Arthur pushed back his chair.
The stranger stepped forward before he could rise fully.
“Your daughter has said nothing requiring an apology.”
Arthur stared at him.
“You presume to instruct me in my own house?”
“No, sir.”
“I am asking you to hear her.”
A flash of lightning lit the windows, and for an instant Emily saw something in the stranger’s face that did not belong to a desperate traveler.
He was accustomed to being obeyed.
He had concealed that fact deliberately, and now he seemed to regret revealing even a little of it.
Arthur snatched up his glass.
“Get out.”
Emily crossed the room and took the stranger’s uninjured arm.
“The kitchen is this way.”
“Emily!”
She did not turn around.
Higgins opened the door for them, his old eyes wet with a gratitude he dared not express.
They passed through the unheated passage and entered a kitchen where the embers still glowed beneath a black iron range.
The stranger lowered himself into a chair with visible relief.
Emily fetched a basin, clean linen, and the little bottle of spirits she kept for household injuries.
Higgins lingered by the door.
“Shall I fetch Doctor Bell, miss?”
The stranger shook his head.
“Not until morning.”
“Your leg may be broken,” Emily said.
“It is not broken.”
“You cannot know that merely because you dislike the possibility.”
For the first time he almost smiled.
“You are quite right.”
She knelt to inspect the torn fabric near his knee.
There was a deep bruise and a shallow cut, but the joint moved without the terrible resistance she had feared.
“Can you tell me your name?”
“Daniel.”
He paused.
“Daniel Vale.”
She repeated it silently, trying to decide whether the name was familiar.
“Emily Harrington.”
“I heard.”
His voice was gentle enough to make her look away.
She cleaned the cut on his forehead while Higgins brought a heel of bread and a bowl of broth.
Daniel accepted both without complaint.
“Your father does not know what happened on the road,” he said.
“He rarely waits long enough to learn anything that might inconvenience him.”
Emily regretted the remark immediately.
Daniel looked at her with renewed attention.
“Then perhaps you will allow me to explain.”
He had been traveling from London to inspect property in the northern district when his carriage had been stopped beside a narrow bridge.
Two men had emerged from the trees, and a third had held the horses.
The coachman had been struck and thrown into the ditch.
