A thousand steps. The hallway was endless. An eternity had come and gone before he reached her bedchamber.
God, don’t let this happen. Smoke already lingered in the air, hot and stifling, as he jerked the scorching knob on her door. “Ella!”
No answer.
He slammed his body into the door. Then again. Pain bruised his shoulder with the third impact, but the hinges began to give. God, please. He ripped the door free and it crashed behind him.
Hot smoke blasted him. “Ella!” He shielded his face with one arm and stepped inside. His eyes stung. Flames reached for the side of his nightgown, but he smothered them. “Ella!”
The sound of breaking glass drew his attention to the other side of the room. So much smoke. He caught the faint sight of her figure by the window.
God, have mercy. Henry pushed his way toward her.
She was on her knees in front of the window, her mouth to the broken glass as if gasping for fresh air.
“Ella.” He latched onto her shoulder, pried her back, hoisted her into his arms. He dove back through the smoke and flames, into the hall.
Other faces were already appearing—Dunn in his nightcap and slippers, other servants with disheveled hair and rounded eyes, all with copper-handled buckets already in hand.
“My lord …” Dunn’s whisper carried.
“Get the fire out.” Henry squeezed past them, started down the stairs.
The echo of Dunn’s orders and frantic footsteps made the house come alive.
She’s bleeding. Henry raced down the steps with her arm dangling, the red trails dripping to her palm, through her fingers. God, she’s bleeding.
He was too familiar with blood, the coppery scent, the red stains. Nausea churned his stomach as he lowered her to a chaise lounge in the drawing room. “You are all right, Miss Woodhart.” Make her all right, my Savior.
Stricken eyes stared back at him. She didn’t blink, didn’t speak.
He laid her sticky hand in his. “Are there burns?”
Her tongue rolled over her lips. “N–not many.”
A measure of relief coursed through him. He lifted her arm. “You broke the window?”
“F–for air.” Moisture welled in her eyes. “I—I could not breathe … the smoke …”
“Do not try to speak.” Henry rose, warring between the thought of leaving her or staying close. But she needed bandages, a maid to search for burns, a servant to ride for flaxseed oil.
“Papa?”
Henry jerked toward the doorway. “I told you to stay in my chamber.”
His son, appearing very small and slight in a doorway so large, held his hands clasped in front of him. His eyes lingered past Henry to the chaise lounge. “Did she die?”
“No, Peter.”
Features scrunched, he smeared away tears from his cheeks. “I was f–frightened.” He hiccupped. “I didn’t want her to be in the ground like Mamma.”
Henry approached his son and scooped him into his arms. He breathed in the scent of little child. Swallowed down tears. “I prayed she would be safe, and God has shown mercy.”
“I prayed too,” said Peter. “Can I stay?”
“Miss Woodhart does not feel well.”
“I know, but maybe I can say my prayers to her. That will make her feel better.”
“Very well.” Henry carried him to Ella’s side and planted him on the floor next to her.
Without seeming to notice the blood, the little boy lifted his arm over top of her chest and pressed his face close to hers. “I love you,” came his thread-like whisper. “God will make you better.”
Her only response was a slight murmur, but her lips turned with a smile.
Henry hurried from the room, wishing he could speak his love as easily as his son.
Ewan didn’t return to his chamber. If he had, he would have found some way to end his agony—and he couldn’t do that. Not now. He had to stay alive for Lucy, if not for himself.
The fire is out. He slipped into the old bedroom, as forsaken and forgotten as his own. Lucy’s presence came alive again, as if the mere furniture and keepsakes she had touched still carried her spirit.
His skin prickled with the thought. “Lucy?” He tried her name in the silence, strode to her bed and grabbed up her pillows. “In the name of heaven, answer me!”
But she didn’t. Never did. Only listened to him from some obscure place in the room.
“I am sorry … sorry I failed again.” Sobs shuddered his voice, but he muffled the sounds in her pillow. “I cannot get our son … nothing worked … yet I will …”
With a moan, he curled on top of her coverlets. He ripped the bed-curtains shut and welcomed a darkness he loved. His mother should have burned. He wished she hadn’t escaped. He wished the flames could have hurt her as she’d wounded him.
Forgive me, Lucy. He sank his teeth into the pillow, shaking, weeping. I promise we’ll be free.
The probing hands and gentle ministrations should have comforted her. The shadow of Mrs. Lundie against the paper hangings, moving this way and that as she sang an old Gaelic tune should have eased Ella into the arms of sleep.
But her nerves were still sharp, frenzied. She lay motionless as a young maid wound a bandage around her arm.
“Too tight?” the girl asked.
“Och, what are ye doing?” Mrs. Lundie came around the bed. “Get out of the way, if ye cannae do it right. Here”—she slid into the girl’s place and began to unravel—”this is how ye do it.”
Ella’s pulse throbbed beneath the fabric. “Mrs. Lundie—”
“Now dinnae ye be whining, lass. All ye need is a bit of rest.”
