“Darling, if you don’t ask me for a final dance before the evening is through, I will be beside myself with sorrow,” Grace said then, spinning her head toward him, her tongue flicking about like a lizard’s.
Ernest felt himself churned into a cycle that hadn’t a recognizable cause and effect. “Very well, darling,” he agreed. “One more dance.”
Chapter 2
An hour, or perhaps a small infinity later, Ernest, Rose, and Grace piled into Ernest’s carriage, with a plan to drop Grace off at the Bragg estate before the siblings skirted the rest of their way home. For a moment, all was silent except the horse’s hooves clopping across the wild night. Ernest felt Grace’s emotions stirring, like the wind before a storm. Rose held his eyes for a moment on the other side of the carriage, seemingly agreeing. Something wretched was about to happen.
“I really don’t know why you waste your time with those creatures,” Grace blurted. She dropped her head against the back of the carriage, altering her ladylike posture to one that seemed callous and sloppy.
“What are you talking about?” Ernest asked.
“You know. Marvin. Adam. What’s the third one again? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Those men, they’re a part of your past, now, Ernest. It’s not as though they’re going to help you strive to become what you’re meant to be.”
“And what is that, exactly?” Ernest asked. His blood squirted past his ears, making his pulse a sombre, loud drumbeat. “Those men, I’ve known them since I was a child. I can’t very well not speak with them when I—”
“It’s only that you’re meant to speak with the others at the ball. The ones who actually wish to propel you toward a better future. The ones who recognize that you, as an earl, are beneficial for their careers, as well. I tried endlessly to put you in line with the proper people at the ball, and each time, you resisted.” Grace flashed her palm toward Rose, stuttering. “Once, I find you consoling your little sister, here, as though you don’t have to do that endlessly at home. Rose, I recognize you’re young. But what your brother must do allows him very little time for what you need. You must grow up.”
“Incredible,” Rose cut in, sniffing. “Our father was entirely knowledgeable. A beautiful soul. And yet when he looked at you, it’s as though—”
“What is that, darling?” Grace interrupted, her shrill voice bursting through Rose’s softer one.
“Oh, nothing. Only that it’s funny what people miss, if they don’t look closely enough,” Rose said.
“That’s precisely what I mean about Ernest at the ball,” continued Grace. “He simply isn’t looking hard enough at the strategy he should be incorporating to ensure his career is sound. I’m glad you agree, Rose.”
“I have a feeling we’ll be agreeing about a great deal over the years, Grace,” Rose said. “I look forward to many years just like it.”
“I’ll improve at socializing, Grace,” Ernest assured her, trying to make himself stronger, surer. “You know I’ve been introverted for much of my life. It’s going to take time—”
But as he spoke, the carriage came to a staggering, sudden halt. Grace nearly flung forward. Her curls flashed through the air as she gripped Ernest’s knee, holding herself upright. Rose spun round to peer out the window just beside the driver’s seat. She blinked into the darkness, then asked, “What is it, Max?”
“Seems to be a bit of a jam, Lady Bannerman,” the driver hollered back.
“Any reason you can see?” Ernest asked.
“Long line of carriages up ahead,” he said. “Far as the eye. But up yonder, something flickering—reckon it could be a fire, although I can’t be certain.”
“A fire?” Ernest bolted upright and forced himself out of the carriage, splashing his boots into the lingering puddles that lined the long country road.
“What on earth are you doing?” Grace demanded. “Get back in here this instant. I’m sure it won’t be long before we can pass.”
But Ernest no longer heard her. He peered into the distance, past the long line of carriages. The air further down was thicker, flickering, as though it was filled with dense smoke. There, no stars no twinkled. Only darkness echoed back.
Ernest tapped forward and peered up at Max. “Do you think we could whip around this line and get up there to whatever’s burning? I want to help out if I can.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Grace hollered from the back.
“I don’t think so, sir,” Max admitted. He tilted his head to the side, assessing the road. “There’s a bit of a dip off to the side of the carriages, and I reckon I could flip ours if I’m not careful. The mud round here is pretty deep.”
“This is absolutely stupid. Just get back inside, Ernest. I’m sure it will be cleared in no time. And it’s far later than you think,” Grace continued. “You’re probably exhausted. You’re going to destroy yourself.”
For the first time all night, her voice didn’t affect him.
Ernest’s muscles twitched. Before he fully understood what he was doing, he stretched his long legs forward and sprung toward the burn. He flashed past carriage after carriage, charging toward this impossibility, this otherness. He’d never known himself to be particularly heroic. Yet in this moment, he didn’t question anything.
