The Dark Between Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I won’t leave you. Where is your medicine?”
    Miss Atherton pressed fingers to her temple. “It’s in my quilted bag,” she gasped. “Jones will show you my room.”
    Asher turned to Kate. “Did you hear that? Go back to the porter and find her bag.”
    Kate stared at him, eyes wide with alarm.
    “Miss Poole,” he said more gently. “Please be as quick as you can.”
    The girl broke into a run toward the building just as Miss Atherton collapsed in his arms.
    Asher had little regard for young ladies, having yet to encounter one who wasn’t a hardened schemer, but a curious feeling of tenderness settled over him as he carried Elsie Atherton toward the college buildings. With her head resting against hischest, all that mattered was to have her peaceful and smiling again.
    He set her down in the shade of an oak tree and sat next to her, cradling her head in his lap. His hands trembled as he smoothed the hair out of her eyes.
    Soon enough Kate came barreling through the arch, her face sharp with anxiety, followed by a much slower Jones. Bag in hand, she threw herself to the ground next to Asher and rifled through Miss Atherton’s possessions. She pulled out a bottle of brown glass and peered at the crisp white label. “Good God. It’s Chlorodyne.”
    Asher did not recognize the name, but the girl’s frown gave him pause. “Is it the only medicine in the bag?”
    She poked through again. “Yes.”
    “Then open it and pour some in her mouth. I’ll hold her.”
    Cradling Miss Atherton’s head with one hand, he gently grasped her jaw with the other and pulled her mouth open. Kate leaned in and poured a thin stream of the liquid down her throat. Miss Atherton swallowed and coughed.
    Asher turned to Kate. “Is that enough?”
    Her face was solemn. “I know this medicine. You don’t want to give her too much. Wait a minute and see how she does.”
    “Is everything all right?” Jones stood behind Kate, hunched over and wringing his hands.
    Asher considered Miss Atherton. She no longer trembled, and her clenched jaw had softened. As her body relaxed, her breathing deepened into a steady rhythm.
    “I think she’s falling asleep,” he whispered.
    Kate sat back on the grass and sighed. Then she pushed the stopper into the medicine bottle and returned it to Miss Atherton’s bag.
    Asher nodded toward the bag. “What do you know about Chlorodyne?”
    “My own mum used to take it. So much that she couldn’t live without it.”
    “Did it help her?”
    She frowned. “She’s been dead for two years.”
    He hardly knew what to say. The girl was such an odd little creature—angry one moment and cringing like a wounded puppy the next. She unsettled him. It would be a relief to see the back of her.
    “Oh dear,” murmured Jones. “Here comes Mrs. Thompson.”
    Asher looked up to see a tall, thin woman in black gliding toward them. Her narrow face was grim as she knelt next to him.
    “Did she have an attack?”
    “She clutched her head as though it pained her, and then she began to shake,” Asher said. “But she calmed down once she’d swallowed her medicine. She seems quite peaceful now.”
    Mrs. Thompson let her fingers rest on the girl’s neck, feeling the pulse. Then she stroked the pale cheek before turning to him. “Whom do I thank for attending to her?”
    “I am Asher Beale, ma’am. My father is Harold Beale.”
    Her stricken face broke into a smile. “Harold’s son! How wonderful to meet you, even under such circumstances. Look, here’s Oliver—he’ll be so pleased.”
    A grey-haired man, stooped and frail, shuffled toward them with the aid of a cane. He did not kneel. “What’s happened, my dear? Is she breathing?” His own breath came in gasps, and to Asher it seemed that even his long beard quivered.
    Mrs. Thompson rose to her feet. “She had an attack, but her medicine brought it to a halt. She’s resting now.” She metAsher’s gaze. “It’s something akin to epilepsy, as far as