Patrica Rice (31 page)

Weatherton had cheated Blanche and the workers, in collusion with Barnaby. With evidence of their crimes, he would have to find the local magistrate and ask for their apprehension.

The mine needed a new manager, someone who knew the operations, knew the men, and could keep the mine operating without dishonesty. He’d already picked out a few possibilities from the crowd tonight.

His new authority didn’t weigh heavy on his shoulders. He would have done the same without Blanche’s permission, just in a less blatant manner. Responsibility he understood. Blanche, he didn’t.

The meeting had lasted until dark. The distance from mine to Blanche stretched out interminably. Michael could hear some of the other miners talking around him as they all headed home.

Vaguely, he heard distant shouts, but his thoughts had wandered to the bed he would share with Blanche tonight. It took more than a few loud voices to intrude on that daydream. He could count the weeks and probably the hours since he’d shared her bed last.

Not until the miners around him shouted in alarm and raced ahead did Michael look up. Over the top of the trees, in the direction of the town, flame shot into the night sky.

Flames leapt from the inn roof, illuminating the night sky like some magnificent Midsummer’s Eve bonfire. Just as on a night previously scarred in his memory, Michael saw a crowd milling about the street, uselessly heaving buckets of water and wailing. The night he’d almost lost Blanche to an inferno filled his soul with horror.

Shouting “Blanche!” he pushed and shoved his way through the crowd. Many of the bystanders still wore nightcaps and gowns. Women and children screamed as a portion of the inn’s roof collapsed, shooting another bolt of flame into the stars. Men formed an erratic line from water pump to inn, but the town didn’t contain enough buckets to quench a conflagration of this scale. Michael didn’t see Blanche anywhere, and his throat ached with the effort not to roar his pain.

Lungs bursting from lack of air after his run, Michael focused on the inn. If Blanche had panicked as she had after the carriage explosion, she could still be in there. The smoke boiling through the windows could already have silenced her. He shoved through the crowd. Someone still remained inside, he could tell from the shrieks.

Smoke billowed through all the lower windows. The ladders leaning against the inn roof had been abandoned, and the bucket brigade now simply flung water on those flames creeping closest to the tavern.

Fortunately, the night held little wind, and the earlier dampness controlled the spread. Still women shrieked and wept hysterically, watching the windows for some sign of life. For whom?

With wildly beating pulse, Michael scanned the windows. This wasn’t Blanche’s loyal staff milling about. This crowd didn’t even know she existed. Surely she wouldn’t risk her life again walking those burning halls searching for those left behind. He would kill her if she did.

He raced into the clearing around the inn with the men and their buckets, aiming for the one substantial ladder within sight.

“Michael! Michael, my God, you’re here! The little girl! The little girl is still in there. I heard her, but I couldn’t find her.”

He skidded in the mud at the familiar cry. An arm full of wispy muslin and flowing gold locks fell into his embrace, clinging to him as if he were the last barrier between heaven and hell. Michael nearly choked on the thick, smoky air with his gasp of relief. Clutching Blanche’s slender waist, he buried his face in her hair and tried to calm his racing heartbeat.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he muttered. “I looked everywhere. I thought you’d gone rescuing servants again. I couldn’t bear it one more time. Thank God you’re safe.”

Blanche wrapped her fingers in his waistcoat as he lifted her from her feet and crushed her tighter against him, but her hysterically whispered words didn’t die. She sobbed, and her whole body shook with the depths of her anguish.

“The child, Michael. I can hear her crying. She’s in there. I can’t reach her, Michael.”

Between gulps for air, she was shaking him with her fists. “I can’t find her. And now I can’t hear her anymore.”

Michael saw the hysteria in her eyes and remembering her terror of fire, feared the worst. “What child, Blanche? I don’t remember any child.” Still, he could hear women wailing. He saw the grim faces of the men working at the corner of the inn least engulfed in flames.

“I heard her crying, Michael! I was in the garden, and fire exploded. She cried for her mama. She never stopped crying, Michael. I tried, but they wouldn’t let me near.”

Still uncertain that Blanche did not conjure the child’s cries from hysteria, Michael held her close and tried to hear what she had heard.

