Evelina disappeared behind the dressing screen and came back in a long silk robe, dark green, belted at the waist. Her hair was still loose but she had pushed it back from her face and she looked — marginally — less like someone who had just knocked a man unconscious with a vase.
The man on the floor had not moved.
Noel crouched beside him again and checked the pulse. Still there. The bandage at his temple was holding. He was breathing with the slow, heavy rhythm of someone deeply unconscious — not dying, just very thoroughly out.
He stood.
"We need to send for Cedric," he said.
Evelina went immediately to the writing desk in the corner of her room and pulled out the telegram paper. She wrote quickly — her handwriting was large and looping and took up more of the page than it needed to — and then looked at Noel.
"The nearest telegraph office is two streets over," she said. "I can have one of the maids go."
