Chapter 10
It is held
That valor is the chiefest virtue and
Most dignifies the haver.
The last person Alasdair expected to find at Sampson Park at that time of night was Lane Richmond. Lane was rich, well-liked, and known to be a cheerful sort of man, always ready with a smile. There was no trace of that boyish grin now as he tripped over his words to explain the state of things.
“I fear, Mr. Kerr, I must ask if your brother, Freddie, is at home.” Lane was pale with embarrassment. “Please forgive the impudence of the question, but it is a matter of some urgency.”
Alasdair had been busy at Clafton all afternoon, but to his knowledge, Freddie had not returned for supper.
It had been a sleepy evening in general at Sampson; his mother had not been at all well, and Alasdair dined alone.
His stomach clenched with nerves; Freddie knew he was meant to be on a short leash after his dayslong self-mortification in Cray Arches, and to disappear again so soon was bold indeed.
Bold and stupid. Alasdair allowed Lane inside to wait while he directed the staff to search the grounds quickly for Freddie.
For his part, he made a swift loop through the upper floors, discovering Sampson as dark and silent as a grave.
When he returned to the front hall, it was to the scandalized gasping of his mother.
“A Richmond in my house? At this hour?” She turned to Alasdair, hiding behind a maid and clutching the collar of her robe to her throat.
Alasdair didn’t want to trouble her, escorting Lane outside with a grumbled apology.
“I shouldn’t have come,” said Lane, fretting with his hat.
“No, no,” Alasdair assured him. “He broke things off badly with Miss Graddock, and he is often swayed by lesser impulses. You were right to raise the alarm.”
Lane bowed his head with relief, then gestured to his horse. “I’m glad you understand, sir.”
“All too well.” Alasdair called for his valet, already formulating a plan. “He frequents the Gull and Knave. I’ll go there myself and inquire. If I learn anything of use, I’ll send a man to Pressmore.”
“I am glad to hear it; I’ll return there and await your message.”
While Lane Richmond departed, Alasdair went to inspect the stables.
No carriages were missing, and all animals were accounted for, which meant either Freddie was still on foot, as he had been that afternoon, or he had hired conveyance elsewhere.
Elsewhere like a postal inn popular with travelers.
Alasdair left Sampson Park not long after Lane, riding hard for the Gull and Knave.
The cold sliced his cheeks, and his heart raced, but he wasn’t about to let Freddie slip out of town for an elopement; it would break their mother’s heart, and she was their only parent with a heart to protect.
As he was nearing town, he noticed the rising smell of smoke on the wind.
At first, he thought he imagined its sickly, acrid tinge, but then he saw the hellish black cloud gathering over the middle of Cray Arches.
The shrieking of townsfolk, the neighing of panicked horses, the sounds of shattering glass and breaking wood were seared into him.
He briefly considered continuing to the inn but diverted and rode deeper into town, finding a dozen or so men running through the square, buckets sloshing with water as they pelted toward the theater.
The building was like a hearth without a chimney, stones glowing beneath a crown of fire.
He secured his horse to a post at the blacksmith’s a cautious distance away and joined the queue of helpers running toward the danger. A group had gathered outside the theater, watching in horror, clutching one another, some frozen to the spot by the fear, others hurrying to save what they could.
“Back!” he thundered, pushing them away from the front steps.
One woman in particular was inching far too close, putting herself in needless danger.
Alasdair put himself between her and the fire, holding out his hands to keep her from going any farther, and caught his words before they came roaring out.
Violet Arden stared up into his eyes, her face heavily smudged with soot.
There was a pile of belongings beside her, a heap of things she had already saved from the fire.
“There’s still time…” She dodged around him, evading the sweep of his arm, frustratingly nimble.
Alasdair turned toward her and away from the sea of faces gawking at the theater. “Is there anyone left inside?”
“Sailor!” cried Violet, running toward the front doors. A swell of explosive heat met her, and she stumbled back, shielding her eyes. Undaunted, she charged toward the front office, where the windows had been broken out. She hitched her skirts and started climbing inside.
“A sailor?” he asked, following. He reached for her, trying to pull her back.
