Skylark (37 page)
Authors: Jo Beverley
“You come, too!” Juliet cried.
“I’ll only be a moment. I need to get shoes!”
Juliet looked as if she’d argue, but then she raced down the stairs and out of sight.
The excuse was real. There could be broken glass, anything, but Laura also couldn’t bear to leave Stephen. He was still pounding on HG’s door. She dashed into her dark bedchamber, shouting at him, “Leave them! Perhaps they’re already outside.”
But then she heard voices. So the two men were awake now, and would get to safety. She looked desperately around the room for her shoes. Where?
A bell began to clang, and she could hear yelling voices along with distant crackling flames. Then smoke made her cough.
Stephen bellowed, “Laura! Where are you? For God’s sake, get out!” He appeared in the doorway. “Come on. The whole place could go up at any moment.”
“I need a nightgown and the wig if I’m to escape scandal.”
“To hell with scandal.” He hauled her up, but she wrenched free.
“No! Only a moment.”
Shoes. On. Nightdress on bed. Shed robe, pull it on. Stephen came to help her with the robe, then slammed the wig on her head, coughing. The clanging bell was a clarion of urgency.
“Come on!” he yelled. “Smoke can choke before the flames reach you.”
It was danger to him as much as to herself that had her racing to the open door. So much smoke now, and a glow, as well, down the end of the corridor. The first flames, licking up from below.
Stephen’s arm came around her, but they almost collided with Farouk, running out of the smoke in his robe, but turbanless, carrying a clinging, nightshirted Dyer. They let him by, then fled down the stairs after.
Laura heard a roar and thought it was a crowd or the sea, but then she realized it was another element—fire. Roaring in triumph as it began to consume the inn.
They reached the hall and she saw safety beyond the open door. Farouk raced through it, but the Grantleighs were staggering out into the hall, the old woman trying to support the coughing, hunched man. Stephen rushed to assist them.
Laura hesitated, but she wasn’t needed there. She ran out into clean, fresh air in search of Harry and Juliet.
“Mama!”
She saw them then, by the ruddy light the fire was already casting over the growing crowd. She raced over to take him in her arms, to hug him close, to soothe him, to assure herself, kissing his hair, his face, that he was all right. Juliet tugged on the wig, straightening it. Heaven knows what she’d looked like.
Laura turned quickly back, seeking Stephen. Then she finally relaxed. He was safe, attending to the Grantleighs. Other people were helping. Townspeople, rushing to see what they could do.
A bucket line was forming to bring seawater to the fire. She’d run to help, but Harry was clinging. “It’s all right, Minnow. It’s all right.”
She prayed that everyone was out of the old building, for the fire was raging now at one corner and behind, in the stable area. Men were climbing up ladders to the roofs of the neighboring buildings, ready to try to beat out new fires. The chandler’s to the left had a tile roof, but the house to the right was thatched like the inn. Dangerous.
Harry was becoming excited rather than scared. She supposed the brilliant sparks flying into the air looked like a bonfire to him.
Then she realized Stephen wasn’t with the Grantleighs anymore. They were being helped away, probably to some house, but where was he? Up on a roof?
She put Harry back in Juliet’s arms. “Stay with Aunt Ju, Minnow. I need to find Sir Stephen.”
“He might be helping with the horses,” Juliet said. “Look.”
Laura turned to the arch into the inn yard, which seemed only a frame for flames, and saw people and horses in there. Oh, the fool. No, the hero.
She ran forward, dodging through the crowd, seeing some horses to one side. Most of them must be out. But she couldn’t see Stephen.
Then against flames and black smoke, she saw him leading out two blindfolded horses. Controlling two huge beasts that could crush him if they tried.
A scream whipped her head toward the Compass and a great gasp came from the crowd. Someone was hanging out of one of the tiny dormer windows in the thatch and screaming for help. It even sounded like a child. A kitchen maid or the boot boy?
Somewhere in the crowd, a woman screamed, “Jemmy!”
As if to frame the moment, the fire bell went silent. Men rushed toward the burning building. One grabbed a ladder from the next-door building, propped it against the Compass, and began to climb. Other men held it, despite the growing danger. Flames could be seen, now, through the lower windows.
