In theory, he should have been more alarmed that she'd managed to get as far into her house as she had. While the Cumbria cottage was not regularly warded like the London townhome was, there was some complicated spell cast on it by his own father that only allowed people to apparate onto the property who were wanted and welcome. He would consider this later and be forced to evaluate his own feelings, but none of that was on his mind when he stood from the desk in his bedroom to answer the door.

Usually at this hour, nobody bothered him. It was not uncommon for him to be found with a cigar in one hand and a glass of bourbon in the other, and his staff usually knew not to bug him past sun-down unless there was something that required his urgent attention. Still, he wasn't as annoyed as he might have been other nights—he'd been pouring through financial documents and welcomed the interruption, but he'd expected to see his valet, or maybe even the butler.

Not her.

At first, he hardly recognized the figure. At first glanced it looked like a teenage boy, the cap covering a head of dark hair and dirt smeared across their fair skin. But once he met her eyes, he knew it was her.

That's when the panic set in.

"Yaxley?" he shout-whispered, his voice strained from the shock. He stuck his head out the door and glanced both ways before he hooked his hand around her elbow and tugged her into his bedroom, shutting the door behind her with a click. He didn't release his grip on her as his eyes scanned down her body, skin bloodied and clothes disheveled. His chest heaved, his breaths coming quicker and quicker as he searched for the source of her injury, but there was no one spot that a deeper crimson than another, and most of it coated her fingers rather than a spot on her abdomen.

"Are you hurt?" was the first question out of his mouth, followed by a more panicked, "What happened!?"

---