With my new help, I knelt down. “Blythe, Rother’s dead.”
“Good.”
“I didn’t want it like this—”
“Don’t care.”
“But….”
“Scared you. Hurt you. All the reason I need. Just sorry it wasn’t me.”
I petted Blythe’s head as much to comfort him as center myself. A great deal of this didn’t sit well with me. I wanted Rother out of my life, but sending him to the mortuary wasn’t part of my plan. My mind raced with scenarios that might have ended differently, but I needed to quash them for now. More important things and people were my priority.
“We can talk about it later. Can you stand?”
Mouth tight to muffle the howl, Blythe shifted his legs underneath himself and struggled to rise. The sound haunted me almost as much as his weakening speech. “Have to. Too many fucking dead people in here. Ah… fucking hell!” He paled, and a new layer of sweat glazed his face. “Won’t be one of them.”
Pressing a towel to the bullet wound, Alexandra helped steady him. “Can you make it out of here?”
“Have to. Want out of here.”
Making a brief pause, I collected my letters and jammed them tight into my vest for safekeeping. The three of us tiptoed out of the en suite, none of us acknowledging the man on the floor. We shifted into the bedroom, heading for the door. I tried to hold my gaze level so I wouldn’t have to see the carnage beneath us. The bodies of Vivian and Avaston were now part of the clutter.
“Wait.” I stopped our progress. “There’s one item I need before we can go.”
While Alexandra held Blythe steady, I scoured the room for my tools. They were upended against the wall from Rother’s search, but everything appeared to be there. I snatched what I needed and dropped a few in my pocket next to Blythe’s pistol.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Crossing the threshold into the hallway gave me a glimmer of hope. I couldn’t even bring myself to close the door because I didn’t want to face the killing field behind me.
All I wanted was to move forward. “We’ll take the back stairs. I don’t want anyone to see us like this. Blythe, can you make it?”
“Not leaving without you.”
How I found the strength to smile, I couldn’t say.
We began the careful shuffle down the hall, and I cursed its length. To defuse my worry over all our conditions, I turned my curiosity in Alexandra’s direction.
“I know this may sound inappropriate, but your timing was impeccable. What brought you upstairs?”
“I’ve been keeping a close eye on Rother.” Alexandra sounded more like herself again. “He’s been more unstable than usual. When Blythe headed upstairs, he paid far too much attention and followed him up. In his state of mind, I didn’t trust him. I thought it best to shadow him. I would have come up sooner but a client slowed me down.” She paused to take a settling breath.
“I hope you’re not blaming yourself for being too slow. In the end, I don’t think it would have mattered.”
She didn’t sound convinced. “That looked like Avaston in the bedroom. Why were he and Vivian here?”
In spite of the obvious evasion, I answered her. “I’m not sure. I ran into them walking out of that bedroom there.”
I pointed at the open door and thunder rocked the house.
Flames burst through the threshold and into the hallway. Hot air slammed into us, solid as pavement, knocking us all to the carpet. Blythe cried out from the impact.
I rushed to the doorway, careful of the flames belching out the top and spreading across the ceiling. It hurt my eyes to look inside; the entire room was engulfed. I could see the destruction near the damaged gas line feeding the blaze. When I’d been tied to the bed, Avaston had checked his watch as if his time was fleeting. An act of arson.
Alexandra was right behind me. “We need to shut off the gas.”
“Avaston and Vivian did this. I’m sure of it. We can’t do it here. Where’s the main control?”
“In the basement.”
Dread swelled inside me. “Vivian said they’d been in the basement.” Shouts and screams drifted up from the main stairwell, signaling more disaster beneath us. “They did the same down there.”
A dose of shock must have given Blythe enough strength to follow close. “A fire in the basement will come up behind the walls and torch all the woodwork. This place is done.”
Flames were making a gradual yet constant meal of the corridor, wicking through the fabric wallpaper. “We don’t have much time. Can you take Blythe out of here?”
