Chapter 22 #2
Even that was enough to send her to the floor, unable to keep moving forward as her limbs weakened from the lack of air in her body.
Just then a crashing sound reverberated through the room.
A portion of the roof gave way, falling in front of her.
It didn’t entirely block the way out, but would force her to move further around to the side.
Elspeth willed herself to get to her hands and knees, and she began to crawl around the mass of burning beams and thatch.
A shadow darkened the doorway, in the hazy silhouette of a man. He shouted her name.
Elspeth called back, her own voice thin and weak, with nothing in her lungs to support it. She crawled a few inches more, just enough to catch his attention.
He stormed toward her, a dark figure without definition. He bent down and gathered her in his arms. Struan.
Then he spun about and retraced his steps, avoiding the ever-growing flames.
He carried her through the doorway sideways, and managed a few yards more before sinking onto his knees, and placing her gently on the ground. She was coughing uncontrollably, and could hardly move her limbs.
Struan bent over her, asking in a hoarse whisper if she was all right. Hands touched her gently, but even so Elspeth cried out in pain. Had she been burned?
Struan howled at the crowd for water, and then one of the villagers was running toward them with a bucket that sloshed over, it was so full.
Struan dipped his hand into the bucket and then made Elspeth drink out of his cupped palm.
He lifted her up so that she wouldn’t choke, but wouldn’t let her move until she had drunk several times, since much of the cool water spilled out over her face and onto her chest.
“What the hell?” he demanded.
“Lantern. Knocked over.” Elspeth was too overwhelmed to give a full explanation, and surely one of the girls or the teachers had already announced what had happened.
“I thought you would die.” Struan’s voice was harsh, but his eyes were haunted. He had been terrified for her.
All at once, Elspeth realized that he had run into the middle of a raging fire by choice, just to find her.
“You went into the flames,” she whispered. “You hate fire.”
He paused for a long moment, then said, “Aye, I do. But I would not let that fire have you.”
* * * *
In the nearby field, Struan knelt next to an exhausted Ellie and watched the efforts to douse the fire, everyone bringing buckets and pitchers of water to fling at the building and then quickly switching to soaking the nearest neighboring buildings so the fire wouldn’t spread, since the wind was brisk.
When the main danger was over, Struan arranged for Elspeth to be brought back to the house, bathed by her maid, and put into bed. Though the ordeal itself couldn’t have lasted more than an hour in total, he felt like he’d lost years of his life.
The local doctor arrived at Linneliath not long after. He examined her under Struan’s watchful eye. He announced she had no permanent damage or serious burns.
“Her skin is red,” Struan spat.
“But not blistered much, nor bleeding. That’s all to the good.” The doctor pulled something out of his bag. “She must use this salve. It should be applied twice a day, and again after the skin is bathed.”
“I’ll do it,” Struan replied. “I’ve plenty of experience with burns.”
After the doctor left, Struan sat on the edge of the bed, as close as he dared to Ellie.
“You need to rest. I’m not in any danger,” she said, watching him. “You got me out in time.”
But Struan shook his head. “You breathed in smoke, and that takes time to recover from. Your skin was burned. And your hair was singed.” He reached toward her hair, which had been gathered into a low ponytail after her bath.
The hair was mostly dry now, and he saw just how much of the length of it had been lost to the fire, and then the scissors, as Agnes cut off the burned ends.
“It’ll grow back,” she said.
“God, Ellie,” Struan said in a lower tone. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“No,” she told him, reaching for his hand. “I had to get Thora to safety. The fire spread much faster than I expected,” she admitted.
“You must never put yourself in that kind of danger again.” Struan lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. The back of her hand was too red and raw to bear touching.
Ellie made a huffing sound, but submitted willingly when he lifted the bedsheet and surveyed her body. Her hands and forearms were the worst off, whatever had been uncovered by her garments in the school. Then her neck and face, to a lesser degree.
She was still red all over, though, a physical response to being exposed to too much heat, too quickly. Her body was attempting to expel the heat through her skin.
Struan uncapped the jar, and inhaled the familiar sharp, cool scent.
Crushed, macerated mint was the main ingredient.
He remembered it well from his own treatments.
The mint would provide a cooling sensation, and the fat that made up the salve would protect and soothe the skin so it wouldn’t crack and pull from being too dry.
He scooped some out and carefully smoothed it onto her skin, a layer thin enough to allow the skin to still breathe.
Ellie said, “It’s so tingly.”
“That’s the mint. Does it feel cool?”
“Yes. You used this before?”
“By the gallon,” he said simply.
“Who put it on you?”
“Jealous?”
“Maybe.”
He grinned. “Whoever the hospital could spare. Not one of them was a pretty nurse who slid her soft, smooth hands all over me. Alas.” In fact, most of the time, he’d done it himself, once he was strong enough.
But he was enjoying Ellie’s obvious concern that another woman had touched him so gently.
If she was worried about that, she probably wasn’t dying.
He got off the edge of the bed, standing and looking down at her. “Rest. I’ll check in on you frequently.”
By the doctor’s orders and Struan’s strong enforcement, Ellie was confined to her bed for days. She objected, but everyone ignored her, as he’d told them to.
Struan went back to the far school each day, working with the local men from the village (even Robbie Davies) and the servants from the house to see what could be salvaged.
The answer, sadly, was not much. In their haste to get all the people safely out, they hadn’t been able to fight the fire until it was raging.
The stone husk of the building was black from smoke, and every scrap of wood from the beams to the furniture turned to ash.
“At least no one died,” said one man, tossing aside a twisted mass that had once been a tin lantern. “But with no school now, where’ll the children go? The school in the village is too small for more.”
“Tavish,” Struan called to one of the men who worked as a gardener at Linneliath. “That old barn by the mineshaft that closed down in ’08. What condition is it in?”
“Roof’s fallen in,” Tavish said after a moment of thought. “But the walls are solid as ever. Clean out the inside and put up new thatch, it’d serve for a schoolroom. No room for beds, though,” he warned.
“The students who lodged at the far school can lodge at Linneliath for now,” Struan decided. “Elspeth, that is, Mrs MacInnes, pointed out that the house is underused. We’ll set up some of the bedchambers in the Tudor wing for the boys and girls.”
“You don’t intend to rebuild the school?” Robbie asked. This was the first time he’d dared speak directly to Struan since he’d offered to kill him for flirting with Ellie in the village.
“It will be rebuilt,” Struan announced. “It’s necessary. But it’ll be done right, and that takes time. Until then, we improvise.”