He paused outside the library, calming himself so he would not look like a madman. He turned the latch and entered.
Beth sat by the divan, looking down on its cushions. He walked around its back to see Minerva lying there, pale and half undressed. A bloody bonnet had been thrown to the floor, and a ruined gray pelisse draped a nearby chair. A compress covered her forehead and a bowl of water rested in a little puddle on the floor.
“Head wound,” Beth said. “They bleed a lot. I’ve stopped it, and put on a poultice. I expect there will be a scar. It was a bad wound, Mr. Radnor. Ugly. Like someone had taken a club to her.”
He pulled over a wooden chair and sat beside Beth. Jeremy hovered behind the divan. “Where did they find her?” He touched Minerva’s limp hand. It felt too cool.
“Out on the street. Smack in the middle of it. She was seen sitting there, then she fell over. They thought she was drunk, until someone noticed the blood. She still had these in her hand.” She reached to the chair with the pelisse and lifted two long hatpins. “Must have used them on whoever did this to her, and gotten herself away.”
He gazed at those tiny foils. Good for you, Minerva. “Has she opened her eyes?”
“A bit, a few times. I think she is sleeping, not unconscious. She recognized me. I take that to be a good sign. Them that brought her said she seemed unconscious at first, but stirred while in the wagon.”
Head wounds could be dangerous, with the damage invisible. The blood on Minerva’s face and clothing was the least of it. “I am going to send for an army surgeon, Beth. They see more of such things than anyone else. I’ll have a physician come too.”
Beth removed the compress and dipped it in the water again. “I thought I was done with this. I thought I’d never see it again.”
He grasped her shoulder by way of comfort, then went to the writing table. He jotted off a hurried note and called Jeremy over. “Take the carriage outside and bring this to the Duke of Hollinburgh on Park Lane. Make it clear to the servants that it is from me and that he must receive it at once. Wait to see if he needs you. If not, when you return tell the coachman to wait again.” He plucked some coin from his pocket. “Use what you need with him.”
Jeremy ran out. Chase returned to the divan. He raked his memories for images of men hurt this way in battle. What had the surgeons done? “Help me to raise her head a bit, Beth. Then draw the drapes. We will wait for the doctors before moving her to her chamber, lest it not be advised.”
Together they made Minerva as comfortable as possible. She opened her eyes a slit while Beth added pillows under her head and shoulders. She looked down her body, then at Beth. “My dress is ruined,” she murmured.
Beth almost wept. “That is of no account.”
“How did it happen?” She grimaced and pressed her fingers on her forehead. “I have a headache.”
Chase knelt beside the divan and looked in her eyes.
“You were hurt, Minerva. Do you remember?”
She shook her head.
“Then don’t try to. Not now. Close your eyes and rest.”
Beth made up the compress and laid it on her head. Minerva sighed as if that felt good. Her hand went out, blindly. “Will you stay here a little while, Chase? It hurts badly, but if you are here I can be brave.”
He folded her hand between his. “I will stay, and you do not have to be brave. Not for me, darling. Not for Beth.”
Tears leaked out from under her lids. “Dear Beth. Poor Beth. Such a trial I am for her. She should have gone.”
Beth stiffened. Her face went slack. “Like my daughter you are. No one else will tend you if I have a say.”
Chase held up his hand, asking for Beth’s silence. “She wants to take care of you.”
Minerva vaguely nodded. “Not fair to her. To Jeremy. To live under the roof of such a man so as to take care of me.”
She was not talking about now, and this hurt. “You got them away from that. What you feel now was done by another man,” Chase said.
Minerva frowned. She opened her eyes a little, and looked at him. Her dazed mind seemed to