Scandals Bride (Cynster 3)

Then she snapped her lips shut, glared briefly, and swung her gaze back to more important things.

As she looked, the group of men dispersed, breaking into teams which rapidly deployed as bucket lines, one to each side of the cottage, and another streaming into the barren gardens, ultimately linking the river with the back of the cottage. Peering through the dark, Catriona could see men filling buckets with snow, still piled in drifts through the gardens, and passing the buckets up the line, accepting empty buckets back. Some of the field workers came hurrying with shovels, the better to shift the snow.

In the yard, two pairs of grooms staggered along, each pair carrying one of the huge loft ladders. Others rushed to help steady the ladders against the walls of the forge and the granary; they were long enough to reach the roofs.

By the time the ladders were in place, the first filled bucket arrived and was quickly carried up the ladder to be poured down the wall between the granary and the cottage.

At the center of the yard, his face set, Richard viewed their combined efforts. He hoped his witch was praying to Her Lady-they were going to need all the help they could get. The main thrust of the flames through the cottage had been via the central beam running forward to back through the roof, supporting secondary beams which in turn had supported the roof struts. They'd all burned, but now the flames were spreading outward from the center of the cottage, in both directions, licking along the timbers and beams ultimately abutting the walls of the granary and forge.

Luckily, both granary and forge were significantly taller than the cottage wedged between; if that hadn't been so, both would have caught alight by now. They had a chance, a slim one, of saving both buildings, each, in different ways, essential to life at the manor.

Richard strode into the action before the cottage, now all but pulsing with flames. Time and again, he swore at grooms or laborers who sent their bucket loads too far from the vital walls. "We need it where it counts!" he roared up the ladder.

Grasping one bucket, he used his height to send its contents washing over one of the exposed beams in the granary wall. "That," he yelled, pointing to the area, "is where the danger lies."

One of the dangers.

He kept a sharp eye on the men on the ladders, stepping in to rotate them as they, most exposed to the heat rising from the fire, wilted. And when it seemed they were losing the battle for the forge, he went into the garden, grabbed a spade, strode down to the riverbank, and hacked through the softened ice to the water below, uncaring of the iced slush freezing his boots.

Within seconds, Henderson and one of the older grooms were beside him, helping to widen the hole. Then they were bucketing as fast as human hands could manage, sending pails filled with icy slurry up the gardens. Once the faster rate was established, chest heaving, Richard ran back up the slope, grabbing men as he went, positioning them bodily, too out of breath to speak.

As tired as he, but equally determined, they understood; nodding, they formed another bucketline from the river to the front of the forge.

Running back to the yard, Richard paused before the cottage only to rotate the men on the ladders again, then strode quickly to the pump. "Faster," he ordered, as he fetched up beside it. "We need more."

Two wilting farmhands looked at him in dismay. "The river's low-we can't," one of them stammered.

"Low or not," Richard growled, physically displacing them, "faster will still yield more."

He set a new pump rhythm, half again what it had been. "Here"-he passed the pump handle back to the farmhands-"keep it going like that."

They both looked at his face and didn't dare argue. They pumped. Faster. Richard waited to make sure it was fast enough, then nodded, and glanced at the other four men recovering from their shifts. "If you need to, rotate more often. But if you value your hides, don't slow down."

Quite what he meant by that, he neither knew nor cared, but the threat had the desired effect. The group manning the pump lifted their effort and sustained it-long enough to make the vital difference.

On the back step, leaning against the wall, her hands still in the pot of water, Catriona watched it all-the fight to save the manor's buildings. Watched Richard exhort the men to greater efforts, watched him instill his own determination into them. Watched him form them into a coherent force, then direct it at the enemy in the most effective way. Watched him whip them up when they were flagging, when the flames seemed poised to gain the upper hand. Saw them respond, meeting every demand he made of them.

She'd sent the other women and all the children inside, given orders for food to be prepared, for water to be heated. Done all she could to support the effort he was making for her-for them.

Eventually, they won. The flames, denied any hold on the neighboring buildings, spluttered, faded, then died, leaving the cottage a smoldering ruin of glowing embers and charred wood.

They were exhausted.

Richard started sending the men in, the oldest and weakest first, keeping the strongest with him to finish damping down the scene. At the last, when only wisps of smoke and an acrid stench rose from the building, he and Irons hefted grappling hooks, swung them about the ends of the big beams-and brought the whole structure crashing down.

Henderson, Huggins and the handful of grooms still standing used pitchforks to drag, poke and prod the smoldering remains about the yard, spreading them to minimize any chance of fresh fire.

With heavy axes, Richard and Irons weighed into what was left of the cottage, one from either side. By the time they'd finished, there were no contacts remaining between what had been the cottage and either the forge or the granary.

The buildings were secure.

Heaving a huge sigh, Richard leaned on the axe and cast a long look over the scene. Irons came to stand beside him, his axe on his shoulder. Richard glanced at his face. "We'll build it again, although not, I think, just there."

"Aye." Irons scratched his chin. " 'Twasn't wise, seemingly. The woodpile at the back didn't help, neither."

"Indeed not." Richard sighed as he straightened. And made a mental note to check where the manor's main woodpile was located. He couldn't remember seeing it; it might well be against the back of the granary. Or the stables. "Seasoned wood should be stored away from farm buildings-we'll need to build another shelter farther back."

"Aye, 'twould be silly not to learn the lessons The Lady sends us." Irons straightened and looked directly at Richard as he held out his hamlike hand for the axe. "I'm in your debt."