That was true, she could feel the trembles well enough. “I’m a bit agitated, but you don’t have to—”
“And your dress is half gone.” He gently pulled the coat closed.
“What?” Horrified, she pulled the material away from her chest and took a peek.
Half gone, she decided, was something of an exaggeration. The left shoulder of her gown and chemise were torn from neck to upper arm, and the material had gaped open to reveal skin that was generally left covered. But she wasn’t exactly indecent—or at least, not fully indecent. The bodice of her gown was still intact, after all.
While she felt some small mea sure of relief at the relative decency of her gown, the state of her shoulder and collarbone had her gasping in stunned dismay. She was a mess—her skin a raw mass of cuts and abrasions. Blood was beginning to ooze in small drops from several of the deeper scrapes. Instictively, she touched a fingertip to the red and swollen flesh, and hissed at the resulting sting.
Whit pulled her hand away. “Stop touching it.”
She looked at him, bewildered. “I’m bleeding.”
“Yes, I noticed.” He pulled a handkerchief out and carefully inserted it between her skin and the rough coat. “Nothing too deep. You’ll be all right.”
“Am I bleeding anywhere else?”
He reached up and feathered his fingers along the edge of her widow’s peak, where his eyes had tracked before. “Here a bit.”
“Oh.”
Whit caught her hand before she could reach the injury. “Stop poking.”
“I can’t help it.” She really couldn’t. There was something about a fresh injury that insisted a person prod. “Is it very bad?”
“No.” He ran a comforting hand down her hair, discreetly pulled away a leaf. “No, it’s shallow. Hardly bleeding at all, really.”
She barely noticed when he smoothed her hair again, and was far too distracted by her own discomfort to notice his hand was less than steady.
“You’re certain?” Though her mind was rapidly clearing—enough for her to realize there wasn’t a river of blood seeping from her forehead—she wanted the reassurance.
“I am.” He rubbed her uninjured shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Let’s get you—”
He broke off at the soft voice calling for them.
“Lord Thurston? Miss Browning?”
“Down here!” Whit shouted, and waited until Miss Heins saw them. “Miss Browning took something of a tumble and turned her ankle.”
“Oh, dear.” Miss Heins used a tree to balance herself as she peered down the hill. “Oh, dear. Miss Browning, how dreadful for you. Is there anything I can do to help? The others have gone on ahead, I’m afraid, but I could try catching them again and—”
“I’m very glad it’s you who came back,” Mirabelle called out, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her battered body strongly protested the exertion.
“Keep still,” Whit ordered before turning back to Miss Heinz. “Would you be so good as to return to the house and have one of the grooms bring a mount for Miss Browning?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And ask my mother to send for the physician—”
“I don’t need a physician.” Mirabelle objected.
Whit merely slanted her an annoyed look at the interruption. “To send for the physician,” he repeated pointedly, “and to the kitchen for some hot tea and a cold—”
“For heaven’s sake, Whit.”
“I’ll make certain everything is ready for her,” Miss Heins assured them. “I’ll be as fast as I can.”
“Nothing needs to be made ready.” Mirabelle tried arguing, but Miss Heins had already taken off down the path. Exasperated, she turned to Whit instead. “The whole house will be in an uproar now. It would have started off as merely ‘Miss Browning took a tumble down a hill and turned her ankle’ and have grown to ‘Miss Browning is lying broken and bleeding at the bottom of a two-hundred-foot cliff’ in the course of a quarter hour.”
“Every respectable house party should contain at least one high drama.”
“Every respectable high drama should be based on something a bit more…” She waved her hand around.
“Dramatic?” he offered helpfully.
“Interesting,” she replied, mostly because she felt she ought to be able to complete her own sentences. “Perhaps you should go with Miss Heins to keep the hysterics down—”
“Not a chance.”
He brushed her skirts aside and carefully slid an arm under her knees and the other around her back. In one smooth move, he had her in his arms and against his chest.
Something, somewhere inside of Mirabelle thrilled at the action, but the feeling was tangled inextricably with the far more recognizable emotions of shock and embarrassment.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing?” she gasped.