Page 92 of Fortune Favors the Viscount
Lucy was dozing, but Chester was already on alert. He growled as Emilia threw open the door. “Lucy, get up,” she whispered harshly, grabbing whatever clothes she could find.
Lucy sat up, blinking, but instantly frightened. “What’s wrong?” she cried.
Emilia didn’t know, but something told her to be ready to flee, to hide Lucy and make sure she was safe. “I don’t know yet. Just come with me.” Lucy scrambled to her, and they hurried out into the nursery to see Charlotte, a dress pulled haphazardly over her shift, shoes and stockings in her hand. Emilia pressed a finger to her lips, and they nodded.
She led the way quickly down the servants’ stair to the kitchen, Chester running ahead of them with his tail bristling. Mrs. Watson spun around as they entered. “What’s about?” she asked worriedly. “All the bells from the front have been ringing, and Rudy shouted at me to stay away from the windows!”
Emilia dumped Lucy’s things on the table. “I’m going to find out. Help Lucy get dressed. If you hear anything...” She hesitated. “Anythingalarming, take the girls through the garden to the stable and tell Henry to saddle a horse. Stay there with them until Mr. Dashwood or I come back.” She caught Lucy’s terrified expression and squeezed the girl tightly, opening her arms to admit Charlotte into the fierce hug. “No one will hurt either of you,” she whispered. “I promise. Nick promised. We mean it.” She kissed both on the tops of their heads. “Stay with Mrs. Watson. I’ll be back soon.”
Lucy’s quiet sobs followed her as she tore through the house, up the stairs through the baize door into the back of the hall. Emilia didn’t know what she expected, but what she found was still a shock.
Fire.
Smoke billowed through the open dining room doors, where Pearce and other servants were beating the flames with their own jackets. Emilia recoiled in alarm, then ran after James when he bolted past her into the morning room. He tossed the chairs aside and Emilia helped him shove over the table, and together they dragged the heavy carpet into the dining room and heaved it atop the flames. Pearce had already ripped down the drapes at the window and flung them onto the fire, and the carpet snuffed all but a few flickers. By then someone had fetched the sand buckets from the kitchen, and Pearce quickly smothered everything.
“Check the rest of the house,” said Emilia, breathing hard. “Mr. Pearce, will you and Henry go upstairs?” The butler nodded and rushed out, calling for Henry to follow him. Emilia and James ran from room to room on the ground floor, but the dining room was the only one affected.
When they were convinced the fire was completely out, twenty terrifying minutes later, Emilia was able to look at the mess. The front windows were smashed; the pianoforte, which had been near them, was in splinters. Beneath the ruined breakfast room carpet, the wooden floor would be scorched and charred. The fire had ignited the drapes, but Pearce’s quick thinking had prevented more than some burns to the plasterwork and walls.
“What was it?” she asked at last, gazing in disbelief at the wreckage of Nick’s elegant, empty dining room. Had it held a wool carpet and upholstered furnishings, wooden furniture and table linen, the fire might have gained more of a foothold. The whole room might be in flames, and soon the entire house. Her chest constricted as she said a fervent prayer of thanks for her instinct to pull Lucy and Charlotte out of the third-floor nursery, three flights of stairs from the safety of the street. If the house had caught fire—if no one had been able to put it out—the girls could have been trapped—
Pearce picked his way through the smoking rubble and poked around the pianoforte. “It struck the instrument first,” he said, finally prodding a large chunk of stone from the tangle of wire and shattered rosewood that had once been a splendid pianoforte. “There was a second object, which must have ignited the fire.”
“It was a bomb,” said James.
“A bomb!”
“A sort of bomb,” the young man said. “A bottle of oil with a burning wick on top. The glass breaks on impact, spilling the oil, and the wick sets it off.”
Now that the fire was out, he had his pistol in hand, and when Emilia started toward the windows to look, he hauled her back. “Stay away, Miss Greene,” he said grimly. “Jock will have given chase, if there’s anyone to chase. Until he returns, no one goes near the windows.”
She swallowed hard. “Someone must go to Vega’s,” she said in a strained voice. “Mr. Dashwood needs to know at once—”
“I’ve sent Rudy already,” said Pearce.
“I should go—”
“No,” James interrupted. “You stay here. Mr. Dashwood’s orders. We’re not to leave you, and you’re to be kept safe in the house.”
She looked at the carpet, singed and smoking, and the black marks climbing the walls to the ceiling. “I don’t feel particularly safe in the house.”
“It’s safer than you walking down the street, where anyone with a pistol could take a shot at you,” he replied, and she closed her mouth to keep from bursting into tears. Surely even Fitchley wouldn’t take a shot at her...
I’ll follow you night and day, he’d threatened. She herself had told Nick he would be enraged by the newspaper report.
Emilia shivered and rubbed her hands over her arms. “Can we board up the windows?”
Pearce nodded. “Henry’s already gone to the mews for some boards.”
The stables. She turned toward the back of the house. “Very good. Thank you, Mr. Pearce. James...” She touched his arm, and he nodded. “Thank you all. I should go...”
Still dazed, she made her way back to the kitchen. She must reassure the girls and try to calm them enough to go back to sleep. She wouldn’t say no to a cup of hot tea laced with brandy, either.
As Mr. Pearce had said, Henry was on his way back into the house with several boards under his arm. Mrs. Watson was hustling behind him, holding a bucket of nails and a hammer.
“Where are the girls?” Emilia asked.
Mrs. Watson paused to wipe her face. “Right in the sitting room, Miss Greene. I tucked them in there when I carried up the sand buckets. The poor things were tired, Miss Charlotte holding Miss Lucy in her arms.”
