Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 33

Chapter 33 Silver Needles

stance kept going. “Nora, I’m not singling you out.”

Nora wasn’t the only one on her list. So was whoever had come screaming through the ballroom.

Every servant in that house had been trained for exactly this kind of moment. Even in a real emergency. none of them would go running through a room full of guests shouting the family’s business like they wanted a panic on their hands.

Nora held her eyes. “Suspect me all you want. I’m going in there.

“I need to see for myself that he’s alive!”

If his life weren’t on the line, she could have waited.

Nothing in her face wavered, and nothing in her voice did either.

Constance got the clear sense that a no would only mean Nora went through that door another way.

Constance looked down at the one still out cold and the three with bruises coming up on their faces. All three of them dropped their eyes.

There was no time to deal with that. Constance turned back to Nora. “You did this?”

“I did,” Nora said.

Constance let out a breath. “Then come in with me. You stand off to the side and watch. Nothing more.”

She waited for Nora’s nod before she opened the door.

The smell of blood rolled out at them the second it swung wide.

Julian lay on the floor, and the carpet beside him was sprayed dark with what he’d brought up.

Constance’s voice tore out of her. “Julian!”

Whatever had been holding Constance up let go all at once. Her eyes rolled back and she went down.

“Ma’am!” Bess cried out.

Nora got there a step ahead of Bess and caught her.

Gideon Vance, the doctor kneeling over Julian, glanced up and got caught between the two of them.

Nora didn’t lift her head. She dug her thumbnail into the spot under Constance’s nose and bore down. “Work on Julian.”

Gideon turned back to Julian.

Constance came around fast, but there was no strength left in her anywhere. Her breathing came hard, and her eyes kept rolling.

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Bess’s voice went thin with fear. “Mrs. Weston, please, let the doctor look at her. She looks…

couldn’t make herself finish it. Constance looked like she was dying.

Every breath came like it might be the last one she got.

“Hold her up,” Nora said.

She passed Constance into Bess’s arms.

She pulled a fine silver needle out of her hair, took Constance’s hand, and pricked each fingertip in turn, squeezing a bead of blood from every one. From there, she moved to the sole of Constance’s foot and the crown of her head.

Each time the needle went in, she pressed hard until the blood came up.

The whole thing took less than thirty seconds.

Bess hadn’t even gotten a question out before Nora was finished.

The breath Constance had been fighting for finally came loose, and her head cleared. “Nora…”

Nora took her left hand and pressed a thumb into the center of the palm. “What does that feel like?”

“Sore,” Constance said. “Kind of full. But not as bad as it was.”

Nora nodded. “The shock hit you all at once. There’s a pressure point in the middle of the palm, and working it takes the edge off.”

Julian was still on the floor, so she had Bess move Constance to a chair off to the side and showed Constance how to work the point herself.

As soon as Bess had it, Nora turned to Julian.

Gideon was still going over him.

Constance had enough breath back to ask. “Dr. Vance, how is he?”

Gideon’s face stayed grim. “It’s urgent and it’s past me. Get him to a hospital, Madam Weston, and get my teacher to him.”

Once he’d said it, he turned his head and looked Nora over for a long moment.

What she’d done for Constance a minute ago had changed his opinion of her.

Nora was looking Julian over instead. His color and the sound of his breathing told her he wasn’t going to die in the next few minutes, and her shoulders came down.

She felt Gideon watching her and lifted her eyes to meet his.

He wore gold wire-rimmed glasses and a white coat, and he came across as mild and well mannered, the kind of doctor patients trusted on sight.

To Nora, the polish read like a fresh coat of paint over something rotten. Adrian had worn the same look.

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Chapter 33 Silver Needles

She disliked him on instinct. She gave him one flat look, let it drop, and went back to Julian.

“Olvia and I had a misunderstanding,” Constance said, and it clearly cost her. “I doubt your teacher will come.”

Nora took that in. Gideon had trained under the same teacher as Olivia, which dropped him another notch in her book.

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