Page 89 of Libby's London Merchant
He took her hand again and held it more tightly. “I own I was foolish beyond measure, but for the Lord’s sake, Libby, why are you rushing into this impetuous marriage?”
“Well, I. . .” she began, and stopped, unable to think of any reason.
“At any rate, my dear, I am only grateful that I chanced upon Lydia only the other day in London. I have been spending time at my estate in Yorkshire.” He smiled and looked down at his hand and hers. “Thinking and planning, dear heart—and not drinking, I might add.”
“I am so glad for that,” Libby said. “We had been wondering.”
“We?” His smile turned hard for a moment. “I saw Lydia, and tumbled among all the news about furniture and draperies and modistes was the little item that you were to be married. I knew I had to make it here in time to stop you.”
Libby shook off his hand and stood up, wondering at herself. “I have no intention of stopping anything,” she said. “What are you planning to do?” she asked, her voice rising. “Add a hunting box in the Cotswolds, or... or a castle in some lonely outpost, to sweeten the pot? Do you think I have any intention of reconsidering your offer? Sir, you delude yourself.”
He made his way back to the fireplace, to stand there with his hands deep in his pockets, his back to her. “I was thinking rather along other lines, Miss Ames,” he said, his voice so quiet she had to strain to hear him. “I was rather hoping you would entertain the notion of marrying me.”
He turned around then and watched the confusion on her face with something close to glee.
Her mind a muddle, she opened her mouth to reply when she caught a glimpse from the window of a man an horseback leaping the fence. She ran to watch as he threw himself from the lathered animal and pounded on the door.
In another moment she heard Candlow hurrying down the hall. She threw open the door. “Candlow, what is it?”
“Miss Ames, Preston here tells me that one of the oasting houses in Fairboume has caught fire. I am to send over whatever servants we have to help with the bucket crew.”
“Oh, by all means, Candlow. We will come, too.”
The duke look at her in surprise. “I do not think that is necessary, Libby. What good can we do?”
She looked beyond the duke to the butler. “Candlow, was anyone hurt?”
“There are several burned, miss, and some of them children.”
Fairboume was not far from the Casey holdings. All the neighborhood children picked in the hop gardens during the harvest. She felt an icy hand run its fingers down her back. She grabbed the duke by his lapels.
“You will drive me to Fairbourne,” she ordered, “and if you do not, I will go anyway, so suit yourself, my lord.”
He tried to take her hand as she ran down the hallway. Mama met them at the entrance, a question in her eyes. Libby explained the urgency and hurried down the front steps, impatient to be off.
The duke helped her into the curricle, unable to hide his distaste. “I do not understand what good you will do there,” he said as he spoke to the horses and jumped them off at a trot.
“I have became amazingly proficient in these matters in Spain,” she said, her eyes looking straight ahead at the smoke rising over the trees.
“Have you ever seen burns before, Libby? Let us reconsider.”
“No,” she said quietly.
Others hurrying before them had knocked down the fence that blocked the shortest way to Fairbourne. He expertly turned the curricle toward the smoke.
“I wanted to speak to you before now, Libby, but I did not have the courage,” he murmured as they sped along the road. “The thought of the rest of my life without you is insupportable, and . . .Libby, you’re not listening to a word I am saying.”
“What?” she asked, her eyes on the smoke. Twin plumes rose above the trees. “It must be two oasting houses,” she said. The pungent smell of roasting hops became a gagging, bitter haze that left them coughing.
Rearing and plunging, the horse would go no closer. Libby leapt from the curricle while the wheels were still turning; she waved a hand at the duke and ran ahead. She put her hand to her nose and gasped as the hot breath of the fire blew her way, bearing with it the overpowering stench of hops and the smell of burning flesh.
She heard the duke somewhere behind her, calling her name, but she ran closer, searching for the little Caseys among the pickers who had gathered to watch. And then she saw them, Louis, Russell, and Brian and the others, standing with Maud by the hop bines. Libby counted quickly and said a prayer of gratitude.
Libby rubbed her eyes and shouted to Maud. “Where is he?”
“Oh, miss, where do you think? In there.”
The oast house still burned, but a fire brigade snaked its way to the cooling room and onto the roof, where men with blackened faces passed buckets. Libby ducked between the women and children and ran closer, peering through the choking haze that had settled over the entire hop garden.
