Velvet Embrace

The roof of the small barn was a blazing inferno when John at last stumbled out. Brie gave a hoarse cry and broke away from Jacques, determined to help. The elderly trainer was coughing so badly that he could hardly stand. Putting an arm around his waist, Brie half dragged him across the courtyard, away from the flames.

"Too . . . much . . . smoke," he rasped between fits of coughing. "Too . . . late. Stanton tried . . . to save . . . Firefly. . . . Couldn't get her out."

Brie felt her heart stop. Dear God, Dominic was still trapped inside the burning building! Knowing she had to try and save him, she began to run toward the fire.

John made a desperate lunge, grabbing hold of her arm and preventing her from moving. "No! 'Tis too late!"

"But he's still in there!" she sobbed, trying to wrench her arm free.

But as John had warned, it was too late. One of the main roof timbers of the barn came crashing down.

Brie screamed, watching in horror as flames filled the doorway. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Dominic could not have been trapped beneath the flaming wreckage. Not him. Not when she loved him.

The heat of the fire was too intense to allow anyone near, and Brie could only wait, praying desperately that any moment Dominic would appear through the wall of flames. But the fire continued to burn, and there was no sign of him.

At last the entire roof gave way. The resulting explosion was deafening, the flames shooting upward to light up the night sky.

Brie stared in shock at the blazing wreckage. When she realized that Dominic could not have possibly escaped alive, she sank to her knees, too stunned even to cry. A terrible emptiness burned in the pit of her stomach, and there was a scorching ache in her throat that had nothing to do with the acrid smoke still choking the air.

She hardly noticed when Katherine placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You mustn't be upset, Brie," Katherine said gently. "You can build a new barn. Why don't you come inside? Cook has prepared food for everyone, and Garby and Caroline are tending the injured in the hall. No one was hurt badly, thank the Lord, although there were a few burns. You should come into the house and change out of those filthy clothes."

Numbly, Brie looked down at her wet, soot-streaked pelisse. Then she shook her head. Katherine obviously didn't know what had happened to Dominic. Brie couldn't tell her, though. She couldn't put the horrible truth into words. "Please, Katie," she whispered, "I want to stay here. Will you just see to John?"

She was grateful when Katherine left her alone. Still kneeling on the cobblestones, she bowed her head.

After a time, the rain came. It was only a light drizzle, but it was greeted by shouts of triumph by the firefighters, for even though the small barn would continue to burn, the danger to the other buildings had passed. Men would watch through the night, and in the morning they would begin to clear away the charred rubble.

Brie couldn't share their joy. She was too numb to care about what happened to the barns. She couldn't feel the rain either. Icy streams ran down her face and soaked her skin, making her shiver, but she wasn't aware of it. After a while she began to cry, softly at first, then in racking sobs.

How ironic, she thought. Dominic's death had made her realize how much she loved him. In spite of her efforts to resist him, the magnetic attraction she had always felt for him had developed into something stronger, something more vital. But even loving him was ironic. He probably would have laughed to see her crying for him, mocking her pain as he had everything else.

Tears were still streaming down her cheeks when a tall figure loomed before her. It looked so much like Dominic that Brie covered her face with her hands, thinking she must be seeing a ghost.

But the hard hands that gripped her shoulders were real enough, and the familiar masculine voice was Dominic's. "Are you hurt?" he asked urgently, pulling Brie to her feet.

Brie stared up at him, not comprehending. Dominic looked worse than a London chimney sweep. His clothes were torn and filthy, and he was covered with grime as black as his hair. But even with his face streaked with soot and his dark hair plastered down by rain, Brie had never seen a more beautiful sight.

When Dominic sharply repeated his question, she shook her head. "I . . . I thought . . . you were dead," she said in a hoarse whisper.

Dominic laughed and pulled her into his arms. "Almost, but I'm hard to kill."

Relief flooded through her. He was alive! He hadn't died in the fire. Brie clung to him, burying her face against his wet shoulder. It was a long moment before the old suspicions came rushing back, and then she drew away, her eyes flashing. "You beast! You let me think you were dead!"

Giving her a smile so tender that Brie felt her heart melt, Dominic drew her back into his arms. "I'm sorry, ma belle," he said soothingly. "I would have come sooner had I been able, but I was unconscious for a while. Jacques said he almost despaired when he couldn't revive me, but the rain finally woke me."

Looking around her. Brie suddenly realized that the Frenchman had disappeared. "But however did you escape?" she asked.

"The far side. Your steward—Tyler, I think his name was—took an ax to the wall and cleared an opening. I managed to get the mare out just before the loft collapsed. That's the last I remember."

"But you weren't injured?"

"My lungs smart like hell, but I'll recover."

Searching his face, Brie shuddered. "You should not have gone back in there."

"I had to," Dominic said simply. "Otherwise you would have done something idiotic like try to save the horses on your own—foolish girl." Yet he took the sting out of his words by lowering his mouth and brushing her lips gently with his.

When he lifted his head, Brie was trembling again. She gazed up at him wordlessly, loving the sight of his harsh, aristocratic face.