Mulroney turned to Flannery. “We have to go before the roof collapses.”
Flannery nodded, his light-blue eyes trailing over Hazel, almost apologetically, before both men turned and fled from the room, leaving her to die by flame.
Chapter Nineteen
He had to find Hazel.
It was the only thought in Lucien’s mind as he fought his way through the smoldering inferno of the warehouse on Nightingale Lane with Strathmore at his side. They had indeed gathered an army, but he had discovered an army couldn’t hold a bloody candle to dynamite. Scotland Yard and Special League were in full force, dozens of men having been called into action to apprehend the villains responsible for the railway bombings.
But when they had descended upon the road in the docks Hazel had circled on her map, they had been met with an explosion. One of the large warehouses shook, flame bursting through the roof, windows raining glass on the street. He could still feel the concussion of the blast in his chest, as he threw a hand over his face and worked his way through fallen rafters and the oppressive heat of the flames.
Around them, the building groaned, a full collapse imminent.
He turned to Strathmore, yelling over the din. “Go back! It isn’t safe, and if anything happens to you, Lettie will never forgive me.”
But Strathmore shook his head. “If anything happens to you, Vi will never forgive me.”
Stubborn bastard, but Lucien was damned grateful for him. His heart was pounding, his body pouring in sweat. Christ, if he lost Hazel—
No. He refused to think of anything other than locating Hazel, of the hope she was yet alive. She had to be somewhere in this damned warehouse. He felt certain of it, and he would not rest until he found her.
Through the smoke and the shipping crates before them, two figures came into sight ahead, moving with haste. In the haze and lack of lamplight, Lucien had just enough time to distinguish the glint of pistols before the building gave a shudder, and the floor overhead gave way, falling down on the men and burying them in burning rubble.
He and Strathmore rushed forward, but the men who had been felled by the wreckage, whoever they were, showed no signs of life. That was when he heard a shrill scream he recognized.
“Hazel,” he called out, shielding his face with his arm as he moved blindly toward the source of her cry.
The terror in her voice had been undeniable, and it matched the terror clawing at him from within. The flames grew higher with each labored breath he took. The possibility he would not locate her in time, or that they would all perish in the rampaging fire was strong. The building gave another groan.
“Move!” Strathmore shouted, pushing him out of the path of a falling, burning floor joist.
It fell harmlessly between them, leaving a hole in the rafters overhead and a perfect view to the escalating fire raging through the level above them. If Strathmore had not acted when he had, shoving him before the joist had hit him, he could have been knocked unconscious and succumbed to the flames and smoke.
“Thank you!” he yelled, then turned his head back toward the direction of Hazel’s scream. “Hazel!”
“Lucien!”
Her frantic response reached him over the crackling fire. Either he was delusional, or she was still alive. Either way, he moved toward the sound of her voice. He was an automaton, going toward her come hell, Fenians, dynamite, or a burning warehouse. She was his, damn it, and he loved her. He could deny it no longer. He needed her. She was the woman he would not fail. Could not fail.
This was her life, but it was also his and Strathmore’s.
His brother-in-law, bless the fearless bastard, followed him through the rapidly rising flame. Through the smoke, he found her at last, bound to a chair which had been upended and lay on its side. She was attempting to use a piece of splintered wood that had rained from overhead to cut through her knots. It was so damn like her, this endless determination and her boundless courage, he almost cried in relief.
But the groaning shell of the warehouse reminded him they had not reached safety yet. He dropped to his knees at her side.
“My God, Hazel.” He extracted a knife and began sawing away at her binding. Strathmore was not far behind him, and he too withdrew a blade and started work upon the ropes capturing her legs.
“Lucien?” she gasped, coughing.
Her face was streaked with soot, tracked with tears, but she was alive, thank God, and she had never been more beautiful. He freed her wrists and arms.
“I am here, my love,” he soothed. “Strathmore and I will take you to safety.”