Blythe lumbered to me and threw his arm over my shoulder for support. “I’m not fucking leaving your side.”
“Fine, you can come with me. Alexandra, make sure everyone’s out of the house.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I have one last thing to do.” She hesitated, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain or deal with a lecture. “Go! Now!”
With one last nod, she dashed ahead of me, and I played human crutch under Blythe’s arm.
Slower than I’d like, we ambled down the main hallway, making sure Blythe didn’t fall. His weight threatened to fold my weary legs. I would have preferred to take the rear stairs, but since we were clearing Delaga House, our appearance was moot. An acrid smoke haze began to build, growing denser as we worked our way down. Both of us pulled our shirts out of our pants to cover our noses and mouths, for all the good it would do. We were still coughing as we descended, and Blythe leaned on me harder and harder. For the first time, I was thankful for the poor attendance.
When we reached the main floor, I wanted to stop and give up.
Hellish peals of fire rode the walls of the entire salon, spewing out of scorched holes in the plaster. Smoke filtered the glow into a fearsome luminescence. An unfortunate person lay in the corner along the wall, covered in tongues of burning orange and yellow that obscured their identity. He or she wasn’t moving. I prayed I wouldn’t discover more. Hunching down, I tried to find what little breathable air still existed.
“Where are we going?” Blythe sounded weaker than before. The exertion and smoke wasn’t doing him any favors.
“The office.” I pulled him where I needed to go, knowing full well Blythe would never allow me to dump him outside so I could finish faster.
I could feel the heat in the walls. Quickening our pace, I hoped they wouldn’t burst in a shower of sparks and dragon’s breath. Blythe struggled, and I dragged him into the hall. Thank heaven, the office door was ajar.
I kicked it wider and found fire just beginning to consume the room. Expediency was my goal. No blood seeped through to the front of Blythe’s shirt, so the bullet was still within his bulk, hopefully not lodged somewhere too life threatening. Although all this movement couldn’t have been improving his odds. Leaning Blythe against the desk, I hurried to the safe. Out of my pocket I pulled out the audio amplifier I’d purchased weeks ago, putting one end in my ear and the other on the safe’s door.
“You’re cracking a safe? Now?” Raspy and weak, Blythe managed to sound surprised.
“Hush.”
Seconds lost were the bane of us both. I tuned him out, as well as the crackle and pop of burning brothel. Stay focused.
I chastised myself for not taking time to memorize the combination, but in all fairness, every time I’d opened the damned safe, I’d been rushed. Get in. Use what you needed. Put it all back exactly as found. Get out. All without anyone noticing.
Closing my eyes, I listened to the gears engaging, smiling in pleasure as the last tumbler fell into place. I’d been fortunate with the make and model of Rother’s safe. Not all were susceptible to this method of entry. The handle clunked with a turn and swung wide, revealing the bounty.
“You should have been a burglar.”
“Don’t give me ideas.”
Inside the iron box sat stacks of cash and a pile of files and papers as well as a few inci
dental items. I snatched Rother’s legal seal, which bore the image burned into my neck, and threw it into the hallway. The flames would soften the brass and ruin it forever.
“Don’t you need that?”
Not giving the stamp another look, I went back into the safe. “That’s Rother’s. He doesn’t need it now. I’ll have my own made.”
I reached into the safe and pulled out the pile of papers.
“What are those?”
“What I came for. Rother’s blackmail stash.”
“You mean….”
“This is all the physical proof Rother used to convince people to join his cause. Including yours.”
When I realized Rother couldn’t turn Blythe in to the authorities without risking his own freedom earlier this evening, I’d gone upstairs to find the amplifier to open the safe one final time and steal the pile of evidence. Only I’d been sidetracked by everything before I could.
