Page 33 of Regency in Color

Chapter Three

Hard and fast knocks on her door made Mary hurry from the bed. It was dark outside, the sun barely peeking past the horizon from the feeble light that came through the window.

“Mary,” Lottie said, opening the door. “Come, hurry.”

“What is it,” Mary asked, as she grabbed a robe, jammed her arms through the sleeves, and tied the sash around her waist. Together they hurried down the corridor to the rooms where the others slept.

“Keep quiet, we don’t wish to waken Mr. and Mrs. Yarnsby,” Lottie whispered. “This is dreadful.”

Puzzled when they went to a door and Lottie pushed it open, Mary looked to the maid. “Whose room is this? Please explain to me what is happening?”

Moira took her hand and pulled her into the room. “Thomas is dying. Harold found him in the stables this morning.”

At the words, her stomach sank, and her chest constricted. “Was he stomped by a horse?”

She went to the bed only to recoil at the sight. Thomas was unrecognizable. His entire face was bloodied and swollen. Both eyes were swollen shut. He lay shirtless atop a bed, his bloodied hands down on his sides.

“Go get the water,” Moira said to Lottie. “Mary, help me tear these sheets into strips.”

Lottie raced from the room and returned, lugging a pot of water. She poured it into a basin. “I will put more water to boil.”

“I knew they’d return, but didn’t think it would be so soon,” Harold said. “They must be found and charged.”

As much as she wanted to understand what happened, Mary kept quiet. It was more important to concentrate on doing what she could for Thomas.

She approached the bed and studied him calmly, although her hands trembled when she felt his sides. “A broken rib or two,” she said methodically. “His jaw may be broken as well.” She ran her hands down the sides of his face pausing at his throat to feel a pulse. “His heart is beating, not strongly, but steady.”

She then felt his stomach. He was cool to the touch. Although she’d been taught the basics of caring for injuries, as her mother had been a midwife, she’d never seen someone so battered and bruised.

“They left him for dead,” Harold said as Moira neared and began cleaning his face. “I’m riding to town to alert the constable.”

“One of us should inform Mr. Yarnsby,” Lottie said. “He needs to know.”

‘Once I finish cleaning his wounds and get a good idea of how badly he is, I will do it,” Mary assured her.

Bowls of bloodied water and cloths were taken only to be filled again as they cleaned away blood and bandaged what they could. Thomas finally came to just as the sun rose, moaning but not able to speak.

Mary had wrapped his head, a bandage keeping his mouth closed. They were going to have to help him drink until his jaw healed.

Just as they began to bandage his tattered hands, he lost consciousness once again.

“I will go speak to Mr. Yarnsby,” she said looking to the others. “Is there anything I should say happened?”

“He was beaten by two men,” Harold said. “I am sure of it. They came looking for him yesterday.”

As soon as Mr. Yarnsby opened the door to his bedchamber and saw her expression, he seemed to know what happened. “Is it Thomas?”

“Yes Sir, he’s been beaten badly.”

The man hurried down to the room where they’d placed Thomas. He entered and immediately dispatched Harold to the village to seek a doctor and the constable. He then asked that Clark, a young man, who worked as gardener be sent to Lark’s Song, his friend’s estate to inform them he would not be going there that day.

In the meanwhile, he went to Thomas’s bedside and took inventory of the beaten man. “They took no mercy,” he said quietly.

“No, they did not,” Moira replied wiping a tear. “The poor man. How could someone do this?”

“I will inform Vivian and will try to keep her from coming here.” He looked to Mary. “Will you come with me?”

As they made their way back to his bedchamber, Mary had to ask. “Do you know who did this and why?”