One Snowy Night (18 page)

Rebecca’s
courage quickly returned and, once she was sure he had gone, she went over to
the wall to see what he had been doing. She shivered. In large letters, daubed
in red, still-dripping paint, were the words LONG LIVE NED LUDD.

Ned Ludd
. Rebecca shivered again
as she recognized the name of the supposed leader of the Luddites.

She looked
anxiously towards the spot where the ragged man had disappeared. She knew now
why she had shivered when she had seen him. On some level of awareness she had
known he was up to no good. And she had been right. He must have been one of
the Luddites - one of the men who had cast fear into the hearts of the populace
in the industrial centres of the
Midlands
and the North of England over the last few years.

But how had he
got in? There was a gateman guarding the only entrance to the mill yard.

One look at
the railings that surrounded the mill, however, answered that question for her.
Although there was only one way through the gates, any man who was reasonably
active could climb over them, and if he chose his spot carefully he could do it
out of sight.

Unsettled by
the unpleasant incident she continued on her way. She had been planning to
leave as soon as she found her reticule but now she knew she must find Joshua
and tell him that the mill had been defaced. She could look for her reticule
once she had done so.

As she
approached the door a new worry assailed her. What if the door should be
locked?

But she need
not have been concerned. She turned the large handle and it opened. With one
look over her shoulder she went into the mill.

In the dark,
it did not seem the friendly place it had seemed in the day time. There was no
one about and the entrance was only dimly lit. The gas in the wall sconces was
turned right down. There was a ghostly stillness, broken only by the distant
clack of the machines as they cleaned and carded the cotton.

Summoning her
courage, Rebecca began to climb the stairs to the office. She would not feel
easy in herself until she had told Joshua about the man with the red paint.
Joshua would know what to do, whether they should ignore the incident, or
whether they should take it as a warning that the mill may be attacked.

The mere
thought of Joshua gave her courage a boost, and she went forward with renewed
vigour.

At the top of
the second flight of stairs she paused for a moment’s rest.

She was just
about to go on again when she thought she smelled something. She sniffed. But
no. There was nothing.

She began to
climb the third flight of stairs, but barely had she reached the top when she
caught the scent again, and this time it was strong enough for her to
recognize.

Smoke!

It is probably
a smell from one of the processes used in spinning the cotton, she told
herself, but even as her mind gave her a reasonable explanation for the smell
her instincts drove her actions, and picking up the hem of her skirt she began
to run up the last flight of stairs.

As she did so
she heard a distant thumping noise coming from above.

Her heart
began to beat more quickly and she ran fleetly up the last few stairs. As she
reached the top the thumping stopped but she could still smell the smoke, more
strongly now. She hurried along the corridor, towards the office. She must find
Joshua! She opened the office door but by the light of the moon, which was
shining in at the window, she could see it was empty. She backed out, turning
and wondering what she should do next, and then, to her horror, she caught
sight of smoke curling from under the door at the very end of the corridor. A
moment later she heard renewed thumping coming from the other side of it and
her heart lurched. So that was the meaning of the noise! Someone was shut in!

Running
towards the door she grasped the large brass knob and turned it. But to no
avail. The door was locked.

Her eyes went
to the keyhole.

No key.

‘Are you all
right?’ she called. The thumping had stopped and she wanted to know if whoever
was inside was still conscious.

‘Rebecca?’ came
a man’s surprised voice.

‘Josh!’
Rebecca was horrified. ‘Are you all right? What’s happened?’

‘No . . . ’ He
broke off coughing . . . ‘no time for that now. I’m locked in and I can’t put
out the fire. There’s a spare set of . . . ’ He coughed again . . . ‘keys in
the office, in the desk. The top drawer on the left hand side.’

‘I’ll get
them.’

Rebecca flew
down the corridor, going into the office and searching for the keys by the
light of the moon. The top drawer . . . yes! Clutching the keys she ran back to
the locked room and began trying them one by one. Her fingers were clumsy with
haste and she dropped them with a clatter.

‘Which key?’
she asked as she picked them up, fumbling with the large bunch.

‘The . . .
second . . . largest,’ called Josh, between coughing.

Rebecca found
the right key by the dim light and put it in the lock. It turned. She twisted
the door knob, and Joshua came stumbling out. He was coughing and choking
despite the handkerchief he had held to his face and he stopped for a moment,
doubled over, gasping in the cleaner air.

Rebecca put
her arms protectively round him. She stroked his dark blond hair. It was pure
instinct, and as she felt him relax against her she knew that his response was
pure instinct, too. There was a deep, intuitive bond between them, that no
amount of disagreements could destroy.

But she could
not allow herself to prolong the moment, no matter how precious it was. Smoke
was billowing out of the doorway and there was no telling how much Joshua had
inhaled.

‘Come,’ she
said, closing the door to prevent the fire and smoke spreading. ‘We have to get
away from here. There’s too much smoke.’

The smoke was
rapidly filling the corridor. She thought quickly, wondering where it would be
best for them to go. Not down the stairs - the smoke was already in the
stairwell, and Joshua needed clean air to breath. The office. Its heavy door
would have kept out most of the smoke, and there was a window they could open
if needed. She guided Joshua, still bent double, into the office, and shut the
door behind them. She gave a deep sigh. The air in here was untainted. It would
provide them with a brief haven until Joshua caught his breath.

Joshua responded
to the clean air. He breathed in deeply, taking the handkerchief away from his
face, and was soon able to straighten up.

