Chapter 27
Arabella!” With the soaked piece of her shift pressed to her face, Violet half-stumbled, half-crawled out of the drawing room and into the main corridor.
A pungent haze hung in the air, angry pops and crackles sounding ominously from above. But if there was any small mercy, the perilous glow of flames had yet to appear. Nothing prevented her from continuing.
She made a snap decision to turn left instead of right, taking the direction that would eventually lead her to the staircase.
Would the stairs even be accessible if she had cause to use them?
Something groaned and then snapped overhead, as if warning her away from the idea.
She’d worry about that when—if—the time came, though.
For now, she simply needed to make haste and keep going.
“Arabella!” She darted into the music room next door, crouching low to the floor and finding the space just as bleak and vacant as the drawing room before it.
Onward, then. One room after another, until she found her sister. Anything less wasn’t an option.
“Arabella!” She momentarily hauled the muffling cotton away from her face, her throat stinging in protest and causing her to cough.
However, as she righted the strip of fabric, willing her lungs to cooperate long enough for her to see her mission through, the faintest sound emerged from somewhere down the corridor.
“Vi?”
She froze, every nerve ending instantly alert.
“Vi, help!” The voice came again, weak but unmistakable.
Violet shot back into the corridor, her pulse skittering erratically. “I’m here. Where are you?”
She received a string of coughs in response, but the noise was enough to guide her in the right direction. Enough that, when Arabella croaked out “the study,” Violet was already there, shoving open the door.
Her burning eyes tore around the room, scanning through the haze before landing on a sight that made her heart stop. A bookcase had toppled to the floor like a felled giant, leaving a scattering of leather-bound volumes in its wake. And lying next to it, limp and ashen—Arabella.
Violet bolted across the room and dove to the carpet beside her sister, terror slamming against her chest. Only when she took a second glance, realizing that both Arabella’s arms and legs were visible, did she breathe again, her inhale becoming a choked sob of relief.
No part of her sister had been crushed, although she’d come dangerously close.
However, the bookcase had pinned a large swath of Arabella’s skirts, rendering her immobile.
Violet’s hands flew to the bookcase, giving it a shove, but the solid mahogany remained impervious to her efforts. She tried again, fear swelling anew when the furniture didn’t move.
Arabella, though, appeared strangely unflappable. “I found it,” she rasped, turning her head over her shoulder to peer at Violet while she worked. “I found the deed.”
Violet didn’t have time to ask her what she meant. She scrambled to her feet, using the force of her legs along with her arms to push the bookcase, still to no avail.
“I’m so sorry, Vi. I should have listened.” Arabella bit down on her lip, a lone tear sliding down her bloodless cheek. “You were right about Frederick.”
Under any other circumstances, Violet would have celebrated her sister’s declaration, offering a comforting shoulder to cry on while assuring Arabella how much better off she’d be without the toad. Instead, she strained helplessly, her physical strength unable to match her determination.
“Help!” she screamed toward the doorway, a fear-prompted reflex she couldn’t contain.
She immediately clamped her lips shut, refusing to let panic overtake her even as she was forced to confront what she’d known all along: there was no one coming to help. Lord Frederick and his entourage had made their unwillingness clear.
Arabella shifted her arms against the carpet, her quivering fingers pulling a crumpled piece of parchment from her bodice. “Take the deed. You must take it.”
Violet stared down at her sister’s extended hand with stinging eyes. Blast it, did Arabella think she was leaving?
She snapped her gaze back upward, unable to look at that doleful, innocent face and the creased parchment—whatever it contained—any longer. Just as she’d done with the hisses and bangs on the floor above her, she needed to put them out of her mind and focus.
Exiting this room without her sister simply wasn’t an option. And if she couldn’t move the bookshelf …
She bolted to the desk in three long strides, hauling open the closest drawer and hastily rifling through the contents. If she couldn’t move the bookshelf, she would instead need to free Arabella from her gown. Surely, Lord Frederick had a pair of scissors somewhere. Or a paper knife?
