13. FIRE!
CHAPTER 13
FIRE!
T here was a certain rhythm to life in Hatfield that Shaun was beginning to thoroughly enjoy. Due to the constant passage of coaches - even at this time of year, when sensible folk avoided travelling unless absolutely necessary - there were always new faces at the Red Lion and strangers walking about the town. Underneath that busyness the townsfolk were a steady, hardworking lot.
Which wasn’t to say they were all perfect, of course. There were at least four town drunkards who were regularly tossed out of the Red Lion or the Swan for instigating fights with unsuspecting strangers, but word had long since got about that Lord Ferndale had hired Shaun and his men to catch the arsonist, and from all accounts, petty crime in Hatfield had dropped considerably since the four of them had begun their regular pattern of nightly patrols.
The arsonist, unfortunately, remained at large. Shaun was more sure than ever that it was a local, someone who knew the alleyways and back gardens of the town and was clever enough to evade the patrols. There were several roads leading out of town and innumerable isolated farms and cottages on narrow lanes. It was here that the arsonist was choosing to strike for the most part. Almost every night another barn or stable caught alight, and often nobody realised it until the orange glow lit up the night sky and the building was beyond saving.
It was only a matter of time before someone else died, Shaun thought grimly, climbing into bed in the early hours of the morning. Every fire thus far had been started between the hours of nine and midnight, so he was reasonably confident that at three o’clock he could get some sleep without missing anything.
He had just drifted into that twilight state between waking and sleeping, his muscles slowly relaxing as his body warmed up under the covers after spending most of the night out in the wintry cold. A loud crash brought him to full wakefulness in an instant.
“What the hell was that?” He shot out of bed, grabbing for his trousers and shoving his feet into his boots. It sounded as though it had come from the direction of the bookshop. He didn’t waste any time looking out of the window, just raced downstairs with his boots crashing on the wooden steps and wrenched the door open.
There were only two small windows on the ground floor of the bookshop, but even in the dark from across the street he could see that one of them was broken and there was a suspicious orange glow inside.
“FIRE!” he roared, racing across the street and hammering on the door. “FIRE! LOUISE!”
Running to the broken window, he peered in, wondering if he could get through the narrow gap, but it was barely big enough to admit his head, never mind his shoulders. “LOUISE!” He bellowed her name again, and this time heard an answering call, accompanied by the sound of running feet.
The door rattled, and Shaun rushed back to it just as Bernadette pulled it open. She looked up at him white-faced, but Shaun had no time to do anything but run past her and head for the source of that orange glow.
He got there to find Louise on her hands and knees whacking at the fire with what he recognised as her thick winter coat. She already had it half out, and a bit of stamping from Shaun and a few more whacks with the coat extinguished the last of the embers.
Shaun spared a moment to be grateful that the narrowness of the window had meant the lamp the arsonist had thrown inside had landed in one of the few areas of the shop where there weren’t actually any books, in a small nook with two armchairs and an old woollen rug on the floor. The rug had smouldered but was slow to truly catch alight, it was mainly the burning oil from the lamp itself that had caused the orange glow.
Louise knelt on the rug, singed coat clutched in her hands. She wore a thick robe over her nightgown, but her bare feet and hair tumbling loose about her shoulders said clearly that she’d been sound asleep in bed when the arson attack occurred.
“Mind your feet,” Shaun warned as she stood up; there were shards of broken glass from the smashed oil lamp which seemed to be the arsonist’s signature method of attack.
There were shouts outside and the ostler from the inn came in; Mr Thomas was a sensible man who Shaun had learned was quite sweet on Mrs Poole. Thomas stopped to check on the older woman, who stood huddled with Bernadette near the door, both of them looking a little faint, before coming over to Shaun.
“Bad business, this,” Thomas muttered, and Shaun nodded.
“We need to cover over that broken window. Have you a board that would fit?”
“Aye, reckon I can find something.”
Others were coming into the shop now, the landlord Mr Haye, followed by a white-faced Riot Jones.
“We thought it was too late for an attack!” Riot said in rapid Welsh.