‘I should ask
you what you’re doing here,’ he said, once he had recovered. He took her hands,
and there was an unfathomable expression on his face as he looked down into her
eyes. ‘But there’s no time. We have to put out the fire.’ He went over to the
far corner of the room, still coughing occasionally, and Rebecca saw that he
was lifting a large bucket of water which had been standing there. ‘I ordered
these put here in case of Luddite attacks,’ he said in answer to her
questioning glance. ‘There’s one in every room.’

‘Then why —?’
asked Rebecca, wondering why he had not used the one in the study to put out
the fire.

‘It had been
removed.’

Premeditated,
then, thought Rebecca. Up until that moment she had thought the fire had
started naturally.

Joshua wet his
handkerchief and put it to his face before opening the door. He strode out into
the corridor with the bucket of water. Rebecca, gathering her wits, quickly wet
her own handkerchief, then holding it to her face she followed him into the
corridor.

What could she
do? The buckets. Going in and out of the rooms along the corridor she fetched
the buckets of water that had been placed there. Joshua stood in the doorway of
the study, taking the buckets from her and throwing the water on the flames.

Slowly and
surely the water began to douse the fire.

The buckets
were soon empty and the fire still burned, but the flames were at long last
small enough to be beaten out. Joshua pulled down the curtains and used them to
smother the remaining flames, and by the time ten minutes had passed the fire
was at last extinguished.

Rebecca sank
back against the desk, exhausted. But Joshua seized her by the hand.

‘No,’ he said.
‘You can’t rest here. There’s still too much smoke.’

He took her
hand and led her out of the fire-blackened room and back into the office. They
had kept the door closed and the atmosphere was not too unpleasant. He pushed
her gently in front of him and then closed the door behind them, leaning back
against it in relief.

Rebecca,
feeling his strong, firm hand still holding her own, turned . . . and
everything changed. She could barely see Joshua in the moonlight, and yet his
silhouette, dark and powerful against the black bulk of the door, was redolent
of such virile strength that she caught her breath.

How was it
that Joshua could make her feel this way? How could his mere presence make her
heart race and her mouth go dry? How could he make her feel this sense of
breathless anticipation, this time-stopping moment when she longed to be his
arms? She wanted to go to him, to feel his arms close about her, to have him
kiss her, but she knew she must not do it. She fought against it with all her
will, standing there, frozen in the moonlight, whilst every part of her being
cried out for him.

And then he
pulled her roughly towards him. Catching her round the waist he dragged her
close, so close she could feel the firm hardness of his muscular body beneath
his clothes.

He took her
face in his hands and looked down at her with burning eyes. ‘Thank God you’re
safe.’

She shivered
as he pushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and she felt a wave of
emotion go through her. She was lost in the moment, caring for nothing but
Joshua. His hair may be blackened by the smoke and his face may be begrimed but
nothing could dim the intensity of his eyes. They looked deep inside her and
she began to tremble from head to foot. This was what she had dreamt of; this
moment when she swayed against Joshua and felt his arms tighten around her. Her
eyes closed and she felt the soft, sweet touch of his mouth as his lips brushed
soft, gossamer-light kisses over her face, dropping them with agonizing
sweetness first on her forehead, then on her cheek, then on the tip of her
nose, her eyelids and her mouth. She felt his hands cradling her face, holding
it tenderly yet firmly so that he could kiss her even more deeply, and her arms
lifted, her fingers tangling themselves in his mane of hair. And then she was
drowning, going under, lost to all else. She surrendered herself to his
caresses, and —

She was thrown
backwards with a terrible jolt.

Her eyes flew
open. And then she realized what was happening.

Someone was
opening the door.

It was the
rudest of awakenings. One moment she had been in a state of bliss, the next,
pushed backwards by the action of the door opening, she was weak and flustered
and desperately trying to re-settle her bonnet and smooth her pelisse whilst
fighting against her rapid pulse and trying to gather her scattered wits.

‘Thank
goodness!’ exclaimed Mr Hill, the mill manager, as he burst into the room. ‘I
thought you had been hurt.’ He spoke to Joshua, not, for the moment, noticing
Rebecca. ‘When I saw the smoke I feared the worst. What happened?’

‘I think we
could do with a little light,’ remarked Joshua.

Rebecca
marvelled at his voice. He was once more in command of himself, only a slight
rapidity of words betraying the fact that he had so recently been in the grip
of a strong emotion. No one hearing him now would know that just a moment ago
he had been holding her face passionately between his strong hands and kissing
her so deeply her whole being had shuddered with the ecstasy of it.

‘Of course.’ Mr
Hill felt his way over to the gas jets that were set into the walls.

Rebecca made
the most of the last few seconds of darkness to pull her bonnet firmly back
onto her head. She took a deep breath to settle her breathing, because despite
her best efforts to calm it, it was ragged and shallow. But by the time the gas
was turned up she had regained sufficient composure to meet Mr Hill’s surprised
gaze with equanimity.

‘Miss Foster!’
he exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here? That is,’ he said hastily, as if realizing
that it was not his place to question one of the owners of the mill, ‘I was not
expecting to see you.’

He looked from
Rebecca to Joshua in confusion.

‘I lost my
reticule,’ explained Rebecca. ‘When I got home I found it was missing and a
search of the house and carriage proved in vain. Thinking I must have dropped
it whilst looking round the mill this afternoon I returned, only to find smoke
filling the corridor and
—’

‘And to find
that she had to help me quench the flames,’ interrupted Joshua smoothly.

Rebecca looked
at him in some surprise. It was not like Joshua to interrupt her so rudely. But
one glance at his bland expression told her that Joshua did not want the mill
manager to know the full details of the fire. Why, Rebecca did not know, but he
must have a reason for it and so she said no more.