The Admiral gave a faint wheeze that might have been a laugh. “You say that now. I have been saying ‘past the worst of it’ since the Nile.”
Miss Archer, scrambling down after them, shook dust from her skirts. “Let us not invite the Almighty to test that theory,” she said lightly. “We have seen enough of His object lessons for one night.”
He then assisted Mrs. Grealey over with a considerable amount of complaining.
Mrs. Larkin came down last, landing with a small thud. Edmund had offered her a hand when she began her descent; she had taken it only briefly, the tips of her fingers light upon his, using the trunk itself for the greater support. Her self-sufficiency ought to have relieved him. That it left his palm feeling oddly bereft was a foolishness he ignored.
The way to the school from that point was still difficult—branches strewn, mud slicked—but passable. The house loomed above them, its pale stone streaked with wet, its windows intact, its chimneys straight.
Girls’ faces appeared at some of the upper panes as the party approached the front steps. Small hands pressed against the glass. A flock of them appeared in the entry hall when the dooropened—eyes wide, plaits and ribbons askew, all trying to see and none brave enough to crowd too close.
“Oh, Admiral!” cried one of the older girls. “You are safe!”
“Of course I am safe, Miss Fairchild,” he declared, straightening from Edmund’s arm. “I had a Hercules to lift me and a brace of angels to worry over me.”
Edmund felt his ears grow warm.
“Girls,” Mrs. Larkin said, her tone firm but kind, “prepare two guest chambers at once. Miss Archer, would you be so good as to see to Mrs. Grealey?”
Mrs. Grealey, trudging in behind them, made a faint noise of offended dignity and clutched her shawl tighter. “I will see to the Admiral, ma’am.”
“There are spare blankets in the linen closet and a fire laid in the small parlour. We will put the Admiral in there for the present until the bed is prepared.”
Edmund did not need telling twice. He led the old man where he was directed, settling him down with as much gentleness as he could contrive. The Admiral grasped his hand for a moment, squeezed it, and said in a very low voice, “You have done more than your duty, Leigh.”
“It is no more than any soldier would have done,” Edmund said, attempting lightness.
“Then I will commend the army… this time.”
Edmund laughed despite himself. When he straightened, he found Mrs. Larkin regarding him with an expression he could not quite read. It held gratitude, certainly, with something more testing beneath it.
“You have a wound, Mr. Leigh,” she said.
He lifted a hand to his brow and felt the sticky drag of drying blood just at the hairline. “It is nothing more than a scratch, ma’am. I was caught by a tile when the tree came through the roof.”
“Nothing can become something in a very short space of time,” she replied, “particularly when roofs and falling masonry are concerned. Sit down.”
He hesitated. “I assure you?—”
“Sit,” she repeated, and in the word there was the unmistakable note of a woman long accustomed to being obeyed when she assumed command of a sickroom.
He obeyed.
She moved briskly then, calling for water, for clean linen, for the small box of salves and bandages she kept for the girls’ more dramatic tumbles. The room filled briefly with purposeful motion—girls darting in and out, Jane issuing directions, Mrs. Grealey trying to assert herself.
Edmund sat on a low chair near the hearth and watched Mrs. Larkin as she returned with a basin and cloth. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow now; a tendril of hair had escaped entirely and curled damply against her throat. She set the basin down, dipped the cloth in the fluid it contained, wrung it out with deft fingers, and stepped closer.
“If you will permit me, sir?” she asked.
He inclined his head.
The cool, clean touch of the damp cloth against his brow was both startling and oddly… peaceful. She worked with an expertise that told him she had tended more than schoolroom scrapes. Her fingers were gentle but sure, pressing here, dabbing there, testing the edges of the cut.
“It is shallow,” she pronounced, “but you have lost some skin.”
“I have some to spare,” he said, attempting a smile.
Her lips twitched despite herself. “One always thinks so until he finds half of it missing.”