“Done,” Strathmore announced. “Let’s get the hell out of here before the roof falls on our bloody heads.”
“Can you walk?” he asked Hazel.
She scrambled to her feet. “Yes.”
“I will go first,” Strathmore hollered over the tumult. “Arden, put her between us. We need to stay together, stay calm, and move toward the door as quickly and efficiently as possible. Ready?”
Strathmore had endured the hells of torture and imprisonment. Of course he would be cool and calm in the midst of a deadly blaze. Once more, Lucien was grateful for his brother-in-law, a man he was quickly coming to admire.
“Lead the way, Strathmore,” he hollered, planting his hands on Hazel’s waist. “Here we go, darling,” he said into her ear. “Hold on to Strathmore, and I will hold on to you.”
There was no time for her to respond, for Strathmore had already begun moving. Time was against them, so too the flames and the thickening of the deadly smoke. His lungs burned, and the three of them were gasping for air. The heat was intense as they meandered slowly through the path they had just taken, avoiding fallen floors and beams, working their way around a fresh blaze.
Finally, at long last, they reached the doorway. The cold, crisp air of late autumn was a welcome burst on his face and in his lungs. Strathmore guided them into the street, and the three of them collapsed as one, gasping for breath, shuddering coughs wracking them all.
But alive.
Mercifully, blessedly, alive. Lucien looked toward his brother-in-law, nodded his thanks, then gathered Hazel in his arms. He buried his face in her hair, not giving a damn who saw his unseemly display of emotion. Not giving a damn about the tears streaking down his cheeks.
All he cared about in that moment was the woman in his arms. Words failed him, so he didn’t say a bloody thing. He simply held her close, relishing the pounding of her heart against his chest, the way she clutched him back. Now that he had her where she belonged, he had no intention of ever letting her go again.
“Tilt your head back, sweetheart.”
Hazel obeyed Lucien’s command, tipping her chin toward the ceiling. She offered no protest at his term of endearment, just as she had not offered any protest when he had held her in his arms for the carriage ride back to Strathmore’s townhouse. Just as she had not protested when Lucien had announced to his worried sister upon their arrival that he would attend Hazel in her bath.
Brother and sister had indulged in a private exchange just out of earshot. Presumably, Violet had argued against the scandalous notion of Lucien assisting an unmarried female whilst she was nude, submerged in a tub. Also presumably, Lucien had run roughshod over his sister’s protests. In the end, Lucien had escorted Hazel upstairs, drawing the bathwater for her and undressing her himself, before joining her in the tub.
His every touch had been reverent but practical. He had stripped her dress, chemise, stockings, and drawers away and plucked what remained of the pins binding her hair. He had scrubbed her skin free of the soot and smoke, though she felt certain the awful, putrid scent of it would never leave her. After the shock and tumult of the day, the presence of his powerful body at her back, surrounding her in the warm, lavender-scented water, was precisely what she needed.
Gently, he worked a lather into her hair now, his long fingers kneading her scalp.
“Is your cheek paining you?” he asked, his
tone grim.
She had not seen herself in a mirror, but the pain in her cheek and jaw was enough to tell her she suffered bruising from Mulroney’s slaps. “It is well enough,” she said, closing her eyes as he continued his massage.
His hands upon her, after all the hell she had endured, felt like pure heaven.
“I would kill them again if I could, for what they have done to you.” His voice was a low growl now, and she did not doubt he meant what he said.
It was the first acknowledgment she had received that Mulroney and Flannery had perished in the fire. “Are you certain?”
“Certain that I would tear them apart with my bare hands?” he asked. “Christ yes. I will hurt any man who hurts you. It kills me that I was not able to protect you as I should have.”
“Certain they are dead?” she elaborated. “That the two of them died in the fire?”