About fifty yards away, Ernest could make out the outline of what was burning: an enormous mansion, orange and yellow and red—a near-artistic achievement, if it weren’t for the devastation. Smoke billowed out the cracked windows, forming the monstrous smoke blob above the home. Out on the lawn, a collection of the staff and family members peered up, standing together like an army. Ernest surged the rest of the way toward the crowd, feeling the air grow thicker and more difficult to breathe. He willed himself not to cough.
A stooped middle-aged woman lurked on the outskirts of the crowd. Her body quaked with tears. She peered up at the mansion, wrapped tight in her cloak, looking as though she was witnessing the very last day of the world. Ernest glanced back at the house and then returned his attention to this woman.
Now that he looked at her—her fine features, her beautifully sewn cloak, he recognized that she wasn’t part of the group of staff members beside her. Rather, she was perhaps the lady of the house, yanked from her bed in the middle of the night.
Ernest took a firm step toward her and said, “Excuse me, my lady. Can you tell me what’s happened?”
The woman blinked enormous eyes toward him. It was as though she’d lost all ability to see, with her panic. She staggered a bit, seemingly drunk, although Ernest knew she was just awash with worry.
“Sir, I haven’t a clue what’s happened. Our beautiful home! Our world!” She sniffed and her lips parted, showing crooked teeth.
“Is everyone out? Is everyone all right?” Ernest felt fidgety, leaping from foot to foot, preparing fully to dive into the burning building.
“My niece. The daughter of the house… I couldn’t believe it, sir,” the woman sputtered. “She learned that the maid—one she’s had since she was a girl—was trapped inside. My niece was safe out here with the rest of us, and she just… just rushed back in! We haven’t seen her in many minutes, sir, and the fire has only grown. Look at it. It’s fully destroyed…”
“You’re saying a girl went back in?” Ernest demanded, incredulous. “How old?”
“She’s just turned 23, sir,” the woman continued. “She’s never been afraid of anything, sir, and now I’m terrified it’s destroyed her. I just… I can’t live with myself if…” She dropped her face into her palms and shook wildly, then fell to her knees.
Suddenly, the crowd outside gasped. Ernest flashed his eyes back toward the door to see a woman appear, bursting out of the front. The woman was dressed in a long, grey nightdress, and her white curls spilled down her back. It was clear that this was the maid, the woman the daughter of the house had returned to save.
“But where is she?” the woman, now on her knees, demanded, her voice a screech. “WHERE IS DIANA?”
/> Diana. The name seared itself across Ernest’s brain. What kind of reckless, wild individual had rushed back in to save the maid—and then successfully saved the maid—only to remain inside? The maid rushed forward, gripping her skirts. Her face was blotchy with ash.
Behind the maid, the ceiling of the foyer collapsed—just shot down to the ground, joining together the second and ground floors. Ernest staggered forward at the sound, hearing the staff and family members behind him cry out. The maid fell to the ground, her hands across her face. When Ernest reached her, she peered up at him, whispering, “She knew the ceiling was going to collapse. She told me to go first—to run as fast as I could. That she would find another way out. I saw her head back upstairs…”
As Ernest shot toward the house, he could feel the eyes of the crowd behind him, could even feel their judgment. What on Earth did he think he could do, in the raucous arms of this fire?
Once he reached the front door, he saw the devastation of the crumbling ceiling. All four walls of the foyer were completely scorched or on fire. A tapestry hung as if by a string, ready to crash to the ground.
It was clear that if Ernest wanted to enter the burning mansion, he simply couldn’t do it in this manner. He hesitated, assessing the scene. His eyes traced toward a tree located just beside him, blanketed in smoke and stretching up toward the black sky. With as much strength as he could muster, he sprung toward it, drawing his hand across the first branch. He felt like his much younger self, the boy who’d climbed trees and cried out with his friends—Marvin, Adam, and Peter, the very ones Grace insisted he no longer know—and used all his strength to barrel to the second floor. He peered into the window just beyond, noting that this part of the house still had its walls, floor, and ceiling intact.
Slowly, yet still very conscious of the passage of time, Ernest shuffled down to the edge of the branch, then drew his leg out toward the windowsill. With a rush of adrenaline, he leapt from the tree and into the window, where he crawled onto the floor. He erupted back to his feet, his eyes flashing back and forth, to find himself in a bedroom, as-yet untouched by the fire. Seeing it this way, mere minutes before it would crumble to nothingness, felt a bit like seeing a ghost. He would be the last human to ever set foot in this room.