His stomach clenched at the groan of the crowd as still another portion of the rambling roof collapsed. If the child existed, he couldn’t leave it in that inferno.

“Where, Blanche? You must tell me exactly where you heard the screams.” A few short months ago, he could have walked into that building without a qualm. But he had a wife and child now, and he couldn’t imagine releasing his grip on Blanche.

“I was in the garden—there, where the men are.” She didn’t point but continued clinging to his lapels.

Michael knew where she meant. He’d seen the men feverishly concentrating on the yard beneath the oak. “Upstairs or down?” he demanded.

“Up. The fire started in our side, but it went up and did not spread across quickly. But the smoke is everywhere. She could still be alive, Michael, I know it.”

He clutched her arms, insisting she meet his gaze. “Promise you will stay right here, away from the fire. You carry a child, Blanche. You can’t risk our child to save another.”

Michael read trust and love and hope in her widening eyes. “Promise?” he demanded. When she nodded, he released her and ran toward the burning inn.

“Does anyone know the room the child is in?” he asked of the first firefighter he reached.

The soot-blackened face turned toward the flames creeping across the rooftop. “We went in the back corner and couldn’t find her. She’s crippled and cannot walk, poor wee thing, so she could not go far. Perhaps it’s God’s wish to ease her pains.”

The back corner—where the servants had rooms overlooking the tavern. The child was a servant? “Where are her parents?”

The man wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his forearm and nodded in the direction of a group of huddled, weeping maids. “The lass has no father that we know of, and the mother’s no better than she should be. It’s one less worry for a girl like that.”

His scorn told Michael all he needed to know. Perhaps God had meant to take the child from the misery her parents visited upon her, but he couldn’t give her up without trying. “I’ll need someone to hold the ladder steady,” he commanded as he crossed the distance between the crowd and the firefighters. The man gave him a look as if he thought him crazed, but he yelled at one of the other men to join them.

Michael grabbed a full bucket of water and doused himself, soaking his one good coat. He asked for a blanket from the stables. He’d need something wet to wrap the child in.

When the men had the ladder in position, Michael threw the wet blanket over his shoulder and began to climb. He didn’t notice the crowd growing silent behind him. His entire being concentrated on that square of glass behind which waited an unconscious child. For Blanche’s sake, he wouldn’t believe her dead. Clenching his teeth, he reached for the window.

Blanche watched Michael’s lone figure scaling the ladder. She covered the base of her throat, fighting a mounting scream. She sank to her knees as Michael knocked out the window with a blanket-wrapped arm. Smoke poured from the opening, and the fire roared louder in protest, as if he’d challenged and struck some fiery beast.

She clutched her arms over her chest in prayer, and rocked back and forth, praying for forgiveness, praying for Michael, making promises to a deity she had long forgotten. She would never call Michael fool again, though only a fool would obey her insane plea. But right now, in this moment, she saw the gallant knight she’d seen before, the one who protected her, teased her, taught her to live again.

She wouldn’t ask for his love. She would just love him for himself, and let him go his own way. She wouldn’t hold him back, she promised God. The world needed good men like him. Just let him live so he could go on as he had, righting small wrongs where he found them, rescuing maidens in distress.

The women in the crowd followed her actions and knelt on the damp ground, praying to themselves or aloud, all for the lives of one crippled child and a madman.

The crowd uttered a collective gasp as the fire reached the child’s room. Fire couldn’t consume slate shingles, but the decaying timbers beneath burned with the strength and duration of old Yule logs. Smoke poured from the holes left by collapsing slate.

One of the braver firefighters hurried up the ladder to warn Michael of the danger. Blanche stopped breathing as the flames crawled closer to the window. The leaves in the old tree leaning over the rear of the house caught fire, dropping tiny embers onto the yard. Other leaves merely shriveled from the force of the heat, then fell into the flames, feeding the blaze.

A light breeze changed the direction of both fire and smoke, obscuring the top of the ladder. Sparks danced up a dead limb, creating fiery lace against the blackness of the sky. Smoke curled and blew away, revealing the filthy firefighter carrying a limp, blanket-wrapped bundle over his shoulder.

