She placed herself in his path. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“Why not? He was here before you trotted past. Wouldn’t never have seen him neither, if we’d’ve taken the shortcut through the common like I said.”

“Nevertheless, we did find him. Can you help me carry him?”

Hedge staggered back in patent disbelief. “Carry him? A great big bloke like that? Not unless you want me crippled for sure. My back’s bad as it is, has been for twenty years. I don’t complain, but still.”

“Very well,” Lucy conceded. “We’ll have to get a cart.”

“Why don’t we just leave him be?” the little man protested. “Someone’ll find him in a bit.”

“Mr. Hedge . . .”

“He’s stabbed through the shoulder and all over bloody. It’s not nice, that.” Hedge screwed up his face until it resembled a rotten pumpkin.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to be stabbed, through the shoulder or not, so I don’t think we can hold that against him,” Lucy chided.

“But he’s begun to go off!” Hedge waved the handkerchief in front of his nose.

Lucy didn’t mention that there hadn’t been any smell until he’d arrived. “I’ll wait while you go fetch Bob Smith and his cart.”

The manservant’s bushy gray eyebrows drew together in imminent opposition.

“Unless you would prefer to stay here with the body?”

Hedge’s brow cleared. “No, mum. You knows best, I’m sure. I’ll just trot on over to the smithy—”

The corpse groaned.

Lucy looked down in surprise.

Beside her, Hedge jumped back and stated the obvious for both of them.

“Jaysus Almighty Christ! That man ain’t dead!”

Dear Lord. And she’d been standing here all this while, bickering with Hedge. Lucy swept off her wrap and threw it across the man’s back. “Hand me your coat.”

“But—”

“Now!” Lucy didn’t bother giving Hedge a look.

She rarely used a sharp tone of voice, making it all the more effective when she did employ it.

“Awww,” the manservant moaned, but he tossed the coat to her.

“Go fetch Doctor Fremont. Tell him it’s urgent and that he must come at once.” Lucy gazed sternly into her manservant’s beady eyes. “And Mr. Hedge?”

“Yes’m?”

“Please run.”

Hedge dropped the basket and took off, moving surprisingly fast, his bad back forgotten.