Piers straightened to stand between her and the body.“You should not see this.”
“I have seen it.He looks dead.”
Piers quickly crouched down, feeling for a pulse in the footman’s wrist, and then at the base of his throat.
His breath caught.“He’s still alive.Just.Take the lantern while I try to lift him...”
The footman was no light weight, but with some difficulty, Piers managed to gather him into his arms like a baby and rise, staggering, with Edward over his shoulder.With April lighting the way ahead, they somehow made it back to the house, and inside through the kitchen door.
There, she led the way to what looked like a housekeeper’s sitting room.Piers was about to unburden himself onto the small sofa there, when he realized April was opening another door to a room beyond.
“Put him in here,” she said.“I think it’s where the housekeeper sleeps.”
As gently as he could manage with his screaming shoulder muscles, Piers dropped the footman onto the housekeeper’s bed while April lit a lamp and some candles.
Edward groaned.Piers glanced at him in some relief to see that his eyes were now closed.He found the footman’s pulse again with some difficulty and then straightened.
Ignoring the ache in his shoulder and his slightly wobbly knees, Piers said, “I’ll go and wake Fosterson.”
April nodded.He felt guilty leaving her there when she should be in bed herself, but he knew she would not leave the injured man while she could help him.
Easing his shoulder, Piers ran up the servants’ stairs and tried to recall which room was Fosterston’s.Hoping he didn’t disturb the Hubbles or Claudia by mistake, he scratched at the likeliest door and went in.
“Fosterson.”Piers shone his light on the bed, but there was no one in it.
Instead, someone moved by the window.
“Withy?”came Fosterson’s humorous voice.“What the devil?”
“Got a patient for you,” Piers said briefly.“I’m not sure he’ll live.”
“Just what I need to start my brilliant career—a patient who dies on me.”Despite the callous words, Fosterson moved quickly, swiping up his familiar medical bag from the desk and striding toward the door.“Where?”
“Kitchen,” Piers said, leading the way.
They found April in the housekeeper’s bedroom with a bowl of warm water, gently cleaning the ugly head wound.Edward appeared to be oblivious.
April stood up at once, to make way.Taking her place without fuss, Fosterson inspected the wound.
“Could you possibly manage some more hot water?”he said.“And fresh cloths and bandages?”
“I’ll try,” April said, flitting away.
“He is still alive,” Fosterson remarked, drawing up the patient’s eyelids.“But only just.What happened?”
“I have no idea,” Piers admitted.“We found him lying on the path that leads to the summer house.”
Fosterson’s probing fingers stilled for an instant.“Where you and your lady wife just happened to be taking a stroll in your dressing gowns, in the middle of a cloudy night.”
“Something like that,” Piers said, while Fosterson continued with his poking and prodding.
“Nothing else appears to be damaged or broken,” Fosterson said.“I would say he lost consciousness and fell without a struggle.There’s very little dirt on his hands, so it doesn’t look as if he tried to save himself.The only dirt is on his face and his clothes.”
“Would he have got an injury like that simply by falling?”Piers asked.
“Possibly.It would depend what he fell on and with how much force.”
April came back in with a fresh bowl of water.Piers picked up the used, bloody bowl to make way for it, and frowned.Dipping his finger into the gory bowl, he brought it out with a small splinter of wood attached.He transferred it to his handkerchief.
