My Devoted Husband

Chapter 4

When Eleanor woke up again, the first thing she saw was the stark white ceiling of a hospital.

"You're finally awake!"

The nurse let out a sigh of relief. "You're so badly injured, we need to contact your family right away."

She paused, then couldn't help but sigh: "Look at Ms. Reed next door. She also fell into the sea, her injuries are much lighter than yours, but Mr. Blackwood hasn't left her side, doting on her like she's a treasure. Where's your family? It's been two days, and no one has shown up..."

Eleanor twitched her lips but said nothing.

Just then, the door to the hospital room was suddenly thrown open.

Julian stood in the doorway, his face grim, his gaze stabbing into her like a knife.

The nurse froze, seemingly confused as to why Mr. Blackwood was here, but seeing his foul expression, she quickly retreated.

The moment the door closed, Julian swept the medicine tray off the bedside table, the piercing sound of shattering glass echoing as pills scattered across the floor.

"Was it you who pushed Sophia into the sea?"

His voice was as cold as ice.

Eleanor froze.

She didn't understand why Sophia would still frame her; a wave of exhaustion washed over her heart: "I didn't do it."

"Still denying it?"

Julian seized her wrist, his grip so tight it felt like it would shatter her bones. "Sophia told me herself!

Weren't you always so magnanimous?

Why did you suddenly change like this?"

He sneered, as if he'd figured something out: "Could it be... all that tolerance before was just an act?

Just to get my attention?"

Eleanor's face went pale with pain, but she just looked at him calmly, too weary to even bother explaining.

A look like that thoroughly enraged Julian.

He violently flung her hand away. "Fine. Since you won't admit you're wrong, then you can bear the consequences yourself."

He turned to leave, his voice bone-chillingly cold: "From now on, no medical staff will attend to you.

Suffer this pain on your own!"

The next few days were exceptionally difficult for Eleanor.

With no doctors on rounds and no nurses to change her dressings, she had to drag her battered body, inch by inch, to the medicine cabinet and apply the medication with trembling hands.

Several times, she fell, bruising her knees, but she always gritted her teeth and pulled herself back up.

Julian probably thought that she, the "great miss of the Vance family," wouldn't be able to withstand such torment.

But he didn't know that she wasn't Alina, not some socialite raised in a greenhouse.

She was Eleanor, who had grown up tough in the countryside, abandoned by her parents as a child, forced to endure even sickness all on her own.

What was a little pain like this to her?

A few days later, just as Eleanor had finished her discharge paperwork and was packing her bags, the door to her room was suddenly kicked open.

Julian stormed in, his face dark, and grabbed her wrist: "Come with me."

"For what?"

Eleanor frowned.

"Sophia has been kidnapped by Leo Carter."

Julian's voice was tense. "He specifically demanded you in exchange. He'll let you go after three days."

Eleanor's heart shuddered.

Leo, the notorious pervert in their circle. Every time he saw her, his cold, slimy gaze was nauseating.

"I'm not going."

She refused outright.

Julian's eyes turned icy: "You don't have a choice."

He stared at her, his tone suddenly softening: "Leo is interested in you; he won't do anything to you. Just be obedient, and after this is over, I'll agree to any condition you name."

Eleanor looked up at him and suddenly smiled: "Alright then. I want a wedding."

Julian was taken aback: "What?"

"We only registered our marriage back then, we didn't have a wedding."

Eleanor said softly, "I want you to make it up to me."

This was part of her plan.

When Alina returned, she would need a grand wedding, to let everyone witness the handover of the "Mrs. Blackwood" title.

Julian was silent for a long time before finally nodding: "Alright, I promise you."

When Eleanor was sent to the Carter estate, Leo was lounging lazily on the sofa, watching her with a grin.

"Mrs. Blackwood, long time no see."

His fingertips brushed across her face. Eleanor fought back her disgust and didn't pull away.

The torture of the past two days had been "mild." Leo had just had people draw her blood, tube after tube.

She was already numb to the pain of the needle piercing her vein, but watching her own blood fill one glass tube after another, her heart couldn't stop trembling.

Until the third day, in a half-dreaming state, she heard the bodyguards outside whispering:

"Has the young master gone crazy?

Is he really going to drain her blood to make a specimen later?"

"Shh, keep it down... The young master said she's too beautiful, that only by making her into a specimen after she's dead can she be preserved forever..."

The blood in Eleanor's veins instantly froze.

This was Julian's promise that "nothing would happen"?

She was about to lose her life here!

A bone-chilling cold shot up from the soles of her feet to her spine. She bit her lip hard, only managing to suppress her trembling when she tasted blood.

Taking advantage of the guards' laxness, she felt for the crystal ornament on the bedside table and smashed it against the window with all her might.

"Crash!"

Shards of glass flew everywhere. She used a sharp edge to cut the ropes, and as she leaped from the second floor, a sharp "crack" came from her right ankle.

The intense pain made her vision go black, but she didn't dare to stop.

Dragging her sprained ankle, she stumbled out of the Carter family's property and ran all the way back to the Blackwood estate.

As she pushed open the living room door, she saw Julian kneeling on one knee, carefully applying medicine to Sophia's ankle.

"Julian..." Sophia's eyes were red. "Ms. Vance has been gone for so long, aren't you worried at all?"

Julian's movements paused, his voice impossibly gentle: "I'm only worried about you. Why didn't you tell me you sprained your ankle? Are you trying to make me worry to death?"

Eleanor stood at the door, soaked to the bone, her ankle swollen high, yet she didn't receive so much as a glance.

She walked past them, her face devoid of expression.

"Eleanor?"

Julian finally noticed her and shot to his feet. "You..."