Violet shrugged him off, slippery with sweat from the heat, and threw herself into the burning building. “No! Sailor! Ginny’s cat!”
“Miss Arden, I insist you stay here. It’s simply too dangerous—”
Her black hair had come loose from its pins, tumbling over one shoulder as she spared him a single determined look. “Damn your insistence, and damn you, too. I won’t leave an innocent soul behind.”
Smoke poured out of the broken window around her, and then, swallowed by the gritty haze, she vanished.
Panic and smoke and fear squeezed his throat like a fist, but Alasdair vowed not to lose her to the fire.
Something could fall on her, or the heat could overwhelm her…
An image of her, helpless and limp, curled up on the stage, came to him, a bleak omen, and he heeded it, reckless of his own safety, hauling himself through the window and into the office.
It may as well have been a furnace, for though nothing inside had caught fire yet, he could sense the flames on the floor above, greedy and growing, turning candles to puddles and bubbling the wallpaper around him like blistered skin.
He glimpsed the back of Violet’s gown as she tried to leave the room, shrieking and snatching her hand back when the doorknob burned her palm.
Alasdair put his head down and lunged toward her, yanking her back before aiming a single hard kick at the door.
It swung open awkwardly on broken hinges, a tremendous surge of heat bellowing up the main hall toward them.
“Sailor! Sailor!” Violet called, and coughed, wiping moisture from her eyes as she tumbled into the hall. She turned in a circle, took a few halting steps toward the seats and stage, then thought better of it and returned to the office door. “Perhaps we’re too late…”
“Your compassion is understandable, Miss Arden, but it will get us both killed if—”
Violet’s eyes snapped open. A tiny, soft sound threaded its way through the numbing roar of the fire spreading across the floor above them. “There! Did you hear it?”
She hurled herself toward the sound, stopping outside another closed door. Carefully, she pressed her ear to the wood. “I hear her!”
“Then step aside, please.” Alasdair didn’t allow himself to consider they were endangering themselves for some mangy stray.
Absurd or otherwise, Miss Arden seemed resolved to throw her life away for the creature, and he wouldn’t allow that.
This door was fussier than the last, and he at last had to tear his own coat off, wrap it around his gloved hands, and use the whole bulk of it to pull the door until the knob nearly came off in his grasp.
He wedged himself into the gap his effort had created, then shouldered it open the rest of the way until the wood creaked and splintered.
Miss Arden pushed herself into the coatroom beyond and exclaimed with triumph, then reappeared with a small orange cat clinging desperately to her gown, claws extended.
“Through the front doors,” he called to her, breathing hard. “Run as fast as you can.”
For once, Miss Arden offered no argument and did as he instructed.
Men called to one another outside. Above the terrible din could be heard the ineffectual splashing of water against the exterior of the building.
The floor shook, and above him, Alasdair felt the weight of the conflagration threatening to spill down upon them like a cauterizing flood.
He trained his eyes on Miss Arden, threw his jacket over his mouth against the rising smoke, and raced outside to safety.
As the cool night air surrounded them, he felt the building yield and the fire win out, and heard the commotion as the beams holding the upper floors began to give.
It was like a dragon of legend inhaling before the great burning outcry.
Miss Arden was too close to it all for his liking, and he herded her down the steps and away from the flame and smoke.
A young woman trailed along, sobbing, reaching for the cat in Violet’s arms. The yowling thing took a chunk of the lace on her gown with its claws as it was returned to the actress.
Alasdair shook his head, gazing down at Violet in total disbelief. “That was a mad thing to do.”
“That little cat has been my steadfast companion for many days,” said Violet, wiping at the black marks on her face and neck. “I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. And look how happy it has made Ginny!” She beamed. “We will need that. So much is lost…we all worked so hard…”
“We?”
“Mr. Lavin and the actors, of course, but Miss Bilbury and I had taken over painting the scenery. Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, but we did what we could with limited time.
I was…proud of it.” Miss Arden’s shoulders caved inward as her spirit diminished and another thought dawned.
“My easel and paints were in Mr. Lavin’s office.
” She lifted her head, gazing off toward the theater as it was consumed.
“Don’t even consider it,” Alasdair warned, easing himself in front of her view.