“And Peter?”
“What of him?”
“He seemed …” Ella licked dry lips. “Very out of sorts. I do not wish to inflict him with worries.”
“Ye’ve inflicted more than him, I’d wager.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Mrs. Lundie drew the bedlinens to Ella’s chin. “Now, close yer eyes and I shall sing to ye a wee bit longer.”
“No, please do not stay.” Ella’s throat tightened. “You must get some rest. I shall sleep more soundly in silence.”
“Verra well.” With a kiss that was almost motherly planted upon her forehead, Mrs. Lundie doused the candle. “And dinnae be fretting about yer dresses and trunk and sich things. Ye’ll be happy to know they were pulled out before much damage could be done.” She smiled then and left the room with a soft tune carrying after her.
My fault. The burn of the words ran deeper than her wounds. The candle. I must have forgotten to blow out the candle. How could she have been so thoughtless? How much of the room had been damaged?
Then another thought pierced her. The Bible. The only thing Lord Sedgewick had ever given her and she had destroyed it. She was reckless, careless, incapable. Her mother had been right in all of her endless scolding.
The words of the verse came back to haunt her, as cold as they’d been in her dream. Sleep of death … sleep of death …
Her soul writhed. Oh, God, was the fire my punishment? My penalty for unbelief? She trembled in the lonely darkness, half wondering if God had wished her to burn in those flames—or if He had rescued her from them.
“My lord?”
Henry looked up. “Dunn?”
“Yes, my lord.” The steward stepped forward, the tassel on his nightcap singed. His gaze shifted to Henry’s chair, then the door beside him. “I had a most difficult time locating you, my lord.”
“The ordeal has deterred me from sleep.”
“Understandably.” Still, Dunn’s eyes lingered to the closed door. “Miss Woodhart?”
Henry rose without answering. “Do say what you have come for.”
“I only wished to return your mind to ease, my lord. Forgive me if I am disturbing.”
“The fire is out?”
“Just so, my lord.”
“Any other rooms affected?”
“None but a bit of the hallway, but we managed to stop it there.”
Henry clasped his hands behind his back. “Very well. You have eased me. Go and do the same for yourself, for morning will come quickly.”
“Yes, my lord.” Dunn bowed, but his gaze latched onto the door once more. “Is she quite all right, my lord? I must know.”
“She could have been killed.”
“Yet she was not.”
“There was blood.”
“Which washes away, my lord.”
Not from everything. He had a shirtsleeve hidden in his chamber to prove it. There were still stains, stains that would never come out.
Pounding at the glass, thrusting her hands through, breaking her skin with the jagged edge. She plunged, only the fire was there too. Couldn’t be happening. She fell so hard the air left her, yet still she screamed. Flames circled her, crackling with demon tunes, laughing with cold derision. Then they leaped at her, even as she thrashed them away—
“Miss Woodhart.”
She jerked, but couldn’t pry open her eyes. Lord Sedgewick. Sweat descended down her temples. Please, help me.
“There is no need for fear,” came his voice again. “I have had you placed in the west wing where no harm shall come to you.”
No harm. Her mind clung to the words, half believing, half dreading.
“Come now. Open your eyes, Miss Woodhart.” Fingertips slid down her cheek. “Ella.”
She could resist no longer. With tears, she opened to him bent over, eyes close to hers. Did he realize how close he hovered over her, or that his breath fell upon her face? Indeed, she could count every burst of color in his eyes.
The knot in his neck bobbed as if his thoughts aligned with hers, but he didn’t pull away. “Your cries awoke me.”
“From your chamber?”
He glanced away, quiet for the space of a few heartbeats. He faced her again. “The fire is out.”
A defense sprang to her mind, a story that would likely have escaped her from trouble—only she didn’t want to lie to him. “I—I do not think I blew out the candle.”
“It matters not.”
“Matters not?”
“There will be no more graves to dig. That’s what is important.”
She should have known his character enough by now. She should have foreseen his kindness. His regard for human life far exceeded anyone she had ever known. Such a man could not have killed anyone, least of all her sister.
“Ella?” Strange, how his voice rang differently. Deep, husky, soft, like something from a dream. “Ella, I wish permission to speak my heart to you.”
His heart. She could not fathom that his could match her own. She only managed a nod.
“You see, I …” His forehead tightened as if the words were hard in coming. “I …”
“I know.”
His eyes sought hers.
“I know,” she said again. “Because I too have no words to describe such a thing. Yet I’ve heard it called love by more than one poor fool.”
A smile chased away all the shadows, all the fears that lingered about him. “Fools, indeed.” He drew away and backed to the door without once tearing his eyes away from her. “Do rest soundly, Miss Woodhart, and I shall be near if you need me.”
Her nightmares diminished in the warmth of his happiness. That may be a very long time, my lord. A very long time, indeed.