Page 99 of Not Quite a Lady
Sam bent, set light to the bundle and began to push the blazing ball forward along the ground on the end of its pole. The flames began to change colour, closer and closer to the ghost blue. ‘Here we go I reckon.’ He set his foot on the end of the pole and levered it up so the fire lifted towards the ceiling
Braced, like the others, to throw himself down, Jack half-turned, some instinct warning him they were not alone.
At the edge of the light, just behind him, there was an indistinct figure. ‘Get back, you bloody fo…’
The gas exploded with a roar and time slowed. Jack threw himself back, hitting the figure, landing on top of it on the hard ground even as the flames ripped past over their heads, filling his vision with fire and his lungs with heat. He burrowed his head down, wrapping the wings of his greatcoat over both of them.
The figure was slight, he realised as his senses recovered from the blast. A lad, silly young idiot. Or a woman.
The smell of fire and burning gases and dust subsided. The singing in his ears cleared. Face down he could see nothing, but he could smell, and he could hear.
Smell not coal, not dirt and sweat as he expected, but jasmine and soap and the haunting scent of feminine skin. And hear someone gasping for breath under the weight of him, and a familiar voice complaining.
‘Ouch! You great lummock, what did you have to do that for?’
‘Lily?Lily?’
Chapter Twenty Four
‘You all right, sir.? Did the trick all right, that did.’
Half convinced he was dreaming, Jack got to his feet, trying not to tread on the struggling figure underneath him.
‘Yes, I am fine. Sam all right? Good lad, there’ll be a bonus for you – you’re as good as your father, and you can tell him that for me.’
His head was spinning, with shock and anger he realised. The men must not find out that Lily was here. No-one must.
‘This foolish wench here has got a bit of a bruising. I will just walk her back to the shaft, make sure she gets back up all right. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, Will.’
Lily had struggled up on her elbows and was making undignified whooping noises.’
Quiet,’ he hissed, hauling her to her feet and beginning to march her back down the heading. ‘Have you hit your head?’
‘No.’ She had enough breath back to snap at him, and enough sense to keep her voice to a furious hiss. ‘No, my head is fine. The rest of me has just been used as a mattress by some idiot man with delusions of chivalry. Or possibly he was just looking for a comfortable landing.’
‘You had no business to be here. You might have been killed.’
For endless seconds he had not known whether she was alive or dead or seriously injured as she lay crushed under him. His stomach still churned with reaction.
He should escort her to the surface, he should remonstrate with her in a quiet and dignified manner until she saw the error of her ways. What he wanted to do was to shout at her and shake her until her teeth rattled for scaring him more than he had ever been frightened in his life before.
But it was impossible to do that in the middle of a workingmine, as impossible as it would be on the dance floor at Almack’s. Jack set his teeth and half-dragged, half-carried, Lily to the foot of the shaft.
Her hat was gone. A bedraggled bandana hung down in the midst of a tangle of red curls. With an oath he took off his own hat, bundled her hair under it and jammed it on her head. It came down to her nose.
‘Ow!’
‘Quiet.’ Jack opened his coat. ‘Put your arms around me, stand on my right foot. Stand, I said, not stamp. Hold on.’
He crushed her close, the brim of his own hat knocking against his face as he tried to shield her as much as possible. He was shaking he realised. Just a little. Just enough to be conscious of the tremor running through his arms and legs.
She could have been killed, wandering around down there by herself. How the hell had she got there?
Oh God, Lily. I love you. I am going to strangle you…
They emerged into the daylight, unnoticed in the usual milling crowd at the top. Jack took Lily’s arm above the elbow and walked her fast, straight across the open space to the hovel where he had hitched his horse under the sloping roof.
He plucked his hat off her head, clapped it on his own and lifted her, before she could do more than yelp in protest, tossing her over the horse’s neck.
