Chapter Four
Olivia didn’t wait to learn if Breckenridge understood her. The fire at her back was skipping its way across one of the small area rugs. She turned and ran for the bathing room.
The pitcher and bowl on the washstand were the handiest items to easily fill with water.
Once she’d dipped them into the tub she found the bowl was too awkward to carry.
She let it drop to the bottom of the tub and hurried back into the bedroom with the pitcher.
She aimed her first throw at the fringes of the fire, hoping to keep it from spreading.
There was little enough time to judge the success of her action, but the thought she carried back into the bathing room along with the empty pitcher was that her best effort might count for nothing.
Olivia filled the pitcher again, set it down, then yanked the towel from around her neck and took off her robe. She pushed both items under the water until they were sodden before she dragged them out and took them and the pitcher back to the fire.
She tossed the water from the pitcher first, once again at the periphery of the fire, then she used her wet robe to smother a circle of the flames on the bed. Using the wet towel, she beat at the fingers of fire crawling over the edge of the mattress and frame.
Olivia had no sense of the passage of time. What she knew was her own labored breathing and the acrid scent of smoke, ash, and wet, charred wood filling her lungs. Her arms ached, heavier it seemed than the things she was carrying. Each trip added weight to the struggle.
When she got too close to the fire, flames licked at the damp hem of her shift or singed her hair.
When she stood back, her efforts merely fanned the flames.
If she tried to make her way too quickly, she found herself slipping on the slick puddles that dotted the hardwood floor.
If she forced herself to slow down, it seemed that the fire was racing.
She finally fell into a rhythm that she completed by rote: dip, lift, haul, toss, return. There was variation only if she used the wet robe and towel to beat the flames or the pitcher to throw water on them, but even these actions she alternated in a way that made them appear part of her pattern.
In just such a manner she completed trip after trip, holding out for the fire’s unconditional surrender.
Griffin and Truss found her sitting on the apron of the fireplace, her knees drawn almost to the point of her chin, her back resting against the green-veined marble jamb.
She clutched each end of a twisted, dripping towel in her fists while the bulk of the linen was wrapped just below her knees, holding them in the tight fold she’d created.
Griffin gently opened Olivia’s fingers and removed the wet towel from her hand.
There was little of it that wasn’t blackened, but the small white patch he found he applied to the streak of soot bisecting her cheek like his own scar.
He noticed that she retracted a bit from his touch, but he took it as a good sign that she was aware of his presence.
When he’d first come through the door, Truss on his heels, he wasn’t at all certain that that was the case.
She hadn’t given the slightest indication that she knew she wasn’t alone any longer.
It struck Griffin as unnatural, even otherworldly, that she hadn’t turned her head toward their entrance.
She sat, still as stone, as she did now, staring straight ahead at the wisps of smoke and steam still rising in curling ribbons from her bed.
Tears welled at the edge of her lower lashes, though whether they were prompted by some emotion or merely a consequence of the pungent irritants in the air, Griffin could not determine.
The towel was useless here. He withdrew a handkerchief and pressed it into her hand.
A tear slipped free as she lowered her gaze to the handkerchief.
She stared at it a long moment, almost as if she were trying to reason its purpose, then she offered a brief, watery smile and raised it to her eyes.
Griffin used that opportunity to glance over his shoulder at Truss.
The butler was stamping out smoldering patches on one of the rugs with all the high-stepping vigor of a fair colleen at her first dance.
Griffin’s brief grin turned grimace as he surveyed the damage to the room.
At a glance he could see that in every way it could have been much, much worse.
Close to the bed, the flocked wallpaper was streaked with water and soot.
The bedcovers had supported a great deal of the fire, and he could see that not only were parts of the mattress burned, they might be burning still.
“Cease your jig, Truss,” Griffin said, rising from his crouch beside Olivia. “Help me get this mattress out of doors. I think we can roll it sufficiently small that we can push it out the window.”
