Emma rushed down the steps to kneel at Susannah’s side. She breathed a sigh of relief when she pressed a hand to Susannah’s neck and detected a pulse. Bending lower, she saw that Susannah’s eyes were closed and her left cheek was pillowed in a blood-soaked clump of grass.
“Warm. I have to keep her warm,” Emma muttered. She grabbed blindly for the oilcloth on the old wheelbarrow, but it was no longer there. Frantically scanning the ground, she saw it lying a few steps away on the flagstone path. She scrambled to retrieve it, then spread it over Susannah’s prone form and waited.
“My God ...” Grayson stood at the top of the stairs, his face ashen. “Is she dead?” he whispered hoarsely.
Emma shook her head. “Have you called for an ambulance?”
Before the duke could answer, Kate Cole appeared beside him, carrying a heavy wool blanket. She hurried down the stairs, spread the blanket on top of the oilcloth, knelt, and with a practiced hand lifted Susannah’s eyelid. She nodded, then took hold of the woman’s wrist. “She’s still with us,” Kate confirmed, “but Dr. Singh had better get here quickly.”
“Should we take her into the hall?” Emma asked.
“Best not,” said Kate, gently placing Susannah’s limp arm beneath the coverings. “There’s not much blood, but there’s a nasty bruise on her temple, and no telling what the fall might’ve done to her neck.” She rose to her feet and regarded Susannah grimly.
Her gaze fixed on the bloodstained grass, Emma backed away until she bumped into the chapel door. There she stood, clasping and unclasping her hands, watching Kate direct the action as more people crowded into the grassy space at the foot of the stairs.
Crowley arrived with another blanket, and Hallard was next, carrying a first-aid kit. The distant sound of a helicopter reached Emma’s ears just before Bantry stepped past the duke. The head gardener paused when he saw Susannah, then hurried down the stairs to confer quietly with Kate. Crowley joined them, and Emma caught something about “the men from the village” and “alerting Newland at the gate” before Crowley nodded and left.
“Dr. Singh’ll be here straightaway,” Bantry announced.
Still at the top of the stairs, the duke pointed downward. “It’s those damned shoes,” he said. Susannah’s broken high heel protruded from the edge of the oilcloth. “If she hadn’t insisted on wearing such absurd footwear, this never would’ve happened.”
After checking Susannah’s pulse once more, Kate went up the stairs to take hold of Grayson’s hands. “We’ll have to prepare a statement,” she said.
“Of course,” said the duke, and, “Damn.” Turning to Bantry, he asked, “Is Lady Nell all right?”
Bantry nodded. “Mattie’s lookin’ after Lady Nell, and Mr. Harris is out lookin’ for young Master Peter. Seems the boy’s disappeared.”
Emma wanted to tell them all that Nanny Cole had ordered the boy outside to play, but her teeth were chattering so badly that the most she could manage was a strangled squeak.
“Here, now, Miss Emma.” The head gardener stripped off his oiled green jacket and walked over to where she stood. “You’ve had quite a shock. You come with me to the kitchen and we’ll have Madama make you a nice cup of tea. There’s a good girl, now, come along.” As he spoke, Bantry draped his jacket around Emma’s shoulders. It was still warm and smelled comfortingly of compost and pipe tobacco. The head gardener put a wiry arm around her shoulders as well, guiding her up the stairs and past the green door. Emma turned in the doorway to look once more at the nightmarish scene, and saw Grayson fire a questioning look at Kate, whose only reply was a minute shrug.
9
In the kitchen, bacon sizzled on a griddle, an outsized teakettle sent a plume of steam toward the vaulted ceiling, and Madama stood at the massive stove, using a wooden spoon to stir a row of bubbling stockpots and to direct the activities of a trio of white-aproned girls who scurried back and forth from the stove to the long oak table in the center of the cavernous room.
The girls were busily replenishing the breakfast plates of a dozen men in workboots and thick sweaters who sat at the table, talking in a low rumble among themselves while they ate. Like Newland, the gatekeeper, each wore a radio unit on his hip and an earphone in one ear.
Nell sat at the far end of the. table, calmly devouring a large bowl of plump strawberries and heavy cream. Beside her, Mattie stared down at her teacup. Nell merely nodded when Emma and Bantry came into the room, but Mattie half rose from her chair. “Is she—?”
The girl’s breathless question silenced the room, and every face turned to look expectantly at the new arrivals. Emma pulled Bantry’s jacket around her self-consciously and looked across the sea of unfamiliar faces to Mattie.
“Susannah was still unconscious when we left her,” she said, “but she was alive.”