Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
HOME
Beth
At midnight, James’s phone rang. In some strange dual premonition, at the first tone, we instantly broke our full body hug, sitting up. James moved to the edge of the bed. He switched on the lamp and answered the device, his face creased with concern.
“Mr Hinchcliffe?”
I couldn’t hear the other side of the call, but I knew my husband’s features. Whatever it was he heard, something was badly wrong.
A chill crept over me, and I gathered the sheets in protection.
“Do everything you can. We’ll be there as soon as possible.” James ended the call.
His haunted gaze found mine. It was awful, whatever the harm. The cold sank into my bones.
“We need to go? Where? To Belvedere?”
“It’s burning. Our home is burning.”
Idressed rapidly, pulling on warm clothes, all the while thinking how far away the manor was, how long it would take to get there. The rate fire spread.
James had disappeared into the dark hall. Dragging a sweater over my head, I followed. Urgent voices sounded from the narrow staircase up to Callum and Mattie’s rooms. I ascended, shooting a look back down as bootsteps drummed behind me. Gordain’s face emerged from the dark.
“What happened?” he asked me.
“James and I need to get home,” I managed.
We rounded the corner and entered their living room. James spoke with Callum, the laird shoving his heels into heavy boots. Mattie stood to the side, a long cardigan wrapped around her, worry in her gaze.
James’s attention snapped to us, and he held out his hand to me. “Mr Hinchcliffe called. They’re on their way back to Belvedere and just had a call from the member of staff left on duty. There’s a fire. Emergency services are on their way. I don’t know anything more than that.”
“Shit.” Gordain raised his hands to his head. Frustration filled his eyes. “I can’t get a heli. The man I know at the flight school is away.”
James hauled in a breath then scrubbed at his eyes with the side of his hand. “Even if we could fly, it’s a two-hour trip. Three times that by car. We’ll be too late, no matter what we do.”
A horrible realisation settled on me. He was right. The journey was long, and what would we find at the other end? Maybe nothing but ashes. “We still have to go,” I demanded. “Come on. Let’s get moving. We need to go!”
I dragged him towards the door.
“Wait. Tell us what to do. Shall we come?” Mattie asked.
I shook my head. If we were only going to witness it, what could she—
Realisation struck me. My chest tightened with anger.
“Richard did this, right?” I wheeled around, facing James.
His expression didn’t change. He must have guessed from the start.
“What did my uncle do?”
We all whipped around to the voice at the door. Ella stood in the frame, her arms wrapped around herself. A small and fragile figure.
“There’s a fire at your home,” Gordain told her, his tone neutral, the rest of us seeming to have lost the ability to speak.
I hated how her expression dimmed. Ella kept losing. Her family, her childhood, her friend, and now her home.
Then she gave a small nod, her surprise muted. Perhaps, like her brother, she’d expected something like this. Her attention settled on James. “You’re going now?”
“Yes,” James stated.
She switched her gaze to Gordain. “I need a few minutes. Will you take me?”
He opened his mouth then closed it. “You know I will, lass.”
Minutes later, James and I were in the car and away.
We sped, almost the whole journey. We didn’t stop, apart from to buy fuel and to change which of us was behind the wheel. Even then, the sense of urgency never left us.
Mr Hinchcliffe called twice more. They’d made it on-site but were kept far from the house by the emergency services. The fire still raged, we knew that. The extent of the damage was an unknown.
Dark night still held when the first signs for the estate appeared.
An ominous glow lit the sky, and I knew it was bad.
Knew this frantic, achingly long journey was only going to conclude with devastation.
With our eyes glued to the source of the light, we travelled the last few miles in absolute silence.
At last, we entered the open gates to the main entrance and got our first sight of the house.
Or where it should be.
Thick, grey smoke billowed up in a cloud, faintly orange-lit on the right-hand side, no clear outline of the house apparent through the dense haze. No solid edges at all. My heart gave a hard thump. It was impossible to tell if Belvedere was there or had already burned.