I carried the pile over to a stripe of flame that was working its way up the bookshelf. Touching the paper’s edge to the growing ember, I made sure the fire took hold. I dropped the pile onto one of the chairs, watching the papers blacken and curl as the blaze devoured them. This was why I’d come back. I couldn’t risk them surviving inside the safe.
I didn’t take my eyes off the small pyre until I was sure there was nothing for anyone to see or use. Everyone Rother held in thrall was now free. Including Blythe.
“Blythe, what in the world are you doing?”
As weak as he was, I found Blythe in the safe, stuffing his pockets full with the cash. “You never know.”
I wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him along. “We have to go.”
He grabbed the last fistful of money and allowed me to lead him back into the inferno. There was no way we could go back the way we came. The fire had flashed and the entrance leading back to the salon was the mouth to hell.
Blythe stumbled and crashed to the floor as we headed toward the kitchen and the rear entrance.
“Get up, Blythe. I can’t carry you!” I dug my shoulder under him to push him back to his feet. “I’m not leaving you behind!”
He lurched to his feet, and we strove to reach the door before the flames could drag us into their maw. With both my hands holding him up, I kicked the rear door open, and we stumbled out into the fresh air.
We both coughed and vomited up a stream of charcoal and bile as soon as we cleared the doorway, but I forced us up. We were too close to the building. One more time I made him stand when I knew he wanted to give up, my determination to survive fueling my legs to keep walking.
Rounding the side of the building, I took one last look behind us. The gazebo began to smolder and catch as flames shattered a high window and showered the garden in phosphorescent rain.
Blythe’s voice was sicker than before. “I’ll build you another one.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
There was only so much more strength in me, and Blythe’s mass needed more with every step. My body ached, screaming from effort, but I refused to quit, only stopping when we reached the other side of the street, where others safely watched the destruction of Delaga House. I lowered us to the sidewalk as best I could and cradled him close.
Alexandra raced to our side, followed by a cadre of the staff. She checked us both under the plentiful firelight and shouted over her shoulder, “Go find Dr. Perrin! He was here this evening!”
A pair of shaken employees dashed off, mindful of Alexandra’s natural authority. She tore a chunk of fabric off the hem of one of the girls’ dresses, rolled it into a wad, and pressed it to Blythe’s back.
I wiped the soot and sweat along his head. “Are you still with me?”
He didn’t say a word, but nodded and squeezed me tight.
“Stay with me, Blythe. Don’t you dare go to sleep on me. You hear me?”
Once again, he didn’t say a word, but nodded and squeezed me tight.
I kept saying the same thing over and over while Alexandra tended to his wound and we waited for help. More than once I slapped him when he looked like he might drift off. The urge to cave in and collapse taunted me, but an iron determination held me together. Blythe would survive if I had to find a thousand vicars to perform a resurrection. The fire brigade arrived, but all they could do was prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings as we witnessed the conflagration. Delaga House was lost. But we were free. All of us. In a baptism of fire and brimstone.
And that was fine.
Chapter 29
LOVE WAS a convoluted subject for me.
In public, my parents used to bandy about polite professions of adoration as was expected during gentile events. Soirees where we crowded, shoulder to shoulder, with affluent rivals while being serenaded by what passed as musical geniuses. Holding court while performing the proper dance at the Summer’s Grande Ball. I imagine their wedding was full of noble exultations of courtly praise and binding emotions.
What a shame I bore witness to their lives in private.
My elocution classes required me to read poetry to enhance my diction. Sonnets devoted to endless passion scripted a story far different from that of my parents. Granted, some kind of passion must have existed between them—my mother bore three children—but at home I saw no gesture one might expect from such “lovestruck” people.
It didn’t take long for me to learn love was a polite fiction to legitimatize the business transactions surrounding the marriages of the nobility. As if financial gain could birth true affection capable of spanning the ages. Ridiculous nonsense.
Since my examples were liars, how would I ever expect to recognize the genuine article? Or did they honestly expect me to believe I would fall into helpless romance the moment I pronounced my vows to a man I barely knew?
