It was dead silent. Fletcher leaned over his coat sleeve, needle in hand and fingers shaking, slowly mending what he'd torn. The rock had gone through both the coat and his shirt, and the last thing he wanted to do was explain to Neish that Theo had thrown him on the ground for being an ass. So he'd do it himself, even if his stitches were never the neatest.
There came some muttering from behind the door. He paused and glanced up, frowning and listening, then sighed and shook his head and went back to tying off the last stitch in his coat. Theo was talking to himself again in that language, and even if Fletcher was able to understand it, there was no sense in eavesdropping. The man needed a moment alone. Fletch would grant him that. He stood, turned his coat right side out again, and laid it on the bed, then got to work pulling the shirt over his head.
No sooner was it in his hands then the noises started. First a clang, then a hiss. Fletch glanced towards the nanny door again, this time worriedly. He cocked his head and listened carefully, eye darting back and forth. He needn't have. The following cry and the smashing chair would have woken him from a dead sleep. Something was very wrong. He could hear it in the man's tone. "Shit," he muttered. He tossed the torn and bloodied shirt to the bed, unlocked the nanny door, and burst through, one hand on his rapier. "Sir? S — oh."
His eye traveled from Theo to the broken chair, then back again. He cleared his throat. He blinked. His hand relaxed from the rapier and fell awkwardly back to his side. "Are you, erm...what was that?"
