‘Blood.’ I was already through the door. ‘Garrick!’
‘In here, Miss Lawrence.’
We followed his voice into the drawing room. Luc was face-down on the chaise, his face turned away from us, the back of his head a bloody mess. From a long way away I heard James swear, violently. I knew that I was cold, ice-cold. I knew that very soon I was going to be racked with grief, but in that moment all I could see was the image of Talbot’s head superimposed on Luc’s, so vivid that I looked around, quite calmly, for the poker. When I discovered who had killed him I was going to need it to kill them.
Garrick moved in front of me, took me by the shoulders and shook me. ‘He isn’t dead. Cassandra, it is not as bad as it looks.’
‘Not dead?’ He let me go and stepped aside and I went down on my knees by the chaise. Luc’s hand dangled over the side and I took it in mine. Warm, the pulse regular. I blinked until my vision had cleared. ‘He’s unconscious?’ I couldn’t have got to my feet, I think someone had disconnected my knee joints.
‘What happened?’ James asked from the other side of the couch.
‘I heard a thump on the door ten minutes ago, went to see what it was and he was sprawled across the step like that,’ Garrick said. ‘No sign of anyone else and he was bleeding too badly to leave him and go in search of the attacker. I got him inside, then you came.’
‘I’ll get a doctor,’ James said.
‘No. Not yet.’ My legs sorted themselves out, my stomach returned to where it should be and my anger shuffled off back into a dark corner to await events. ‘Garrick, can you boil water? A strong, rolling boil – and get me fresh linen that’s had a hot iron over it and a bowl. I don’t want a doctor with dirty hands and instruments near him.’
‘Should we move him?’ James was on his knees facing me.
‘Not until I know what the damage is to his head, but we had better check there aren’t any more wounds. What if he’d been stabbed or shot?’ I slid my hand under Lucian’s torso. ‘Can you check that side, see if you can feel any wetness that might be blood? Or any tears in his clothes.’
We searched but couldn’t find anything. Lucian’s pulse stayed steady, his breathing seemed normal. I began to let myself hope.
I scrubbed up as best I could with very hot water and soap and a nail brush, then began to sponge the blood out of Lucian’s hair until I could see the wound. It was about six inches long, a savage split in his scalp that was bleeding with the persistence that head injuries always do. ‘I can’t feel any depression in the skull, nothing moves. The skull isn’t broken where the wound is.’
‘No brains on display,’ James said with a laugh that didn’t quite work. ‘Always said he didn’t have any.’
‘I heard you,’ Luc said on a breathy whisper.
‘James, stop being an ass. Luc, move your fingers, both hands. Good, now your feet.’
He wasn’t paralysed. I could almost feel my pulse rate steadying. Garrick had hauled him inside without, apparently, thinking of the effect it would have if his spine had been broken or cracked, but we seemed to have got away with that. There was no nose bleed, no blood from the ears. I made a mental note to take the first aid instructor from the police station out to dinner at the earliest opportunity.
‘Let me get a pad on this head wound and then we can try sitting you up.’
Luc, eyes still closed, grunted, and submitted to being bandaged. It took a while but we eventually got him turned over, sitting up and stripped to the waist. There were some nasty bruises where his ribs had met the front door step, a graze on his cheekbone, but no other damage. His pupils were normal and both the same size, the head wound stopped bleeding, he was coherent – and in a foul temper.
This was not made better by Garrick, also thoroughly scrubbed, checking his skull over again to confirm what I had concluded. Nothing broken.
‘But head injuries are tricky,’ Garrick said. ‘You must go to bed and we need to keep waking you at regular intervals for twenty-four hours.’
Luc snarled, but was over-ridden by his brother. ‘If you want to go to the garden party on Monday you’ll do what you’re told now.’
‘Garden party? Are you mad? He isn’t going anywhere. Besides, it isn’t fancy dress is it? We can hardly turn up with Luc looking like an Egyptian mummy.’
‘I’ll stitch his head,’ Garrick said, ignoring the filthy look Luc sent him. ‘If I don’t cut his hair we can arrange it over the wound. I believe you take a larger hat size, Mr James? He can borrow one of your hats.’
I thought they were insane and said so, but it seemed to cheer Luc up and I decided it was better to wait until Sunday to put my foot down. I just wanted him quiet and calm for the moment.
‘Who hit you?’ James asked.
‘No idea. I heard voices behind me as I came in – sounded like a small group – and then one person’s footsteps on the path, but I didn’t turn. I don’t remember anything else.’
Garrick came back with a nasty curved needle and thread that he assured me had been boiled and James and I made ourselves scarce. I didn’t much want to watch and I was sure Luc could do without an audience inhibiting his swearing.
‘I’ll go and find out if the porters saw who came in after Luc,’ James said. I followed him out and began to search the path from the door to the main building.
He came back shaking his head. ‘Lord Trelway in the main house seems to have invited his entire acquaintance to view his redecorated apartments. They’ve been coming in since about eleven this morning, all blithely saying Trelway to the porters and finding their own way. It would be easy enough to tag along behind Luc and do the same thing. Whoever it was struck particularly lucky because there were half a dozen of them when he got here.’