He needed to settle her down. “Easy does it, Sunshine. You’re liable to break something.”
Ignoring him, she opened a window, but she was too high up for an easy escape. Why was she panicking? He wasn’t going to harm her.
Henry remained in front of the doorway. “You’re safe here. Please calm yourself.”
He leaned against the doorjamb to assure her he meant no harm. Why would this young woman remain in his house after the party? She swayed and then leaned on the wall. Her eyes seemed disoriented. Did she even know where she was?
She’d been unable to stand straight when he’d spoken to her earlier in the evening as well. Perhaps she was drunk. It happened with free bars.
When he stepped toward her to help, she wobbled to a table containing a seventeenth-century Rouen vase, acquired by his grandfather. She paused, and Henry’s heart paused as well. Her hand reached over it and grabbed a tacky Venetian glass statue his cousin had sent him from Italy. The statue flew through the air toward his head. He ducked, and it smashed on the wall. Pieces scattered across the floor and his oldest Aubusson rug.
This was ridiculous. She’d end up smashing his room to bits.
“Her aim is almost as good as yours.” Simon approached from behind.
“Not quite. I never miss.” Henry kept his focus on the girl in case she decided to break something valuable.
“Your skills are rusty.” His half brother loved to mock Henry’s transition from Royal Navy sniper to boring academic. “Need backup?”
Henry shook his head. “Miss, please stop. You’ve already caused quite enough damage. I’ll have to call the police.”
That would be unpleasant. Young female university student in a professor’s house after hours. He’d be retiring before he had truly begun his new career.
She squeezed her eyes closed for a second and bit her lip. Henry remembered the torment she’d endured from a few of his students in the study. Poor kid. He lifted his hands in a show of forgiveness.
She hesitated, then took a step back and glanced at her hand, wrapped in a bloodstained cloth, before tucking it behind her.
“I’m sorry, please don’t call the police,” she said with a soft American accent.
A grungy brown backpack sat on the bed. The girl picked it up and retreated into a corner. Her eyes darted side to side and landed on Henry and the open door. She staggered into a lamp, but saved it before it fell over.
Henry stepped toward her and onto several jagged pieces of his cousin’s gift. Shards of glass dug into his heel.
“Bugger.” He’d be ripped to shreds by the time he made it to her. “We need to get her out of my bedroom and into a safe location.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Simon stepped through the glass in his shoes and pointed toward the corner.
Their feisty visitor had collapsed.
Chapter Three
Although Henry had left his uninvited guest at the hospital with the utmost trust in the facility, a gut feeling had wrapped itself around him and prodded his conscience throughout the night. His instincts rarely lied. Up at 7:00 a.m., he headed to the hospital, more than a little apprehensive.
The voice of an American woman echoed down the long blue hallways. Henry trotted toward the sound. He balanced more on the ball of his left foot to avoid reopening the minor cuts on his heel from the night before. A slight commotion came from the corner room. A constable stood in the doorway, holding the familiar backpack while facing off with a petite woman attired in a patient gown. Several nurses and a woman in a plum suit gathered nearby as well.
“Unless you’re here to arrest me, you must release my pack.” Her face, makeup free and more inviting than the night before, pointed up at the tall officer, who was holding her bag behind him. She never touched him, but she appeared quite threatening despite being dressed in nothing but a loosely tied hospital robe.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions before you leave.” The officer spoke in a composed, reassuring voice.
The woman, clearly agitated, eyed the pack. “I answered every question I was asked by the doctors and the nurses and the very pushy woman bringing me a tray of gruel and tea.” For a woman terrified of something or someone the night before, she had a surprising amount of grit in the face of the authorities.
The officer’s voice continued to remain unruffled despite the woman’s open hostility. “We understand. It’s scary to press charges against the person who abused you, but in most cases, it’s the right thing to do. If you won’t do it for yourself, then perhaps you’ll help the next woman crossing that individual’s path.”
Abused? She did act scared when she’d first awoken. She’d been desperate enough to throw one of his possessions at his head. Her story just became a whole lot more interesting to Henry.
She shook her head and stepped back again. “I’m not pressing charges, because I wasn’t abused. I fell down the stairs, smashed my ribs, and broke a window when I tried to catch myself. Is clumsiness a crime?”
Definitely abused.
Her painted hair and grunge clothes contrasted with her articulate speech. The woman was a complete mystery. Those types of injuries, combined with a defensive female, more often than not indicated someone had beaten the hell out of her. He sucked in his breath long enough to simmer his rage. Abuse would never become commonplace and mundane to him. His father had broken the spirit of his mother, and Henry vowed long ago to protect any woman he could from living the same miserable existence.