Chapter 24 #2
Adrian stood on the roof of the neighboring house, his heart in his throat, while his wife ran toward him. Flames licked at her heels. Smoke billowed around her, obscuring the top of the wall. Each time her feet met a solid surface, his whole body jolted with instant relief.
Behind him stood Edward and Turner. The two men had helped encourage Sarah and Mrs. Parks to jump the distance between the two houses.
When Mrs. Parks resisted, Turner had taken her hand and jumped with her.
Once safe on this side, Turner and Edward had offered the women their jackets while ushering them away from the edge where Adrian remained.
It was hard to grasp how swiftly the world had changed in under an hour. The prominent Mayfair home his grandfather built would soon be reduced to nothing.
Gone was most of the roof. Whatever remained inside would be ash. If it wasn’t already.
Below, the fire brigade had begun pumping water.
Adrian didn’t spare them much thought. His entire focus was now on Samantha, who neared the edge of the roofline. The exterior wall nearest Adrian seemed to ripple. He blinked, convinced it must be an optical illusion brought on by the heat from the fire.
But no.
It happened again. The bricks began bulging outward.
“She’s not going to make it.” Edward’s hushed words of foreboding gave voice to Adrian’s rising dread.
The wall was going to fall and take her with it.
He met her gaze and saw the realization upon her face. The sheer determination to do the impossible. To somehow survive.
She had no choice. Her only option now was to jump and risk landing short of her mark.
Embers swirled through the air, like glowing red stars thrown against sooty smoke. Samantha’s right knee flexed, then extended with an explosive force that propelled her upward. Exactly as the wall vanished beneath her.
Adrian’s stomach bottomed out.
His wife – his heart – was airborne. With a forty-foot drop beneath her.
Helpless, he watched as she flew through the air. Edward’s words echoed so loudly his skull hurt. She’s not going to make it. Because she’d been forced to jump early. Instead of a little over two yards, he estimated she had at least three if not more.
Too far. Unless he made up the difference.
Feet braced and knees slightly bent, he extended his left arm toward her. Someone caught his right hand, steadying Adrian’s stance and letting him lean out across the distance. Edward or Turner. Adrian didn’t know. He did not turn from Samantha as she reached toward him.
Her fingers brushed his elbow, then slid down the length of his arm as she tried to grab him. They finally curled around his wrist like a vice, her bodyweight and sudden halt making Adrian’s legs buckle.
He hit the roof with a gasp as she slammed into the building. Pain sliced his knees. He gritted his teeth and prayed she had the strength to hold on.
Before he could figure out how to haul her up over the edge, Turner appeared at his side.
Belly down and with one shoulder braced against the same ledge that Adrian knelt on, the man reached over the side and took hold of Samantha’s free arm.
“I’ve got you,” he told her. “Now let Croft go so he and Marsdale can help pull you up.”
Braver than any woman Adrian could think of, Samantha released her hold on Adrian’s wrist and placed her trust in Turner’s hands. It only took a second or two for Adrian and Edward to scramble into better positions from which they could grab her.
Together, they pulled Samantha up onto the roof, where she collapsed into a seated position, as though she had no energy left to stand. Kneeling beside her, Adrian drew her straight into his arms.
The moment he hugged her to him, something within him broke. His shoulders shook as he breathed her in. The heavy smell of smoke clung to her skin, her hair, and the flimsy nightgown she wore. But she was here. She lived.
He choked as he gulped down some air. A thick knot wedged in his throat made speech impossible. So he kept his face pressed to the side of her neck and just held her.
It wasn’t until several moments had passed that he realized the wetness he felt on his cheeks was tears. An uncontrollable sign of relief, not entirely dissimilar to when Alexandra was born and Samantha did not perish.
His shuddering breath made him wonder how many times he would have to endure such fear. The price of love. Made all the more inevitable by the kind of people they were — the situations they found themselves in and the threats they chose to confront.
Perhaps he should try to persuade Samantha to return to Deerhaven Manor.
