Juliet felt something warm touch her cheeks as she all of a sudden was unable to stand on her own two feet. With a sigh, she felt her knees give way beneath her and her body fall into Ethan's arms as her entire world turned black.

Chapter Forty Six

Making a fist, Gretchen pounded lightly on the door and stepped back, waiting patiently to be let into the room. It was a few minutes before the door cracked open, revealing the weary eyes of a maid.

"How is she?" Gretchen asked, turning to glance into the dimly lit room.

"Worse, my lady. I'm afraid we're losing her and considering the fact that the physician already did the best he could, there's nothing else that can be done." The maid said, shaking her head.

With a nod of her head, she stood still until the maid made her way past her, her gaze immediately scanning the dimly lit room once she was alone. Brown curtains covered the two windows in the room, keeping the sunlight out and forcing the room to derive its only source of light from the lazy fire in the fireplace. Silence prevailed, the stillness of the lone figure on the large bed that stood in the middle of the room, making it difficult to tell whether or not she was alive.

Cautiously, Gretchen made her way into the room, the sound of her shoes against the wooden floors, bouncing off of the walls. She noticed then that the figure on the bed stirred, and as she approached, she turned fully to her, a soft groan following her action.

"Lady Williams?" A ghost of a whisper drifted to her.

She reached the side of the bed and immediately had to press her lips together to keep herself from gasping.

Juliet laid before her, a complete shadow of herself. Her brown locks fell to a sweaty mess around her shoulders, eyes dimmed by pain as sweat beaded her forehead and her white nightdress clung to her frail form that was confined to the bed. Her once full, rosy lips, was now thin and brownish as she struggled to breathe through them.

It had been a week since Elizabeth was kidnapped along with Gretchen. Somewhere in the midst of the scuffle, Juliet had tried to intervene, earning herself a stab in the back by Henrietta. Ethan managed to shoot Henrietta but the bullet had merely grazed her shoulder, and by the time the constable had arrived, Juliet was lying in a pool of her own blood.

Henrietta and the maid Lucinda were arrested and charged with kidnapping and attempted murder. Gretchen and Ethan got the news two days later that Henrietta had ended her own life in prison.

Elaine Winston and her husband seemed to have disappeared as neither of them could be found.