Truss stumbled a bit as he brought himself up short.
Recovering himself and his dignity, he grabbed one corner of the mattress and began lifting it toward the foot of the bed, smoldering bedcovers and all.
Griffin quickly took up the opposite side and helped him.
They hefted the bedroll to their shoulders and carried it to the open window.
It required effort, but a bit of cursing seemed to grease the opening, and they pushed it through. Griffin put his head out to make certain it cleared the small porch roof. It bounced, unfolded, then hung on the lip for several long moments before it fell in a cascade of snow, smoke, and feathers.
Griffin retreated from the cold and biting air and shut the window. He instructed Truss to carefully look around and make certain there were no other potential fires, then he returned to Olivia’s side.
She lifted her head but made no attempt to stand. Her frown caused a thin black crease to form between her eyebrows. “Is he…? He was moving when…” She craned her neck, trying to look around and over the frame of the empty bed. “I thought he would help, but he never…”
Griffin registered Olivia’s confusion but not the reason for it. His dark eyes caught hers, held them. “He? Do you mean Truss?”
Olivia shook her head. “No. The other. Lying on the floor.”
“What are you talking about?” It was then that he remembered something Wick had said: gentleman villain. “Who are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. That is, I don’t know his name.”
Griffin did not try to make sense of what she was saying.
There were other matters that required his attention first, not the least of which was Olivia’s own condition.
Her teeth clicked in the pauses between words and her body had begun to tremble violently as though she might actually shake off the cold.
Her damp shift clung to her like a second skin, one that was not a whit warmer than the first. It was no surprise that she remained curled like a hedgehog in the one place in the room that offered a modicum of heat.
Griffin opened up the armoire, saw nothing that would serve, and removed his frock coat instead.
He drew it tightly across Olivia’s shoulders before grasping her wrists and lifting her to her feet.
There was some slight resistance on her part, but he had no patience for learning the cause of it.
When he saw she was unsteady at a stand, he simply lifted her.
“Put your arms around my neck,” Griffin told her.
“And stop squirming. I’m not going to—” He stopped because he realized her spastic movements weren’t in aid of getting away from him.
She was simply shivering that hard. “I’m taking her to my room, Truss.
If Wick and Mason were successful in getting everyone out of the house, tell the staff to herd them back in.
Serve them all drinks at my expense. That should engage them again.
I saw Priestly at the tables. An explanation to him will be enough to calm the waters. He will see to it.”
“How shall I phrase it, my lord?”
“Carefully.” Depending upon Truss to show proper discretion, Griffin exited the room.
The lack of a maid frustrated Griffin’s efforts to attend Olivia.
He considered and dismissed the idea of requesting one of his female guests to assist him.
The fewer people who knew that she’d come close to burning his establishment to the ground, the better.
He did not yet know the cause of it, so allowing someone else to put their own construction upon events did not strike him as a wise decision.
After setting Olivia down on his bed, he gave her one of his nightshirts and went in search of towels. When he returned with an armful she was still sitting on the edge of the bed, heels hooked on the frame, trying to find the opening of the shirt.
Griffin set most of the towels near the fireplace to warm them and carried two to the bed.
He used one to briskly dry her damp hair and the other to rub some heat into her feet and calves.
His movements were impersonal but his manner was not without sympathy.
He told her what he was going to do before he did it, offering her every opportunity to help herself.
Olivia let him remove his frock coat from her shoulders then draw his nightshirt down over her head.
She reached under the fabric and tugged on her own nightgown, shimmying out of it as it was replaced by the infinitely warmer linen.
When he pulled back the bedcovers she crawled under them without any urging.
Griffin put his frock coat back on. It smelled of smoke now, he noted.
He picked up the towels and her ruined shift and tossed all of it into his dressing room for Mason to deal with.
The towels that had been warmed by the fire he rolled into linen logs and tucked them under the covers next to Olivia’s body.
She thanked him as she turned her cheek into the one he placed beside her pillow.