The Apprentice Girl // Book 3 in the Rosie Grey series

Chapter Fourteen

Christopher took me back to the house and forced me to lay on the sofa whilst he went in search of ice from the icebox. The throbbing in my head and decreased, but the constant movement in the carriage made me feel a little dizzy and I had to bite my lip to make I wouldn't vomit. I didn't think Matilda had smashed my head against the shelf that hard, but I had always been a little more tolerable when it came to pain than the average person so it may have been worse than I thought.

Still, the ice helped to calm the throbbing and if I remained staring at the ceiling without moving, the room stopped swimming in front of my eyes and the feeling of wanting to vomit began to subside. My experience with head injuries had always been to wait for the throbbing to go down and hope for the best and that was how I intended to play this situation out. With the throbbing already starting to dissipate, I had my hopes that it wasn't as bad as previous head injuries and I'd be back to normal by the morning.

"Here you go, drink it," Christopher said as he placed a glass of water on the table.

"Can't I have hot chocolate instead of tea?"

"I'm afraid not. Drink the water."

"Fine."

I slowly slid myself up the back of the chair and focused my eyes on the glass of water on the table, but the world still lurched every time I moved. Once I was sitting up, I paused for a second and allowed everything to settle and right itself before reaching over and grabbed the water. Christopher watched me intently as though making sure I wasn't about to keel over and throw the water all over the place.

Even with the room refusing to sit still, I managed to drink the water and hand it back to Christopher before returning to my previous position of lying on my back and staring at the ceiling. I could hear Christopher moving around the room and I wished he would just sit down or stop making so much noise, it annoyed me more than he probably realised and every slight sound echoed through my head and all I wanted to listen to was complete silence but Christopher seemed determined to make as much noise as possible.

Eventually, Christopher fell silent and the only sound he made was the occasional turn of a book page from across the room. I closed my eyes and made an attempt to fall asleep but the throbbing at the back of my head didn't help my case. Instead, I laid there with my eyes closed and hoped I would at least sleep for a few minutes, but that didn't seem possible. The sound of the front door swinging open and James and Kitty engaged in a rather loud conversation halted any chance of sleep.

My eyes shot open and I turned my head to the side just as they walked through the living room door. Christopher slammed his book shut and looked over to them as though expecting something to come of their arrival. James walked in and dumped a bolt of fabric and some paper onto one of the chairs before he finally spoke.

"How are you feeling?"

"My head hurts."

"Still?" He paused. "Doctor Lucas is away at the moment, I tried to stop by his office to see if he would add you to his rounds tomorrow, but no such luck."

"Who's looking after his patients?" Christopher asked.

"Doctor Ealing and there is no way I'm going to him since it was his daughter that got us into this mess in the first place."

"I don't need to see a Doctor; I just need to go to bed."

"Is that a good idea? I've heard stories about people with head injuries going to bed and then not waking up again. I'd rather get someone to look you over before any of that, just in case."

"I'm fine, James. I'll have a lovely bruise in the morning, but I am fine. All I want to do is go to bed and sleep for a few hours and by morning my head won't hurt nearly as much as it does now. Your talking isn't helping either and I'd rather not sit here and listen to you go on another rant about the Ealing's. So, I'm going to bed and I'll see you in the morning."