At the curve of the road, where it split to divert to the front of the house or around the side, a person in a high visibility jacket flagged us down. I lowered the window.
An acrid burning taste hit my throat, and I coughed, covering my mouth with my sleeve. Smoke stung my eyes.
“Turn around.” The man waved an arm, not making eye contact. “You can’t come any closer.”
“This is our home,” I almost roared, finding my voice.
The long hours behind the wheel had only conjured images of horror.
Now they’d been realised, a kind of desperation came over me.
I leaned out of the window. “This is our home, and it’s on fire.
We need to know what’s happening. Who’s in charge? ”
The man’s gaze took me in, and I didn’t care what he saw. Yes, I was young, with a fucking undercut shaved into my head, but I was the countess, and I wasn’t going to be turned away.
“Shit,” he said, then he barked something into his radio. At the staccato response, he pointed to the road that curved around the west side of the house. “The incident manager is around the back. I’m sorry.”
I drove on into the smoke, a thick fog around us. James hadn’t said a word since we’d got onto the estate, and I reached out and found his hand, clutching his fingers.
The more we advanced into the disaster scene, the more the smoke thinned, a sudden breeze carrying it away.
Then, like a phoenix, the house loomed. I gasped and slowed the car right at the corner. Above were the windows to the suite of rooms James wanted to live in. No fire appeared through them. No scorch marks on the pale stone.
“It’s still here,” James said, disbelief in his tone.
“At least this part.” I drove on to the rear of the house, spying a cluster of vehicles ahead, bright lights above and around them.
Multiple people stood in groups. The farther around we went, the more flashing blue lights and fire engines we saw, all clustered around the east side.
At the same moment, James and I took a breath.
“The garage,” James stated, and it was true.
Now the wind was in our favour, it was clear where the fire was concentrated.
Fire crews with ladders and hoses sprayed the east side of the house, using water from the lake, but the body of the activity focused on the long, low building in front.
James’s dad’s prized collection of cars.
“But the house isn’t burning,” I spluttered, relief sinking in. “It’s okay, isn’t it?”
James made no reply. In a minute, we’d stopped at the cluster of cars, people’s attention settling on our vehicle.
We exited, staring at the now-visible flames. The warmth of the fire was palpable. The grass burned in a wide arc. James strode around to my side and took me in his arms. It was strangely comforting, like we were at a bonfire or a firework display.
“Lord and Lady Fitzroy?” the first woman asked, a firefighter, from her uniform.
Behind her, the Hinchcliffes hurried over.
“All the cars. Burned,” Mrs Hinchcliffe called. Lines of tears streaked her sooty face. “The fire leapt to the house, but they’ve managed to put it out. Belvedere is saved. But there will be smoke damage.”
The firefighter took a breath and repeated the same information in more technical terms. She explained the fire had almost burned itself out but it had raged long and hard, and their focus had been on not allowing it to spread to the manor.
All the cars would be destroyed. Every one.
But that was it.
“We’re so lucky,” I managed, turning to James.
“No. We’re not. I meant to gift you it all. The papers had been drafted. As long as I inherited, the garage was yours.”
His gaze sought mine, and he looked so lost I ached for his pain.
Then I caught the drift. “Did your uncle have access to those papers?”
“Yes. To everything.”
And I got it. Richard had failed to dissuade me, so he’d targeted me instead.
Ella and Gordain arrived shortly after we had.
I watched Gordain restrain Ella in his arms and walk her away when her anger peaked.
With the site designated a potential crime scene and too risky to enter, we relocated to the Hinchcliffe’s cottage.
We slept, fitfully, and the next morning made statements to the police.
A day on, and an inspector came to the house to inform us that they’d found James’s uncle. The man had a solid alibi.
Unbelievable, but apparently true. They couldn’t charge him with anything. The outcome hurt.
Ella and Gordain returned to Castle McRae. All that was left was to wait for the literal smoke to clear and for us to be given permission to access the house again, the insurance inspection to happen and, more importantly, to prepare for James’s inheritance hearing.
We expected his uncle to show.