The Hellion Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 2)

"I don't want to hold him. I don't even want to be in the same room with him. He can have a dozen more mistresses for all I care. However, he does seem honorable, something new in my experience in a man. He has protected Jeremy. I grow tired of this. Jeremy, go outside. I'll follow."

"But, Sophie—"

"Go!"

The boy backed away from her, his face white and set.

She lowered the derringer to the level of Theo Burgess's left knee. "Perhaps," she said in a very low, very mean voice, "just perhaps I've changed my mind. I would like to know that you're hobbling about for the rest of your damned life, a cripple, a no-account cripple."

Theo Burgess shrieked, "No, damn you, no!" He rushed toward her, nailing his arms madly.

Suddenly the candelabra crashed to the floor and the room was plunged into darkness.

Sophie's finger inadvertently jerked the trigger. The derringer fired, a monstrous loud noise in the small room. She heard an anguished yell. Someone struck her arm but she managed to hold onto the derringer, and this time she pulled the trigger on purpose. Then something struck her on her temple and she slumped to the floor. She heard Jeremy yelling and she smelled something acrid, something she vaguely recognized. She managed to open her eyes, trying desperately to hang on. She saw only darkness and a strange glowing orange light. And the sounds—snapping and hissing and a windy sort of whoosh.

The light muslin draperies were aflame, billowing upward as if caught in a great wind, flaming out­ward, the heat intense. The room was on fire.

"Jeremy," she whispered, "run, please, you must run. Go to Ryder. He'll take care of you. You can trust him." She choked on the smoke even as she closed her eyes and her head lolled back on the wooden floor.

She awoke coughing, her throat raw and burning. She felt someone's arms around her, felt a man's hands rubbing her back as she coughed and wheezed. She heard his voice: "It's over, Sophie. Jeremy is safe. It's over. Shush, don't worry now and don't try to talk."

Ryder. His voice, his hands on her back. She leaned against him, shuddering from the rawness in her throat, trying not to swallow because it hurt so much.

"Where is Jeremy? Is he all right, truly?"

"Be quiet and I'll tell you everything. We're here at Camille Hall. Jeremy had very nearly managed to pull you out of the room all by himself by the time Emile and I got here. The fire is out and the damage isn't too bad. Only the study was pretty well destroyed and the veranda outside charred a bit. Naturally there's smoke damage and the smell in the house is godawful. Uncle Theo is quite dead."

It hurt so much to talk, to say the words, but she did, wheezing them nut. "I must have killed him. My derringer went off and I heard him yell."

"Did you now? Well, that was well done of you. However, when you're well enough again, I will have to thrash you at the very least for what you did. If Coco hadn't seen you running barefoot down the Kimberly Hall drive, why then you very probably would have died in that fire, Jeremy along with you, for the boy wouldn't have left you in there to die."

"The magistrate, Mr. Sherman Cole, will see that I'm hanged."

"I see no reason why he would want to hang you."

She tried to pull away from him but he held her firmly.

"Yes he will. He wanted me to take him as my lover but there was no reason to and so Uncle Theo had me refuse him. He was nasty about it, and threatened me. Uncle Theo thought it was amusing. He said he could handle Cole if the need ever arose. And he also said I was to keep up a light flirtation with him so that if Uncle Theo ever needed some­thing from him, he'd come running when I smiled at him."

"But you didn't keep flirting with him?"

"No, I slapped him and stomped on his instep when he tried to kiss me. He's repellent. It was about three months ago."

"I see. Well, then, my dear girl, I guess it must be I who shot Theo Burgess, trying to save you and Jeremy. But why? After all, Burgess is known only as the loving, ineffectual uncle, isn't he? I must think on this. Perhaps there is another resolution to all this. Yes, let me think on it."

"Where is Thomas?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him. I'll ask."

"I wanted to shoot Uncle Theo in his knee so he'd be a cripple like Jeremy, to make him live with a limp just as Jeremy has had to do—dear God, he'd actually taken a whip to Jeremy—but I swear to you, I didn't pull the trigger intentionally. The candelabra suddenly crashed to the floor and everything was dark and I jerked accidently on the trigger. Then someone hit my arm and I pulled the trigger on purpose to protect myself."

"Tell me all of it and don't leave out a thing. Quickly, I don't know how much time we have."

By the time she was finished speaking, her throat was so raw she could barely speak in anything but a hoarse whisper.

"I'm giving you over to Samuel now, both you and Jeremy. He'll take you back to Kimberly Hall. Now, no more words from you, no arguments, no nothing. I'm in charge now and you will do exactly what I tell you to do. The first order is that there is to be no talking from you for at least twenty-four hours."

"My head hurts."