The first drawer proved useless, and she slammed it closed, starting to work on the next.
Which was the moment a stifled call reached her awareness, slightly louder than the blood rushing through her ears. “Violet!”
Her hand shook as she cast a pile of quills aside, her head instinctively darting up to face the doorway. The voice, though muted, was so close to the one she craved hearing above all else that she scarcely dared believe it was real.
“In here!” It was Arabella, harboring no such qualms, who cried out, her smoke-roughened voice gaining a burst of momentum. “In the study!”
Violet’s heart pounded recklessly, the faintest strand of hope mingling with her panic even as the drawer proved devoid of anything sharp. She couldn’t get distracted, had to keep searching—
Except suddenly, Benedict was in the doorway. Not just the suggestion of his voice or the image in her memory, but Benedict, wearing the same travel-rumpled attire as when she’d left him, his cravat pulled over his mouth.
“Arabella’s skirt is trapped,” she said without preamble, because uttering anything else—telling him of her dread, her relief—would surely melt her into an incoherent puddle from which there’d be no going back.
“The bookshelf is too heavy to move, so I need to find scissors or a knife or—damn it, why can Lord Frederick not do something useful for a change?”
Her composure wavered upon discovering a third drawer filled only with papers, and she clamped down hard on her lip, fighting the urge to run to him and let herself dissolve.
However, Benedict moved with brisk, unflappable strides, crouching at Arabella’s side and assessing the bookcase. “We’ll try moving it together, yes?” His eyes shot up to meet hers, dark and steady. Stalwart.
Yes. She had only a split-second to take in his gaze before abandoning the desk and rushing toward him.
There was no way of knowing if they’d succeed or merely squander seconds she could have better spent continuing her search.
Yet there was something about the way he looked at her. Something that made her trust him.
They each grabbed an edge of the bookcase, Benedict wasting no time in mouthing a single word: Ready?
At her hasty nod, they pushed in unison, the recalcitrant piece of furniture refusing to yield more than a fraction of an inch. However, it was a fraction more than she’d achieved previously. Progress.
“Again,” she rasped, her lungs craving fresh air but finding only smoke. There would be no stopping—no fresh air—until they accomplished what they’d set out to do.
Benedict complied without hesitation, the cords in his neck straining as they coaxed the bookcase another sliver backward. Meanwhile, Arabella wriggled her body to the extent she could, her gauzy overskirt swishing against the floor as if demanding to be let loose.
“That’s good, Arabella.” Violet dared to glance at her sister’s face, relieved to see it maintained its expression of almost unnatural calmness.
She did her best to sound encouraging, knowing that if her sister panicked and became overcome with sobs, it would be difficult not to follow suit.
“You’re almost free.” Close yet far. Lest they forget the dire urgency of their situation, fire consumed something directly overhead with a series of intensifying crackles.
“Let’s see if we can lift the bookcase just enough for Arabella to pull her skirt loose.
” Benedict’s command drowned out the flames’ ire, the assuredness of his words a bolstering echo in her head.
Making her believe they could do it, even though the bookcase had started to feel like her mortal enemy, determined to see her defeated.
She spent a final moment examining her sister, the resolute set of Arabella’s mouth assuring her that yes, she’d heard the plan. She was ready.
And then, Violet had eyes only for Benedict. For the sturdy hands repositioning themselves against the bookcase. The brow furrowed in concentration. The swift dip of his chin telling her it was time to begin.
Her fingers gripped the shelf, creating an immediate ache in her muscles as she pulled upward instead of pushed. The wood was so blasted heavy. So blasted infuriating, just like Lord Frederick himself—
Except suddenly, there came the rending of fabric, an ardent cry, and Arabella rolled across the floor in a tangle of fabric.
Free.
She was free.