Lucien cleared his throat, continuing his tender ministrations. “Yes. When the Fire Brigade doused the flames, two dead were discovered in the rubble. Two men meeting the descriptions of Flannery and Mulroney were found side by side, buried beneath fallen debris. The man acting as lookout, and who also caused the blast when he saw the arrival of Scotland Yard, was captured as well before he could escape. He is the same man I chased at the hotel that day when Mulroney and Flannery attacked you. You are finally safe now, thank God.”
Hours had passed in the wake of her rescue from the burning warehouse. As the Fire Brigade had arrived in their steam fire engines, she, Lucien, and Strathmore had been swept to the periphery of the scene. A physician called for by Winchelsea had attended all of them there in the street. They had answered the questions of Scotland Yard. And then at long last, they had returned, all three of them, to Strathmore’s home.
Lark House still required additional safety measures in an abundance of caution, Lucien had explained, in the wake of the incursion and planting of the bomb in her chamber. And that was how she had managed to find herself ensconced in a hot, restoring bath, the Duke of Arden waiting upon her as if he were her personal servant.
“I am not glad they are dead,” she said at last, a tremor in her voice she wished she could have suppressed, “though I am grateful they cannot harm anyone else. But I would not wish such a demise as what they suffered upon my greatest enemy.”
“They left you tied to that chair, knowing you would perish in the flames, those craven bastards,” he reminded her. “It is only fitting they received the end they would have forced upon you.”
Lucien was right. Mulroney and Flannery had consigned her to die in the fire. And if the fire hadn’t begun when it had, they would have killed her themselves in another fashion. But she had no wish to dwell upon that now. The evils of others would be answered for, and she had faith in that, if not human nature.
She was a Pinkerton agent, after all.
But she had much to be thankful for, because she had failed herself today, and unquestionably, she would have died in the fire as Mulroney and Flannery had intended, had it not been for the selfless intervention of Lucien and the Duke of Strathmore. Though she had thanked them both profusely in the street, gratitude rose within her again now, and she could not contain it.
“Rinse,” he said then, and she felt the lukewarm caress of water bathing her head, washing the suds free. Once, twice, thrice. He sifted the heavy strands of her hair, cleansing any lingering traces of the trauma she had faced earlier that day.
“Thank you for finding me,” she told Lucien. “And for saving me.”
“We all need saving sometimes,” he said.
Sweetly floral notes filled the air, warring with the scent of smoke she realized must still be emanating from their discarded garments. It seemed a miracle they had escaped the burning, badly damaged warehouse together. A miracle they were both relatively unscathed. A miracle for the protective strength of his body all around her, his worshipful touch and tenderness soothing away the horrors of the day.
“Who saved you?” she dared to asked, eyes still firmly closed.
“You,” he said simply.
No one had ever said something so deeply moving to her, so personal, and she knew what such an admission must cost Lucien. She sat up in the bath and turned in his arms. Everything inside her came loose. The fear, the terror, the pain, the hope, the joy…all spiraled into one, effervescent sensation. Gently, she cupped his beloved face, stubbled in whiskers, committing it to memory. Their gazes locked and held.
“I love you, Lucien,” she told him, because she could not keep the words to herself any longer.
They were bigger than she was, huge and demanding, needing to be spoken.
His mouth was upon hers in the next breath, moving tentatively at first, then with greater hunger. The kiss turned carnal—lips and tongue and teeth and desperation. She sucked the fullness of his lower lip. Hours ago, she had faced the looming prospect of her own death, and now, she felt so very alive, with the mouth of the man she loved on hers. With his big, powerful body surrounding her, with their breaths mingling, their tongues moving languidly together.
Later, she would worry about consequences. Tomorrow, she would remember all the reasons why they could not be together. She would worry about the disparity between their social stations. Today, she did not want to fear. Today, she only wanted to be the woman who loved Lucien West, Duke of Arden.
Their kiss deepened, and she was ravenous for him. Perhaps it was the shock and the trauma she had endured. Perhaps it was simply the freedom of admitting her love to Lucien. Hazel could not be sure. The reason did not matter. Only the want did.