A fleeting smile. A shrug. “It is nothing to some, I’m sure. I’ve no money to replace it all.”
“You were not paid for your work on the scenery?”
Her brows lifted. “Oh, no, Mr. Kerr. As my aunt would say: a lady of good breeding does not seek employment. It was all to better my painting, and it did, but now it will be enjoyed by no one but the fire.” She frowned and seemed to wilt again.
He quashed a sudden urge to wipe the soot from below the soft pout of her lips, but she looked so sad, and it felt unbearable.
“I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve gone and made myself seem very lacking in front of a gentleman. ”
“You don’t need to correct yourself in that manner,” Alasdair told her, shaking out his ruined coat. “It doesn’t bother me, you know…”
Violet blinked up at him in astonishment. “It doesn’t? Why not?”
“Our understanding,” he reminded her, though gently. “Our families?”
“Oh, of course.”
“And…” It was his turn to frown and lose himself somewhat. “And I find most people incomprehensible. They speak in polite riddles, but you—”
“Ha!” Miss Arden covered her mouth, then graced him with one more coy smile. “And I’m no great mystery.”
The actress had rallied and approached to draw Miss Arden into an embrace and thank her repeatedly, which was why Alasdair’s words were lost to the night and the wind as he said quietly, “I don’t know if I would go that far…”
More and more of the town arrived to watch the Florizel burn.
It was clear now that there was absolutely no saving it.
Like Clafton before it, it would be a charred shell by morning.
Alasdair’s face hardened as he watched the blaze feast and glut itself on the charming little theater.
He thought of Miss Arden’s wooden case of paints and brushes somewhere inside and imagined the pigments bursting in their compartments like miniature fireworks.
Margaret Darrow and Mrs. Arden arrived on foot, Mrs. Darrow clasping her cloak in both fists as the fire was reflected in her light blue eyes. Hasty greetings were exchanged.
Violet went to them at once. “Emilia…but she…and…” She glanced nervously at Alasdair.
“There is no need for secrecy,” Alasdair assured her. “I know that Miss Graddock and my brother are missing. Indeed, I rode to town to search for him.”
“Too many disasters for one evening,” Mrs. Darrow muttered.
“And Emilia is not at Beadle?” asked Violet, clasping her sister’s wrist.
“She is not, and I fear we can do nothing now but pray she is safe. It will be easier to search in the morning. And the Florizel! What horror! Does Mr. Lavin know how the blaze began?” asked Mrs. Darrow.
It was a question meant for Violet, but the young lady was off in her own world. She searched the ground near Alasdair’s feet, her eyes moving faster and faster until her mouth popped open in apparent revelation. “No. No, but…I’ve just had a thought. Brilliant, Maggie, you never fail to inspire!”
“I…do?”
Alasdair took a small step toward them. “Are you well, Miss Arden?”
“Yes. Yes! Oh, I know it now. I know! I’ve done nothing all summer long but regale Emilia with stories of our childhood adventures, the way we ruled Pressmore and ran roughshod over the whole of the property,” said Violet, struggling to get her words out fast enough.
She pulled herself away from her family and began almost floating toward the town square.
Sharing a confused look with Mrs. Darrow, Alasdair decided to follow.
“Playing pirates on the bridge, chasing each other through the maze, and, long before Ann had the Grecian temple put in, there was a thicket of raspberry bushes. Mrs. Richmond was wild about cultivating raspberries for a time, and we would gather them all with sticky fingers and carry them in our skirts across the hidden lane to the wood and eat them by the fistful until we were sick in Morning-glory Hollow.”
“Morning-glory Hollow,” said Alasdair, arriving at the thought at the same time.
“Mrs. Richmond never knew to look for us there,” said Mrs. Darrow, nodding.
Miss Arden turned most urgently to her sister and mother, whispering, “Tell Winny where we have gone to look. If they are there, we can find them before the scandal widens.” With big, hopeful eyes and her smudged elfin face, she fidgeted in Alasdair’s direction.
“No more lives should be ruined this night.”
It was deliberately said, and slowly, and with the weight of a question.
Alasdair gave a single nod and gestured toward the blacksmith’s. “My horse is nearby,” he offered, and off they went.