My marriage proved their theory to be rubbish.
I could race this idea in circles, never finding the answer, but far more important circumstances demanded my attention.
As he lay facedown, I stroked Blythe’s skull with a touch intended to soothe. The last thing I wanted was for him to know more pain. My fingertips kneaded a path down his neck and traced the mounds of his shoulders. A nervous shudder greeted me, so I continued my task, doing my best to unravel his tacit fear.
Uncertainty flickered hot sparks through my spine as we entered into foreign territory. I prayed we were both up to the task. My courage would be tested. Moving with slow care, I admired his size, his power. The muscle density I would never possess had felt so sweet over me, bright and warm in my thoughts.
I followed down his back. The perspiration buttering his skin made the movement effortless. My fingers glided to the right, stopping at the raised welt south of his shoulder blade made up of a surgical line and a pucker that was once a gunshot wound.
Time had not erased my memory. Not the terror over Blythe’s shallow gasps growing weaker by the moment as I held him, watching our home burn to the ground. Nor the possibility of losing him after all we endured to escape Rother’s insanity. I had to give Dr. Perrin a great deal of credit. He had done excellent work retrieving the bullet lodged in Blythe’s lung. A rib and the mass of meat making up his back had impeded its path. I had flinched at every bump and shake of the mad carriage ride to the hospital, trying to make Blythe’s trip as comfortable as I could. The operation went without further drama only because Perrin allowed me in the surgical theater as long as I stayed to one side. I demanded it and he didn’t have time to debate. I couldn’t bear to leave Blythe.
He had promised to never leave my side. It was the least I could do.
The healed scar reminded me of how divine intervention couldn’t be counted on. We made our own destiny and saved ourselves when the time came.
Morning light shining through the window still cast a series of soft shadows over us. I dug my fingers into the fleshy globe of his backside, relishing the delicious yield under my palm. Pressing his buttock to one side, I spread the gap wider so I could see
better. With my other hand I breached his tight ring, adding a second oily finger alongside the first that had been working him for the last few minutes.
Blythe grunted, his head resting on his forearms. “Oy. Take it easy on me back there.”
“Oh for pity’s sake, stop being such a baby. It’s only two fingers. I’m hardly going to give you the whole fist.” I shrugged, even though he wasn’t facing me. “Not yet, anyway.”
“That’s not funny.”
“This morning you insisted on… how did you say it? Oh yes, ‘kicking in my back door.’ Somehow, I’m sure you’ll cope.” I couldn’t help but grin. All of this brought out a mischievous side I hadn’t known I possessed.
“It’s been a long time for me. And you’re not hung like a little boy.”
“That’s very flattering, but not saving you either. I’ll be sure to be gentle. A little role reversal is a good thing for the soul.”
“It’s not my soul I’m worried about.”
I swatted his behind with my free hand, noting the sudden clench on my fingers. “You were having a fine poke at me earlier before this whole thing started, sir. What have we learned?”
“That I should have kept fucking you and popped my cork before asking you what you wanted for your birthday.”
“Especially on my birthday, you fool. Now stop tensing. I’m not done preparing you.” Even if he had brought up the forbidden subject, I had no real reason to hurt Blythe. He meant well after all, but it was no secret I had no fondness for the date in spite of his construction of the gazebo last year. I preferred no mention of the day I was born at all, although it did provide an excellent opportunity. Since he asked, he was in no position to refuse when I told him I wanted to be on top for a change.
It was another first in my life, which was why he gave in. No power in the universe could force Blythe’s hand, yet he offered himself with minimal grousing. Notice I said minimal, not without.
I stroked his channel, luxuriating in the silky grasp and imagining what would come next. I wanted to make this good for us both and not finish the moment I made my way inside. As aroused as I was, there was no guarantee. The muscles gave way at a cautious pace, so I curled my fingers downward, searching. I found a firm lump hiding behind the wall and gave it an experimental rub.
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