Her hand glided through the silken water, and she found him, thick and erect. His deep groan echoed in the tiled expanse of the bathroom. She gripped him, pumping his shaft. The tenderness inside her splintered, mingling with savagery. With the need to claim and be claimed. Deep inside, she hungered to be filled.
Hazel broke the kiss, losing herself in his verdant gaze. She was breathless, and his mouth was puffy from the ardency of their kisses. His dark wavy hair was wet, just beginning to dry. He had never been more gorgeous.
“I want you,” she told him, not bothering to mince words. “Now.”
He clenched his jaw. “I promised my sister I would not defile you in her house, damn it.”
She was determined, her hand stroking him with greater intent beneath the water. He grew firmer. His cock was a thing of beauty, and she wanted it inside her. Just one more time, whispered her heart. What could be the harm?
“Your sister never has to know,” she said.
“Bloody hell.” He took her wrist in a gentle grip and moved her hand away, before standing suddenly. “I am attempting to be honorable, Hazel. You have suffered so much today, and I will not be a rutting beast.”
Hazel looked up the impressive expanse of his body, taking in every sinew, every muscle. Water rolled down his broad chest and flat abdomen, down his thick thighs, dripped from the end of his rigid length. Entranced, she rose to her knees.
“I see no beast here,” she told him, and then she took him in her hand again.
She wanted to taste him. To pleasure him as he had done for her. If she never had another chance after today, she would not squander this one. Tentatively, she touched her tongue to the tip of him.
His quick inhalation sliced through the stillness of the air from above. “Hazel.”
She ignored the warning in his tone. Tilting her head back so her gaze locked with his, she took him into her mouth. She hummed her approval deep in her throat. An answering ache pulsed to life between her thighs.
“Fuck,” he ground out.
The leashed desire in his proper baritone spurred her on. She took him deeper, wanting more of him. His fingers were in her hair, cradling her skull. His hips moved, and he thrust into her mouth. Allowing her instinct to guide her, she ran her lips down his length, swirled her tongue over the tip of him until he moaned, then took him in her mouth again. He surged into the back of her thr
oat. She withdrew, catching her breath, and flicked her tongue over him once more.
“No more.” He caught her arms, pulled her until she stood before him, dripping and naked as he was. “You are enough to tempt a saint.”
But there was no censure in his gaze. Tenderly, he helped her from the tub, then stepped out himself, before toweling the both of them dry. When he had finished, he kissed her long and hard, then took her hand in his.
Wordlessly, he guided her into the guest chamber. Hands linked, they made their way across the plush carpet and fell onto the bed together. She kissed him as he rose over her, settling himself between her spread thighs. His fingers dipped into her folds, parting her, petting the bud of sensitive flesh, and sending wild sparks of desire shooting through her.
Her nails dug into his shoulders. Her hips were moving restlessly, and this time, she did not want patience. She did not want prolonged, tender lovemaking. All she wanted was Lucien, deep inside her.
He slid a finger into her channel, testing her readiness. She bowed from the bed. It was as if every sensation within her had been heightened. Making love with him had always been a revelation, but this was a celebration. It was life and love.
“Please,” she whispered against his lips, “I need you.”
And he gave in, removing his finger, guiding himself to her entrance. She was impatient beneath him. She kissed down his throat, gently bit into the strong cords of his neck, over his Adam’s apple.
He held still for a moment, gazing down at her with an expression so affectionate, she could do nothing but frame his face in her hands. “I love you,” she told him again.
It was all the spur he required. Lucien thrust inside her, deep and hard and fast. She was filled, stretched. Completed in a way only he could complete her.
“You are mine,” he told her, withdrawing, then slipping inside once more.
“Yes. I am yours.” She pulled him to her for another kiss, telling him with her lips what she could not bear to say aloud. That she would be forever his. And how she wished he too could be hers. But they were not meant for forever, and she knew it.
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