window. Harry heard Leo’s breath catch. “Sweet mother of God.” Taking stock of the situation, Leo became very, very calm. “She’s as high as a piper,” he said. “This is going to be a pretty trick.”

Chapter Thirty-one

“I’ll walk along the sill,” Harry said. “I’m not afraid of heights.”

Leo’s expression was grim. “Neither am I. But it won’t hold either of us—too much stress on the trusses. The ones above us are rotting, which means they probably all are.”

“Is there another way to reach her? From the third-story roof?”

“That would take too long. Keep talking to her while I find some rope.”

Leo disappeared, while Harry hung farther out the window. “Cat, it’s me,” he said. “It’s Harry. You know me, don’t you?”

“’Course I do.” Her head dropped to her bent knees, and she wobbled. “I’m so tired.”

“Cat, wait. This isn’t the time for a nap. Lift your head and look at me.” Harry continued to talk to her, encouraging her to stay still, stay awake, but she barely responded. More than once she altered her position, and Harry’s heart plummeted as he expected her to roll right off the winged gable.

To his relief, Leo returned in no time at all with a substantial length of rope. His face was misted with sweat, and he was drawing in deep lungfuls of air.

“That was fast,” Harry said, taking the rope from him.

“We’re next door to a notorious whipping den,” Leo said. “There was a lot of rope.”

Harry measured two spans of rope with his arms and began to tie a knot. “If you’re planning to coax her to come back to the window,” he said, “it won’t work. She won’t respond to anything I say.”

“You tie the knot. I’ll do the talking.”

Leo had never experienced fear like this before, not even when Laura had died. That had been a slow process of loss, watching her life slip away like sand from an hourglass. This was even worse. This was the deepest level of hell.

Leaning out the window, Leo stared at Catherine’s huddled, exhausted form. He understood the effects of the opium, the confusion and dizziness, the sense that one’s limbs were too heavy to move, and at the same time a feeling of buoyant lightness as if one could fly. And added to that, Catherine couldn’t even see.

If he managed to get her to safety, he was never going to let her out of his arms again.

“Well, Marks,” he said in as normal a voice as he could manage. “Of all the ridiculous situations you and I have found ourselves in, this one takes the biscuit.”

Her head lifted from her knees, and she squinted blindly in his direction. “My lord?”

“Yes, I’m going to help you. Stay still. Naturally you would make my heroic rescue effort as difficult as possible.”

“I didn’t plan on this.” Her voice was slurred, but there was a familiar—and welcome—touch of indignation in it. “Was trying to get away.”

“I know. And in just a minute, I’m going to bring you inside so that we can argue properly. For the time being—”

“Don’t want to.”