The Traitor's Daughter

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Elizabeth sat at the desk in her room and wrote down all of her revenge plots. Her mind had been going for days. She and Henry had returned to the cottage the morning after the incident, and she'd been up ever since. She mumbled to herself as she wrote, the sound of the quill scratching against the parchment filling the room. Her hand was sore and cramped from writing for so long, and the tip of her quill was dull, the words on her page getting harder and harder to read as time went on.

Sunlight filtered in through the open window, and Elizabeth shivered in the cold, her cloak wrapped tight around her body. She needed the cold to keep her mind fresh, since she had only had two hours of sleep in the last two days.

She shivered in the cold and coughed, her nose congested, her throat sore from the sickness that was slowly getting worse as the minutes passed. She reached forward and grabbed her cup of wine, while continuing to write with her other hand. She tilted her head back and lifted the cup to her lips, then carelessly tossed it aside when she realized that it was empty. She turned her full attention back to the parchment in front of her, and continued writing until she reached the end of her final piece of parchment.

She pushed away from the desk and stood up, her knees popping as she did so. She raised her arms above her head and stretched, then set them back at her sides, while her eyes searched the area for any signs of fresh, blank parchment. Seeing that she had no clean sheets left, she stormed downstairs and into the sitting room, where she found Henry squinting at a document in front of the fireplace.

"I need more parchment," She said as a way of greeting.

Henry glanced up at Elizabeth, his eyes still squinted, then looked back down and continued reading. Elizabeth shifted her weight from foot to foot, growing impatient. She needed parchment immediately, so she could get back to work. Henry kept his eyes on the paper, knowing that he was annoying Elizabeth. He tried his best to keep his expression blank, fighting to keep the smile off of his face. She cleared her throat, causing the duke to look up at her again. He immediately frowned at her appearance. The tan gown that she wore was wrinkled, and had a wine stain down the front of it, and her usually neat hair was down around her shoulders, looking ratty and tangled. She had dark circles underneath her eyes, paired with bags that caused her to look older than she was. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her normally olive skin tone had an extreme pallor to it, which led the duke to believe that she was ill.

"You look as if you haven't slept in years," He announced, knowing that he sounded rude.

"I've slept," Elizabeth snapped. "I need parchment," She repeated once more, sounding angry.

Henry sighed and set the document aside, stood up from the chair he had been sitting in, then approached Elizabeth, who immediately took a step back.

"You look sick," Henry said gently as he approached her cautiously. Once she was backed into a corner, he placed a hand on her forehead, noting that she felt warmer than she should have. He clicked his tongue in disapproval.

He suddenly remembered that he had fixed her wrist days earlier, and needed to give it attention too. Henry looked down at the wrapped body part, then met Elizabeth's bloodshot gaze. "How does your wrist feel?"

"Fine," Elizabeth said absentmindedly as she looked around the room once more. The only parchment she found was the piece that the duke had been reading earlier, and she knew it would be extremely rude to take it and write on the back of it.

Henry nodded, then felt Elizabeth's forehead again, causing her to frown at him.

"Would you kindly stop touching me, please? I'm perfectly fine."