With Arabella’s skirts clear, Violet abruptly released her hold on the shelf and sent it crashing to the floor, taking a few seconds to blink away the water from her burning eyes.
They’d … they’d done it. Truly done it. Lifting the bookcase hadn’t been impossible after all—not with Benedict at her side to help.
He’d already scrambled to the floor beside Arabella to assist her in getting up, and Violet jolted herself back into motion, reaching out to grab her sister’s arm and hauling her toward the door.
Fortunately, Arabella’s legs remained strong despite her ordeal, and while Benedict stayed at her other side to offer support, she had no trouble approaching the exit using her own strength.
If anything, her urge to escape would be more potent than any of theirs, for she’d been trapped in the burning house the longest. Abandoned there by her worthless excuse for a betrothed.
Whether Violet’s sudden surge of energy was fueled by anger, fear, or desperation, she couldn’t say. She only knew that they began running in unison, heedless of the pungent smoke trying to rob them of vision and breath.
She didn’t need to see. Didn’t need to inhale deeply. The way out was imprinted in her memory, and if they could just hold on a little longer, they’d be free of this cursed place and the uninhibited flames that promised to consume it.
Her heart pounded uncontrollably, knowing they were close to the drawing room and the terrace doors that would bring them to safety. Knowing, simultaneously, that the floor above could cave in at any moment, and fire could lurk around every turn.
However, when at last they burst into the murky drawing room and the terrace doors came into view, there was nothing impeding them.
Nothing to do but sprint the final distance until Benedict shoved one of the doors open, and the heat and haze of the drawing room was replaced by a blast of cool night breeze.
Her lungs became greedy, sucking in great gulps of air as she raced down the stone steps and found her way onto the grass. Almost like they feared getting plunged back into the inferno that was Watley Hall.
There was no way on earth, heaven, or hell she would allow that to happen. She continued bolting away from the blaze, oblivious to the direction she traveled, to the shouts that surrounded them, or to anything at all but Benedict’s and Arabella’s footsteps beating in time with hers.
It was as if her legs were so desperate to remove her from Watley that they couldn’t stop, even though fatigue made them wobble and the rawness in her throat caused her to cough relentlessly.
Every fiber in her exhausted body pushed and pushed, until a powerful grip encircled her waist, obliging her to halt. The force of it whirled her around, dragging her against a hot, solid surface.
That’s when it truly sank in that she was safe. Benedict clasped her tight against his chest, his chin resting atop her hair.
At last, she could let herself melt. Let herself be held. He rubbed circles over her back while she caught her breath, and she leaned against him, relishing every bit of warmth, care, and security he provided.
When her coughing fit abated, she raised her head to look at him, needing to take in those features that had become so familiar—so dear—to her. Needing to be certain he was real.
Sure enough, her husband peered back at her, his chest still heaving from the aftereffects of exertion.
“God, Violet, I …” His words broke away, but she had only to examine his stricken face—jaw tight, eyes like obsidian—to guess at what he wished to say.
I was terrified. I thought I might never see you again.
She knew because she’d felt the same way, the sensation creating a cavernous, throbbing ache. Tonight could have been the end for them. Her world could have culminated in an eruption of smoke and flames.
Except he hadn’t allowed that to happen. He’d found her. Stayed with her. Hadn’t relented until they’d freed Arabella from her fiery prison and were clear of Watley Hall.
This wasn’t the end but the beginning. The start of a future with a man to whom she could trust her life. A man who made her chest swell and flutter in a way that could only mean she’d well and truly fallen in love.
“I know,” she murmured in her smoke-tinged rasp, the realization—love— threatening to steal her breath once more.
She pressed her forehead to his, closing her eyes as the notion danced through her head and trickled in her veins.
I love him. I love him. She clasped his shoulders, her lips parting and curving upward.
For despite the chaos surrounding them, everything wrong in the world—if only for this one intimate moment—had suddenly turned right. “Me, too.”