Something wet and cold pelted his face and neck, began to run down the inside of his collar. With a glance toward the heavens, Justin realized it was raining.
“Thank God,” Ariel whispered, tilting her head back, letting the saving rain fall over her soot-smudged face. They stood there for a moment, letting it refresh their weary spirits, saying a silent prayer. Then Ariel glanced back toward the house and her expression subtly shifted, seemed to darken with pain. He caught the sheen of tears in her eyes.
“What is it?” he asked softly, turning her chin with his hand.
“It’s Barbara. Your sister thought Thomas was with his nanny, but he wasn’t. You hadn’t come out of the house. We went back inside to find the two of you. The fire was blocking the third-floor hall, so we tried to get round it by going up the servants’ stairs. We were almost to the top…” Her voice cracked on the last and the tears in her eyes began to roll down her cheeks. “We were almost there when the top of the stairs fell in. Barbara was ahead of me. She fell nearly three stories and some of the ceiling beams caved in on top of her. Oh, God, Justin, I’m so sorry.”
He held her close, cradling her head against his shoulder, gently stroking her hair. “It’s all right, love. Sometimes things happen for the best. They say vengeance belongs to God. Perhaps that is the way He chose to extract punishment for her sins.”
“I don’t … understand.”
Instead of answering, he urged her across the grass toward the stable, out of the cold and the driving rain. For the first time she saw the bloodstains soaking his shirt.
“Oh, my God, you’re hurt!”
He stopped beneath the overhanging eaves of the stonewalled stable. “Phillip Marlin and my sister started the fire. They were the ones who tried to kill me.”
“Oh, Justin, no.” Her fingers closed over his hand. “How badly are you injured?”
“Fortunately, Marlin is not the best shot. The ball glanced off a rib. Hurts like the bloody devil, but it isn’t all that serious. Phillip’s dead. Barbara killed him.”
“But if they were working together, why would she do that?”
“Greed, more than anything, I suppose.” He told her all he could remember from the muddled conversation he had heard while he had been drifting in and out of consciousness. It was enough to know the terrible part his sister had played in the tragedy that had nearly cost them their lives.
Ariel stared up at him. “We mustn’t tell Thomas. Not ever.”
“No. He’ll never have to know the truth.”
“In time, the pain will fade. And we’ll be there to help him.”
Justin bent his head and kissed her, thinking how much he loved her, glad he had finally been able to tell her. They continued on into the stable, where Silvie and Perkins draped warm woolen blankets around them.
“It appears God has decided to look kindly upon us, my lord,” the aging butler said. “The rain is putting out the fire. Most of the house will be saved.”
“Yes. Perhaps in a couple of hours, if the rain continues, we’ll feel safe enough to take shelter in the east wing. It’ll be smoky, but at least there are beds there and we can get warm and dry.”
Perkins glanced around. “Where is Lady Haywood, my lord?”
Justin simply shook his head.
“Oh, dear Lord.” The old man scurried off to tell the others the terrible news, while Silvie arrived with strips of cloth torn into makeshift bandages. They sat down in a pile of straw and Ariel cleansed Justin’s wounds with water someone brought from the stream. She bound his injured leg and tied a crude bandage around his ribs.
Alone at last in one of the empty stalls, their clothes wet and torn and black with dirt and soot, they leaned back wearily against the rough stone wall.
Justin reached for her hand, brought it to his lips. He looked into his wife’s exhausted, dirt-smudged face and thought how much he loved her. “I was terrified when I saw you lying at the bottom of the stairs. If anything had happened to you…”
“Justin…”
He reached out and touched her cheek, gently brushed a finger over her lips. “I didn’t think I could ever love anyone. I didn’t think I knew how. The day we went to my grandmother’s … that was the day I knew—the day I realized that I loved you, that I had for a very long time.”
Fresh tears appeared in her eyes. “I love you so much.”
He pulled her close, happiness and gratitude pouring through him. She loved him, as he had prayed she would. They clung to each other, there in the straw on the floor of the stable, listening to the pouring rain, watching the orange flames sputter and slowly die, turning to wispy columns of smoke that rose up from the rubble of the west wing.
“We’ll rebuild,” he said. “We’ll make this our home, the place we raise our children.”
Ariel gave him the soft, warm smile he had missed for so long. “I’d like that.”
Bending his head, he kissed her again. “I love you, Lady Greville.” The words came more easily this time, felt so right, so good. “I love you.”
His days of isolation were over. He had a family now: the grandmother who had raised him and never forgotten him, a child who needed him, and a wife who loved him. The heart he hadn’t known he had seemed to swell inside his chest.
Wet, dirty, and cold, a third of his house a pile of smoking ruins, for the first time in his life, Justin understood what it meant to be truly complete.