No sooner had the thought presented itself than he knew she’d refuse.
Still shaken, he pressed a kiss to her brow and withdrew a little to grant her some space. “How are you?”
Her watery gaze met his. “Thankful to be alive.”
The comment made his chest tighten, ribs curling inward and squeezing his lungs. He searched her body with his gaze. “Are you hurt?”
“Battered and bruised. Slamming into that wall will leave a mark and my hands and feet got burned as well, but I don’t feel any dislocations or broken bones.”
He stared at her while fighting the instinct to give her a good shake. The woman had recently gone through hell to deliver their daughter. She’d only recently recovered, yet she’d thought nothing of sprinting to other people’s rescue.
Madness.
“If you’re ever in this kind of situation again, you get yourself to safety first and then…”
The palm of her hand settled over his cheek. “You know that’s impossible.”
Of course he did. She would no sooner be able to let others perish while she saved herself than he would. Nevertheless…
“As Kendrick reminded me this evening, we’re parents now.” He shrugged out of his jacket and helped her put it on. “Our responsibilities are first and foremost to our daughter.”
She wrapped the bulky garment around her slim frame. “I know, but—”
“Can you imagine what her future would have looked like if you had died tonight?” Adrian’s fear was beginning to shift toward anger.
“Adrian, I—”
“Alexandra needs you, Samantha.” In order to drive the point home, he added, “You know what it’s like to grow up without a mother or father. Don’t tempt fate into making your daughter share that experience with you.”
Though he did not intend for the words to be cruel, he knew Samantha felt them like a slap to her face. She physically drew back, the flint in her eyes informing him that he’d crossed a line.
Instead of lashing out, however, she asked, “How is she?”
“Fine, I’m guessing. Last I saw, Stewart still had her.” He started to rise while carefully helping Samantha back on her feet. “We should go check. I, for one, will feel better after I see her.”
“Me too.” Samantha’s voice was tight, and then she added. “Had I let Stewart go back inside the building, there’s a good chance Sarah and Mrs. Parks would both be dead as well.”
A chill swept Adrian’s spine. “As well?”
Samantha stared at him, her face a mask of inexpressible pain. “Susie, the scullery maid. I couldn’t convince her to leave. She…caught fire and…I saw her leap through one of the windows.”
“Good God.” That side of the building had been obscured from his vision.
“Stewart might not have made it either. He was heading back into the building when I made him turn around and take Alexandra to safety. Access to the stairs was cut off shortly after.”
He hugged her to him. “You did the right thing.”
As much as he hated it, Samantha possessed the necessary skill to do what she had done. After all, she was no ordinary woman running into a burning building.
He knew Sarah and Mrs. Parks would not be alive had Samantha not risked saving them. They owed her their lives while he owed her an endless amount of respect.
“It’s good to see you,” Edward said, his anxious expression conveying all the concern he himself had endured since learning that Samantha remained in the house.
“Thank you for your help,” Samantha told him and Turner.
Adrian echoed the sentiment. “Had you not been here…”
A thought he dared not finish.
Instead, he wrapped one arm around Samantha’s shoulders, then dropped his gaze to the ground below where the fire brigade continued their futile battle, and to the crowd of onlookers gathered around.
He spotted Kendrick, then Stewart who held Alexandra. Elks remained a shorter distance away together with a few other servants.
Adrian prepared to turn away, to get Samantha and the other women indoors, when he caught sight of someone else. A lone figure apart from the rest.
Every hair at the nape of his neck stood on end. Blood rushed to the top of his head, exploding into the kind of rage that could level kingdoms.
Because there was no dismissing the devil he saw. Or the way in which the man touched the brim of his hat while his gaze remained locked with Adrian’s.
Finn O’Leary.
A flash of white teeth and then he was striding away, disappearing into the night, just as he’d done nearly two months earlier. Only this time, Adrian had no pistol to aim in his direction.
What he did have, however, was the certainty that the Irish bastard was behind tonight’s fire.
And that he’d intended for Adrian and Samantha to burn.