Laura pushed closer, as if that could somehow help. She tore her eyes away to search for Stephen and saw him handing off the horses to other men. She ran over and grabbed him before he could go back.
“The stables are hopeless!” she shouted.
“The horses are all out.”
They both turned to look at the rescue.
Then Laura gasped, “Stephen! It’s Jack!”
She knew his shape at the top of the ladder, reaching to pull the lad out through the small window. Knew his voice as he called, “Stay calm, lad, you’re strangling me!”
Jack—a hero? Had she misjudged him all along?
The lad didn’t stay calm. He clung, screaming, and the ladder began to topple. As if everything slowed, Laura watched the men at the bottom try to keep it up, and it tilt inexorably sideways.
Everyone went silent, so only the roar and crackle of the flames accompanied the child’s scream as the ladder crashed down.
People rushed forward. Laura would have gone, but Stephen held her back. “You have to stay out of sight. Go back to Harry. I’ll take care of things here.”
He was right, but she feared Jack and the child were dead. But as she backed away, someone burst out of the crowd carrying the sobbing boy to his screeching mother.
Then someone bellowed, “Watch out! It’s going!”
The crowd around the ladder ran, some carrying a bulky shape, as the fire poured sideways like a burning river through the rooms at the front, the rooms where Laura and Stephen had been. Behind, it ran even faster along the stables, where the upper floor was probably full of hay.
With a roar louder than any lion, the fire caught the thatch and became one enormous bonfire. Appalled silence fell on the crowd.
But then she heard Stephen. “Get those buckets moving. Wet down the buildings to either side!”
As the bucket line swung into action, a cheer greeted men running down the road with a hose and pump on wheels. Draycombe had some provision against fire after all, and she supposed it was mere minutes since the fire bell had first rung.
But no one seemed to be in command except Stephen.
And he was magnificent.
In breeches and flapping shirt, he was organizing the buckets to soak the tile-roofed house to the left. He directed the pump to soak the thatched one to the right.
Reaction was setting in, and Laura started to shake. It was partly the cold night air, but it was so many other things, as well. She’d left her wedding ring in her room, which was now a furnace, and that seemed a terrible sin.
Jack. What had become of Jack? She should stay out of his sight, but he was Hal’s brother. She moved cautiously to the huddle around someone on the ground.
She managed to push in far enough to see. Thank heavens. He wasn’t dead. He was babbling. “Sorry, so sorry. Never thought . . . Is the boy all right?”
“The boy suffered no more than a fright, thanks to you, sir.” That was Dr. Nesbitt, kneeling and feeling Jack’s leg. “But you have a badly broken leg, at the least. Stay still, if you please.”
“So sorry, so sorry,” Jack kept saying, but then he let out a scream of pain and lost consciousness.
“As well,” said the doctor. “Let’s move him to my house so I can attempt to save his leg.”
As men grasped the blanket to carry Jack away, Laura huddled into her robe. Perhaps the others would hear Jack’s babbling as meaning he was sorry the ladder had fallen, but she knew differently.
He’d started the fire, perhaps only meaning to smoke out the rats. The same plan had occurred to her once, but been instantly dismissed for exactly this reason. Fire was too dangerous to play with. Jack’s had burst out of control.
She was sorry for his pain, but to her it looked like divine justice.
Speaking of justice, where were the rats?
Over there.
She checked that Juliet and Harry were all right—they both waved—and went over to the couple who were the root and cause of all her problems. And pleasures, she must confess.
HG was sitting on the ground, Farouk on guard.
“Mr. Farouk,” Laura said, “I will take care of Captain Dyer if you wish to help fight the fire.”
The flames cast enough light for her to see the flat rejection in the man’s dark eyes. For her also to see that without his turban, he looked different. His hair was cut short. Didn’t Mahometans keep their hair long beneath their turbans?
“Captain Dyer needs my support, madam.”
He was speaking in that heavy accent again, but she wondered now if he was Arab at all.
Laura turned to a respectable-looking woman. “Do you live nearby, ma’am? Could you give refuge to this poor gentleman?”
“Of course, of course!” The woman seemed delighted to help and called for a man with one of the wheeled chairs to come over.
