How to Marry a Duke (A Cinderella Society 2)

“Me too,” she said and then kissed him because she didn’t want to ruin the moment or the memory with the hopelessness threatening to boil over inside of her. She wanted to hold onto this, his mouth on hers, the mat of his chest hair under her fingers, his knee moving between hers. He seemed to realize that she did not want to speak about it and did not press. She wasn’t sure if it made it better or worse. She wasn’t sure of anything.

When she finally left his chamber, she wasn’t two steps down the hall when Lady Beatrice came out of the dark. She wore a dressing gown, her hair in long gray braids like a Viking shieldmaiden, carrying her spear. “Can’t be too careful,” she said, gruffly. “I won’t have any more treasure hunters about the place.” She eyed Dougal’s door, then winked.

“Carry on”

Meg was halfway down the hall when she smelled smoke.

A lot of smoke.

“Fire!”

A fire intown was dangerous business as it could hop from house to house and take out entire neighborhoods. A fire in a country house was a different sort of danger—they were far from helping hands, especially at night. When Meg shouted, it took very little time for the family to burst out of their bedrooms, and the servants to spill out of the attic bedrooms.

Smoke lingered at the bottom of the stairs, acrid and sharp. “Get outside,” Dougal told them, as he joined the search for buckets to haul water from the kitchen and the pond, even the watering troughs at the barn would be emptied. Lady Beatrice took Lady Marigold to the warmth of the hothouse, joined by Lady Blackwell and Chartreuse.

The others refused to budge. And as Dougal did not have time to argue, there was not much he could do short of ordering the footmen to carry them out bodily. And he could not spare the footmen. But he considered it.

The fire, thankfully, was currently contained to the Music Room. Thick velvet and brocade curtains sent out plumes of fire and more smoke. A pianoforte made strange sounds in the corner. Flames licked at the walls, touching the ceiling, eating a display of dried flowers which only fueled it further. Dampened handkerchiefs were wrapped around mouths and noses and two lines were formed, one from the water pump in the kitchen, and one from the terrace doors where footmen raced down to the pond. It was hard, grueling, awful work.

But effective.

It took several hours before they were satisfied that no embers remained, quietly menacing the house. They pulled the fiery curtains down and shoved them into the fireplace. Dougal was covered in sweat and soot and every muscle ached, including the ones he’d never thought of before. According to the pain in his chest, it took far more than he’d assumed to keep his lungs working. He tried to keep George, Charlie and Meg down the hall with the buckets, but each was more stubborn than the last. Mrs. Hill brought jugs of lemonade for aching throats. Meg kept replacing Dougal’s handkerchief with a cleaner, wetter one before he could cough himself into the realization that he needed a new one.

Anger licked inside his cramping chest. Who knew how fast and far the fire might have spread if Meg hadn’t been sneaking out of his bedroom at some ungodly hour of the night? It might have engulfed the entire ground floor, might have raced up the stairs and trapped his family in their beds. Might have suffocated them before they could even cry out for help. Though he was dripping with sweat, he was cold to the marrow.

“No one was hurt,” George said, as they finally removed their face coverings and bent over to catch their breaths. The fire was finally out. Most of the Music Room was gutted, and there was some smoke damage in the hall, but all things considered, they had gotten off easy.

Dougal patted George’s shoulder and tousled his siblings’ hair, just to reassure himself that they were safe. He wanted to gather Meg into his aching arms but there were too many people around them. Family, footmen, maids, a few people from the village who had heard the bell being rung for help. He met her eyes and hoped she could read everything he felt.

“Mrs. Hill,” he rasped. “Make sure everyone gets as much to eat and drink as they want.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Do you reckon it was another treasure hunter?” he asked Meg.

“This room was built less than twenty years so I can’t imagine why they would bother. Plus, it would only have damaged the treasure if it was in here.”

It took another couple of hours to cart the furnishings out of the Music Room and onto the stone terrace, just to be safe. There were burns to be seen to, blisters to wash. By the time dawn began to flirt with the horizon, it was only himself and Meg who remained.

The wallpaper was charred, two of the windows shattered. Smoke lingered, oddly tinged with lavender and the sharpness of burned fabric. Water sluiced underfoot. Everything was dirty, damaged. “What a way to say goodbye,” Dougal murmured.

She leaned wearily against his shoulder. “It was always going to be horrible,” she said. “But this is rather dramatic,” she admitted. “Even for us.”