“It’s not for you to decide what will poison things,” Prescott stated.
He rounded the table, seeming not to care they stood in the center of a thriving winter’s fair. His hands slipped beneath her cloak and wrapped around her arms, holding her a breath from him. Prescott utterly commanded her attention.
Sarina looked up into his darkening brown eyes and struggled to breathe. Through her gown she felt the heat of his hands, felt that heat pool low in her belly and prayed he didn’t notice how he affected her. How her wanton body betrayed her whenever she was with him, both him and Liam.
Sarina’s breath caught, and the mask slipped. Liam stood on the other side of her, his strong presence pulling her just as much. A small part of her mind tried, and failed, to warn her about onlookers and the scandalous tableau they made. She tried to grasp onto that voice, but found she didn’t care; all she felt were Prescott’s hands, all she saw was his eyes, all she sensed was Liam’s body almost, almost pressed intimately behind hers.
She needed to pull back, physically and emotionally, from these two tempting men. Needed to protect herself from the hurt looming just over the horizon. Sarina scrambled to do that, to gather her willpower to her and avoid the temptation of both Prescott and Liam, to tell them her decision was final and there’d be no further discussion.
But caught between them, her all-too-tempting men, she struggled, forgot her promises and vows to herself.
She wanted them both. Loved them both. And she couldn’t deny that to herself. That was why she refused to commit to only one, why she’d put off such a painful choice for as long as she could. Now, Sarina realized the error of that; she’d only fallen further for each man and had already put a hole in their friendship. She wanted both Liam and Prescott and didn’t know how to admit to such a shameful attraction.
“We’ll make peace with whatever it is,” Prescott continued. His fingers curled over her arm, a sensual caress.
Sarina felt the walls around her heart weaken, begin to crack with the temptation they presented. “No,” she whispered before she’d realized she’d meant to. She took a deep breath, smelled the crisp air, mulled wine, the heady scents of Prescott and Liam. “Because I cannot choose.”
Her voice broke and she knew her torment clearly showed on her face. But she hadn’t the energy to mask her indecision or her attraction to both of them. Not anymore. It physically hurt too much to continue to do so.
“Perhaps you don’t have to.”
Her gaze jerked around to Liam. She blinked up at him, certain she’d heard him wrong. But the calmness with which he watched her told her she had not, and Sarina scrambled for something to say.
Not choose?
Of course she had to choose—choose either Prescott or Liam. And she couldn’t. Her heart couldn’t choose. In these last months, Sarina admitted she loved them both and had no way to separate those feelings.
When she’d made her decision to move on to Lord Strathmore, she had thought that part of her life in the past. Once again, she’d been a fool. Sarina should have known neither Liam nor Prescott would have been forgotten so easily.
She stepped away, out of Prescott’s touch, away from Liam’s commanding presence. Her only thought was to move away from them, away from their temptation, and she desperately needed a breath of fresh air to organize what few thoughts she had left. She had to protect her heart and though she’d looked forward to seeing them at the fair, Sarina now realized how foolish that had been.
A piercing scream among the din of fair noise startled her from her thoughts.
Beside her, she felt each man; they didn’t touch her, but stayed close by her side. She looked up and down the street, trying to discern the origin of the scream. Was it part of the masquerade? A play in the center of the street? She smiled at that and took a step forward, away from the small table and the two men next to her. Nothing the Duke of Halstow did surprised her.
“Is some theatric happening?” Sarina was grateful for the distraction, for the momentary respite from this conversation.
Before she could spot what caused the scream, before she could even ask, she felt their hands pulling her. Confused, Sarina looked up at Liam for a moment and then turned back to the village, curious as to what Liam saw.
When she caught the sight, she froze.
Enormous tendrils of flames roared on either side of the street. What was she seeing?
Fire jumped onto a stall and consumed it instantly in a column of red-hot wood. The golden flames leaped from wagon to cart and licked up the sides of every shop and building she saw. It was swift, like an animal pouncing on its prey, a dance of mesmerizing display as it turned everything it touched to black ash. Ash that covered in a sickening display over white snow.
Screams rose from behind the flames and Sarina stared, unable to move at the horrific image before her.
Hands gripped her and yanked her away. Sarina stumbled and tugged away from the men, desperate to find her family, heat flaming her cheeks, scorching her.
“My cousins!” she screamed. “I must find them!”
Prescott and Liam caught her, pulled her back, away from the fire even now dancing closer. The fire raced through the town with all the speed of the wind. Her eyes followed the flame as it wound around the wine stall. Bottles burst and spilled onto the frozen Thames from the heat and flames. The liquid led the fire to the wooden tables and chairs near them.
“Henrietta! Maryanne!” she shrieked over the terror gripping the village. Panicked, agonizing screams for help burned through her as surely as the fire did to those poor souls.
“We cannot get to them from here. We must move!” Liam shouted and all but picked her up. Prescott flanked her other side, moving them all away.
Sarina tried to struggle, tried to find her cousins, but they kept running, pulling her further up the snowy hills behind the buildings and away from the consuming flames. She struggled against Liam’s arm, tight around her middle. Icy tendrils of fear slid through her veins. Frantic, she looked for her cousins, the white of Maryanne’s gown, the green of Henrietta’s.
All she saw was the thick smoke above the flames. Strangers running through the village.
“This way!” Prescott yelled, his voice hard and commanding, as he signaled for those struggling by the Thames to follow.
She stumbled next to him, desperate to find her family, but unable to ignore the primal pounding of survival.
Finally they reached a clear vantage point on one of the hills. Sarina moved away from Liam and Prescott toward the descending curve of the hill just behind one of the burning buildings. As she stood up there, she saw the village in full; the heat of the flames reached up and almost touched them. Prescott took hold of her waist as Liam came up on her other side.