Laura was sure Farouk would have liked to protest, but HG said with surprising dignity, “I will be safe. You go.”
The touch they exchanged was strange—Farouk’s hand on Dyer’s shoulder and Dyer’s hand covering it. What was more, Laura would swear that Farouk was saying thank you for being allowed to help. She liked the man more for that.
He lifted HG into the wheeled chair and fussed the blankets around him, but then he strode off. Despite wearing what was, in effect, a dress, he climbed nimbly up a ladder to the thatched roof to help the men there beat out fires. The most dangerous job.
Another unexpected hero.
Laura wouldn’t have been surprised to find Stephen at the same task, but he was still on the ground, organizing. He probably wished he had a more daring role, but he was Sir Stephen Ball, MP, and thus in charge. Many here might not know who he was, and they certainly couldn’t tell from his rough appearance. They simply recognized command.
As if feeling her eyes on him, he looked away from his duties. She waved and saw his relieved smile, teeth white in a sooty face. Then he returned to his work and she knew she was out of his thoughts, as she should be now he knew her to be safe.
She, in turn, looked back toward Harry.
Thank heavens for Juliet.
Laura turned to see where she could be of most use, but then a group of horsemen thundered down the street, lanterns waving.
Laura heard “Mr. Kerslake!” but she also heard some people whispering, “Captain Drake.” A new spirit of confidence surged like another fire. The leader they knew and trusted was here now. What a burden it must be to carry such authority when so young.
Kerslake swung off his horse, his five men doing the same behind him. Local men hurried to speak to him, and he gave rapid orders. Stephen joined him and the two men clasped hands, accepting and acknowledging each other’s authority. They began consulting like officers on the deck of a warship and directing the action in partnership.
After consideration, Laura slipped over to join them.
Stephen’s eyes kissed hers, but he didn’t do or say anything revealing. Kerslake looked at her blankly a moment, then said, “Mrs. Penfold. I hope you’re not hurt.”
“Not at all, but I’m relieved to see you here. We need to talk when things are under control.”
His look was understanding. “Where are our mysteries?”
“Farouk’s up on the roof, and the other man’s in a cottage. My sister and child are here, however, and Stephen made some complicated arrangements that included your Crag Wyvern.”
“I received the message. That can go ahead. When things are under control here, a boat will take you all there, the two mystery men included.” He flashed her a smile. “I, too, want to know the whole story.”
Then he turned back to business, and Laura, suddenly exhausted, went over to take the wide-eyed Harry.
“He wants to get down,” Juliet said, clearly exhausted, too, “but I neglected his shoes.”
“And you’re in your petticoat and cloak. It occurs to me that none of us have a stitch other than what we’re wearing. How are we going to explain
that
to Father?” She kissed her son’s cheek. “Another adventure, Minnow. You’ll have a great deal to tell Nan when you get back, because soon you’re going in a boat to a castle.”
that
to Father?” She kissed her son’s cheek. “Another adventure, Minnow. You’ll have a great deal to tell Nan when you get back, because soon you’re going in a boat to a castle.”
Chapter 43
It was a while, and Harry went to sleep in Laura’s arms. They were offered blankets, so Laura bundled him up. They were offered shelter, too, but she explained that they were soon to go to Crag Wyvern. A woman brought them mulled cider, and that was certainly welcome.
How were they going to explain an almost total lack of possessions? Perhaps she’d have to tell the truth. She’d prefer that, and it wouldn’t matter so much now that she and Stephen were to marry.
Despite weariness and Harry’s weight, she smiled. Poor Juliet was sitting down, huddled in a blanket, clutching a pottery beaker of cider, so Laura was deeply relieved when Stephen came over.
He took Harry from her, and that was a relief, too. “We can leave now. Squire Ryall’s arrived, and Captain Sillitoe. There’s a boat at the jetty. Kerslake’s own, apparently. The
Buttercup
.”
Buttercup
.”
“Shouldn’t a smuggling master’s boat have a more awe-inspiring name?”
He gave an arm to help Juliet up.
“Remember, the point is not to look significant. And besides, I doubt he brings in cargo anymore than Wellington holds the line in battle.”
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