Blanche cried aloud at sight of the limp bundle. She didn’t remember jumping to her feet. She only recognized her direction when the force of the heat struck her. A man grabbed her before she could reach the ladder. Someone carried the limp child away. Blanche’s gaze remained fixed on the figure framed in the window above.

Fire blazed all around him as Michael threw his long legs over the sill. Flames ate at the tree limb above him, at the roof near his head, at the window he crawled through. It caught in the sleeve of his coat, and he beat it with his hands, nearly losing his balance on the ladder. Blanche checked a scream of hysteria and prayed more fervently.

When his feet finally touched the ground, Blanche screamed Michael’s name, and flew toward him on winged feet. The heat of the blaze no longer paralyzed her. Her hysterical fears vanished as she flung her arms around Michael. Feeling Michael tremble, she frantically called out for a physician. The crowd parted. Michael said nothing, merely resting his arm across Blanche’s shoulders and stumbling beside her in the charred remains of his best coat.

* * *

Exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally, Blanche collapsed in the chair beside the bed and watched Michael sleep. The doctor had given him laudanum for the pain. Every time she looked at the bandages on his hands, she wept and wished she could suffer the burns for him. She knew his agony well.

She just wished the fire could have struck him anywhere but his hands, the hands that moved with such deft grace. The doctor feared for his ability to use them again. She’d wept a thousand tears, slept briefly, and wept some more, but still he did not wake. Blanche supposed that was for the good. He needed time to heal before he woke to the pain. He’d breathed too much smoke, scorched himself in too many places

She sat there, wiping her swollen eyes so she could watch and make certain he breathed. Eventually, she washed and changed into clean clothes someone had brought her. The whole town stopped by as the day progressed, bringing food, clothing, offering tidbits of news on the child’s progress.

They called her Mrs. Lawrence and treated her with awed respect. She knew one miner or another remained stationed in the hall outside, waiting for the moment Michael woke.

She’d gradually learned what he had done at the mine. She should be furious at his high-handedness, but she really didn’t care. She trusted Michael to do whatever needed doing when he woke. She just wanted him to wake. Needed him to wake. Please, God, let him be well.

Hearing a commotion outside, Blanche ignored it, safe in the knowledge that someone always guarded the door. The patient stirred at the noise. She twisted the ring she’d returned to her finger during the night. Gently, she smoothed the covers over his bandaged chest. The burn on his brow was not so deep as that on his hands, and the doctor had left it uncovered. The ugly red contrasted with the paleness of Michael’s face. She’d never seen him so still.

The chamber door abruptly burst open. Blanche jerked around in surprise. Neville stalked through the doorway, followed by Effingham.

She didn’t have the strength to protest the rudeness of their invasion. She merely leaned over and checked the tidiness of the bandage on Michael’s hand.

That tender gesture sent Neville’s temper soaring. “What the devil are you doing here?” He glared down at Michael’s bare chest. “You have no right in here with this lying, conniving—”

Effingham grabbed the back of the duke’s neckcloth and throttled him into silence. With a respectful nod to Blanche, he inquired politely, “How is he?”

Blanche said quietly, “The doctor gave him laudanum so he does not feel the pain yet. But he does not wake, or eat, either.”

Effingham released the duke’s linen. “Michael has no head for alcohol or drugs. The potion should have been diluted. He’ll come around when he’s ready. Michael’s too stubborn for quacking to harm him.”

His kind reassurance brought tears to Blanche’s eyes. That she wanted to cry at a few kind words proved the extent of her exhaustion.

“You should have hired a nurse,” Neville argued. “You have no place in this room. I can’t imagine what you’re thinking. You have no chaperone, no maid, no—”

Blanche fixed her gaze on Michael’s brother. “What brings you here so soon? There’s scarce been time for word to reach London.”

“Did you even send word?” Effingham asked wryly. At her downcast gaze, he continued, “Your Fiona and her family appeared on my doorstep with some tangled tale of prison escapes and exploding mines. I thought His Grace’s yacht the fastest way to discover the truth. Fortunately, given the situation at the mines, we thought to stop here first.”