“It’s like hell,” Sarina muttered.
“You don’t need to see this,” Prescott stated. Liam’s hand clenched on her elbow, but she shook her head.
“I need to find them.” Sarina’s eyes darted along the throng of people crowding outside the inn, moving toward the carriage house.
There were several people who broke through the crowd and ran away from the fires up the cobblestoned streets. Others pulled on the large carriage house doors or ran inside buildings not yet engulfed.
She saw the long red cloak of a woman at the back of the throng. The woman screamed in terror and struggled to untie the cloak. She closed her eyes against the image but quickly reopened them to see the woman drop the burning material into the snow before continuing to run away.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Sarina continued to search for her cousins. Her eyes jumped from one unfamiliar costume to another, desperation squeezing her heart. She took a step to the side, frantic for a better view, for a glimpse of her family.
Prescott held her firm. “Sarina,” he started.
Sarina ignored him and continued her search. She placed her hand on his chest and gasped. “There! That’s them! Oh God, that’s them.”
They moved for their carriage; Sarina saw the line of prancing horses and screaming drivers as everyone tried to race from the flames. Over the impossible screech of fire, the cacophony of wails and smoke that moved with the wind, thick and black then wispy and gray, Sarina saw Henrietta and Maryanne, and their husbands. The small group had moved to the rear of the carriage house, not with the mass of people blocking the front doors.
Sarina waved frantically at her cousins, but none of them saw her. She tried to fight her way to her family, but neither Liam nor Prescott released their hold on her. They were safe. Even if they hadn’t seen her, they were alive and running from the fire. They didn’t know she was alive, but hoped they had enough faith in her to realize she’d have run.
“Is there a way to get to them?” Sarina asked, her fingers clutching her cloak tighter around her. The night was still icy cold, but the fire alternately heated her face and made her skin glacial with fear.
“I don’t think there is,” Liam said, his voice hard as he glanced at the chaos below. “Every building is on fire. Our path is blocked.”
Sarina frantically looked for her family again, but saw nothing. The smoke had obscured the carriages even as the flames brightened the night sky in a sickly orange hue.
“There.” Prescott pointed, guiding Sarina’s gaze to where her family’s carriage moved. “They’re pulling away. They’re safe now, Sarina.”
Relief made her knees weak and she nodded. As suddenly as it pulled away, the carriage came to an abrupt stop; her brothers-in-law leaped out. They screamed, and though she couldn’t hear their words, she knew they shouted for her. The band constricting her heart eased slightly at their worry, even as she again feared for their safety.
Liam was right; there was no way to reach them from this side of the village. Not now.
She turned back to Prescott and Liam, still felt the heat, watched the flames greedily eat the wooden buildings, the snow doing little to halt its inescapable progress.
“Are you all right?” Liam demanded.
Sarina looked up at him and realized it wasn’t the first time he’d asked. Light danced in his blue eyes, making them choppy like the North Sea. His hands curled around her arms, firm but not hurting her, possessive and yet comforting. Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she nodded, though she didn’t feel all right, not even remotely close to that.
“Yes.” Sarina swallowed hard against a scratchy throat. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Slowly her heart calmed and it didn’t hurt as much to breathe. The air wasn’t as cold now, not as crisp, but the wind continued to caress her cheek just as it caressed the flames. But the winds also blew the smoke away from them, and for that she was thankful.
Maryanne and Henrietta were fine. She told herself so again and again, even as the smoke obscured her view of them.
“The carriage is moving away,” Prescott said. His hand still gripped hers tightly and he stood entirely too close for propriety’s sake, but Sarina didn’t care. She needed their closeness, needed to know they, too, had been uninjured and were safe.
Sarina looked from Liam to Prescott, who stood just behind her, as if blocking her from the fire’s grasping tendrils. She swallowed again, tried to stop herself from shaking. Then she truly heard his words and looked to where he pointed with his free hand.
“Did they get away?” she managed, her voice a slip of sound. Sarina cleared her throat of smoke and fear, and asked stronger, “Did you see, Prescott?”
He turned back to her, his eyes shadowed against the burning fire that raged behind him. “Yes.”
It was simply said, a single word of conviction, and she sighed with relief.
“We need to get to the house,” Liam stated.
“We’ll find your cousins tomorrow or at worst return to London and rendezvous with them there,” Prescott assured her.
They helped her along again, pulling her faster across the snow covering the hillside. Behind her, she heard shouts and cries, orders for people to move, to get to higher ground. A patch of trees suddenly ignited, and Sarina ran. Her hand was clasped with Liam’s, Prescott’s hand on her back, and they rushed over the hilly terrain. They slowed only to help others stumbling in the snow.
Finally they stopped. She had no idea where they were; several dozen others were huddled on the opposite end of what remained of Kingsnorth. Sarina stared at the fire, still raging over wooden houses. But her cousins had escaped, and that had to count for something.
Suddenly tired, she ran a hand over her hair, loose from its pins and hanging down her back. She didn’t care. Her gown was wet and dirty, but that didn’t matter, either.
Slowly, she looked up at Liam, who still held her hand. She probably needed to release her hold on him, step away from his touch, but Sarina found she couldn’t move. Prescott’s hand remained on her lower back, and she stood safely between the two men.
No, she didn’t want to move.
She was hesitant to leave the village; perhaps there was a way for her to be of assistance. But the fires still raged behind them, uncontrolled, and they were unprepared to assist anyone at the moment.
“Let’s get back to the house,” Prescott reiterated.
She looked up at him, then to Liam, and nodded. Without another word, they joined the mass of people wandering along the road, all looking for appropriate shelter.