Without waiting for any word, the lady rushed up. Bending, she grasped the man’s shoulders.
“No! One’s dislocated. Hook your hands under his armpits and drag him out.”
She stiffened at his tone but did as he said.
Although he couldn’t see her face, Jack could imagine her expression. Shifting, he tried to ease the weight of the carriage onto one shoulder so he could reach down and help—
“Don’t move, you idiot! I can manage.”
Jack stiffened as if she’d slapped him.
She shot him a mutinous, distinctly black glare, then shuffled back, tugging the man out from the carriage’s shadow.
His hearing was acute; he heard her muttering beneath her breath, “I’m hardly a weak, fainting female, you dolt.”
Entirely unexpectedly, his lips kicked up at the ends.
“You can let it down now.”
She’d pulled the man onto the grass. Jack slowly let the carriage down, then followed.
Frowning at the man’s face, she dropped to her knees beside him.
“Do you know him?” Jack knelt on the man’s other side.
She shook her head. “He’s not from around here.”
Which meant she was, and that surprised him. She certainly hadn’t been living in the vicinity seven years ago. Funeral or not, he would have noticed her, and remembered.
He set about methodically checking the man for injury, straightening limbs, noting the breaks.
Still frowning, she watched his hands. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
Her lips tightened, but she accepted the assurance.
His assessment of the man’s injuries had been largely correct. With one quick, expert jerk, he reset the shoulder, then, using sections of beading broken off the carriage, he used his and the man’s cravats to splint the broken arm and bind it and the shoulder. That done, he turned to the leg, broken in two places. He had plenty of wood for splints.
He glanced at the lady. “I don’t suppose you’d consider sacrificing the flounce from your petticoat?”
She looked up, met his gaze; faint color bloomed in her pale cheeks. “Of course I will.”
Her tone belied her blush; no missish sentiment permitted or acknowledged. She swung around so her back was to him, and sat. An instant later, he heard cloth rip.
Rising, he went to the carriage to hunt for longer splints. By the time he returned, a long strip of fine lawn lay waiting by the unconscious man.
He bent to the task. She helped, working under his direction, in silence.
In Jack’s experience, females were rarely silent.
Her hands, gripping where he directed, holding the splints in place, were as fine as her features, long-fingered and elegant, palms slender, skin fine-grained and white.
Distinctly aristocratic hands.
He glanced briefly at her face, closer now they were both leaning over the man. Distinctly aristocratic face, too. As for the rest…
Looking down, he forced his mind back to the man and his broken limb. Not easy; the distractions were manifold.