“This bastard’s got our patrol pattern figured out,” Shaun responded grimly in the same language, and Riot looked sick.
Louise had walked to the counter and returned now with a dustpan and brush, kneeling back down to start sweeping up the broken glass.
Mr Thomas came back with a couple of boards, a handful of odd nails and a hammer, and he and Shaun set to boarding up the broken window.
“We could make some interior shutters for these,” Shaun said thoughtfully. “So that you could open them during the day and close them at night. I’ll do it tomorrow if you like, Louise.”
Riot made an amused little sound. “ Louise now, is it?”
Shaun suddenly realised that he was completely forgetting to call her Miss Baxter. She’d been Louise in the privacy of his thoughts almost from the moment he met her, and then when he saw the fire inside the bookshop he’d screamed her name repeatedly, and now…
She was looking at him very strangely, standing there with the hammer and a couple of spare nails clutched in his fist.
And it was then that Shaun realised, in his haste to get to her, he hadn’t remembered to grab a shirt.
Riot was openly laughing at him, Mr Thomas looked highly amused, and even Mrs Poole, now that she was past the worst of her shock, was looking at him with a twinkle in her eye and a smirk on her lips.
“I…” Shaun did not know where to put himself. “I… beg your pardon, Lou… Miss Baxter… I’ll just…” He handed the hammer to Mr Thomas and retreated hastily, feeling her eyes on him all the while.
I must have shocked her almost out of her wits, Shaun berated himself as he fled back to Mrs Bell’s, through a crowd of onlookers who’d gathered outside to see what all the commotion was about. And it was a good thing he’d been obviously outside the bookshop when the fire started, or considering his state of undress, he’d probably be dragged in front of the vicar later today and ordered to make an honest woman of Louise Baxter.
Not that he would in any way object to that, but being force-marched to the altar under a cloud of scandal was definitely not the way he wanted this courtship to go.
Deeply embarrassed, Shaun made his way back to Mrs Bell’s to dress himself into respectability. As much as he felt stupid and foolish, he acknowledged the laughter - though directed at him - was also a form of relief that everyone was safe and there was no harm to the bookshop.
But he was especially relieved Louise was unharmed. At least physically. He hoped this incident would not plague her sleep and make this admirable woman afraid of people.
She was the most courageous woman he’d ever met.
Back in his room, he caught sight of himself in the small mirror and gave himself a shock. His hair was at all angles from sleeping, and he’d missed a button on his pants. What a mess! But speed was the enemy of sartorial elegance.
Properly dressed, he dragged a brush through his hair and sat up high in his bed so he could keep the bookshop in view for the rest of the night.
Determination thrummed in his blood, as he vowed to catch the arsonist. He would not rest until he stopped whoever he was.
It was obvious the arsonist was deliberately targeting the bookshop and Louise.
He thought some more and started to wonder… had his mind and heart been so captivated by Louise that he’d overlooked the true target? Was Miss Bernadette the real victim here and he’d overlooked her?
No, surely not. Bernadette helped people and they paid her in kind with baked goods and produce, so far as he could tell. Targeting Bernadette made even less sense. Had she slighted or rejected someone? That was a possibility. Perhaps a spurned lover had refused to accept her decision and was taking his anger out on the town?
He was mixing up real life with the dramatic events in novels. None of his theories about Bernadette held water.
The only people who publicly disagreed with the Baxters were Reverend Millings, via his sermons, and their cousin Joshua. Millings surely didn’t have the strength for the efforts, and Joshua was far too short and wide.
Maybe it was a returned soldier with no prospects? Desperate people would do anything for money - and Louise had told him Joshua was one of the richest men in the town. Was Joshua paying someone to make their lives hell?
A chill spread through him that tonight the arsonist had taken advantage of their patrol movements and schedule. He trusted Riot and the Fox brothers, but was there a chance they’d let something slip to a fellow soldier?
Sooner or later, the arsonist would slip up, and Shaun would be there to catch him and bring him to justice. It could only be a matter of time.