Page 45 of The Unwilling Bride
He was to the west, naked to the waist, helping to tear down the slate roof of the shed where the tallow was stored. It, too, was aflame, sparks flying from it toward the miller’s house. If they could bring down the roof, it would smother most of the flames before the miller’s house was in serious danger.
She couldn’t see Henry in the crowd as more people came to lend a hand and bewail the disaster.
She spied the miller’s wife, her arms about her crying children. The flames made the tears on her cheeks shimmer and she was silently mouthing prayers.
Constance hurried to her. “Has anyone been hurt?”
The miller’s wife stared at her as if she didn’t recognize her. “What’s to become of us?” she moaned. “What’s to become of us?”
Constance took hold of the woman’s face to get her undivided attention. “Has anyone been hurt?” she repeated with slow deliberation.
The woman’s eyes focused. “No, my lady,” she murmured. “I don’t think so.”
“Where are your maidservants?”
The miller’s wife nodded at the line of people passing the buckets and a few wandering aimlessly.
“Fetch your maids. Set one to watch your children and keep them out of danger. Have the others help you take what valuables you can from your house.”
The woman gasped as she understood what Constance was implying.
“Only as a precaution,” Constance assured her. “If the wind holds as it is, and the shed comes down, your house should be spared.”
But if it shifted…
“If the house catches, you must get out at once. Your lives are worth more than anything you possess.”
“Yes, my lady,” the woman said, choking back a sob. “Oh, my lady, what’ll we do if the house burns down?”
“Lord Merrick will build you another,” Constance staunchly replied. “Have no fear that you’ll be left homeless.”
Another cry went up from the line. Someone had fallen.
Coughing when a gust of wind blew smoke into her face, Constance ran to help, pushing her way through the people gathered around the man lying on the ground.
“Peder!” she cried, her heart sinking when she saw who it was. She knelt beside the old man, whose face was drawn and gray.
She pointed at a younger servant from the castle. “You, there, take his place. Someone help me carry—”
Two strong, familiar hands appeared and pulled Peder up. Constance raised her eyes to see Merrick cradling Peder in his arms as if he were a child and, without a word, he carried the elderly man away from the fire and smoke.
She ran after them. “Here. Set him here,” she said when they reached a small embankment where Peder’s head could be elevated.
Merrick set the old man down as gently as if he were a slumbering infant. Once Peder was on the ground, she used the corner of her sleeve to wipe the soot from his face.
“Is he dead?” Merrick asked, his voice as cold as the north wind.
“No. He’s breathing. I think…I hope…he swoonedfrom the effort of hauling buckets,” she said as she examined Peder’s face.
When she looked up, Merrick was gone. Soon she could hear him calling out for the men to pull harder.
As the shed’s roof came down, she gave Peder a sip of a restorative made from foxglove. He coughed and spluttered, then opened his eyes. “What—?”
“You swooned.”
He struggled to sit up. “The hell I did.”
“You fell to the ground unconscious, and I call that a swoon,” she said more firmly, forcing him back down. “Do you have any pain in your chest or arms?”