Without wasting another moment, he hustled to the hallway, which held within it a river of smoke. He paused in the doorway for a moment and yelled out, “Diana!” but heard no answer. Inhaling the last of the half-clean air from within the bedroom, he drew his shirt over his mouth and began to stride down the hallway, unsure of what exactly he was looking for. The fire was a crisp and assertive presence near the staircase, with a very thin path between the flickering flames and the wall. If he trusted what the maid had told him, then Diana had hustled back up these very stairs but had surely not proceeded in this direction, as it was mostly blocked.
Ernest drummed up as much passion and energy as he could. His head throbbing, he thrust himself through the thin path, diving toward the far end of the hallway. He felt the flames flicker at his sleeves, singeing the fabric. Although he didn’t breathe the air, he felt sure it was filled with the smell of his own clothing, burning.
Once he passed through the wretched patch, he hollered the girl’s name again. “Diana!” But nothing echoed back. He felt the minutes passing far too swiftly, knowing that every moment that passed brought him closer to his own death. If he made a mistake, he would crumble with the mansion. The ceiling would fall over his head. He would be nothing but ash, just as dead as his father.
He shoved the thought from his mind and continued to wander through the hallways. The ceilings were tall and regal, showing the incredible history of the building—one that was growing more and more lost by the moment. He swept past an enormous painting, one that would soon melt away. On it, a beautiful girl of around 15 or 16 posed alongside an older man, perhaps her father. No mother stood in sight. With a lurch, Ernest had to imagine that she, too, had lost her mother, as he had when he was 13 years old. His memories of his mother were glossy and unsure, like images that arise of memories of your dreams.
Ernest barrelled forward. The smoke had increased significantly, and his eyes burned with it, making it difficult to keep them wide open. He called Diana’s name multiple times, almost as a song, now, but never heard an answer back.
Finally, when he reached the end of the next hall, something caught Ernest’s eye. He yanked to his right to find a woman stretched out in the corner in a white nightdress, as though she’d collapsed. Her black hair swept down her back in wild curls, and her feet were stained with ash. He shot toward her and fell to his knees, placing two fingers at her wrist.
“Don’t do this to me, Diana,” he pleaded, as though she owed him anything at all. “You have to stay alive.”
A faint pulse raised itself up to her skin, pressing feebly against his fingers. He heaved a sigh of relief. She was still alive, at least for the time being.
“Come on,” he muttered to himself. As gently as he could, he moved Diana to her side. As he did, her face came up fully before him: a long, delicate nose, supple lips, long lashes. His heart burst against his rib cage. Downstairs, he heard the sound of another ceiling crashing in toward the floor. The entire building would be on the ground within minutes.
With the last of his strength, Ernest heaved Diana into his arms. For a moment, he thought she stirred, but then her head was cast to the side. He drew his hand beneath her head, catching it right before it fell too far. He felt he was transporting an important vessel.
But he hadn’t a clue how to get out of the house. Back where he’d come, fire had filtered through the hallways, growing hungrier as it expanded. He burst in the opposite direction, careful to keep Diana against him. He turned his head right and left as he passed various rooms, trying to stay abreast of his exact location, based on the exterior of the house. But it seemed that this far down, the trees no longer extended their branches to the windows.
At the very end of the hallway, Ernest found a small staff-only staircase, one that circled down the side of the mansion. Carefully, he pushed open the door, ensuring the staircase wasn’t awash with smoke. He coughed and ventured onto the concrete steps, carrying Diana slowly down the staircase. With every step, he prayed he wouldn’t lose his balance. In the event that he did, he knew he’d have to fall backwards, rather than forward, saving Diana and perhaps injuring himself. It was the only way.
Finally, he reached the bottom and tore his shoulder into the side door. He burst into the dark night of the side garden, still thick with smoke. He cut through it, darting toward the front of the house. When he appeared to the staff and family members near the outer cropping of trees, he felt every single eye upon him. No one made a single move.
When he neared the crowd, he chose a nearby tree and laid Diana delicately across the grass. As he did, he smoothed her hair to either side of her decollate face, gazing at her. Hunched over her, on his knees, he realized he was holding his breath. Every inch of his heart felt frozen with the pure beauty of her. He’d never seen someone quite like her.
But lately, Ernest had been surrounded with the concept of death. He’d watched his father disappear from the world. One moment, he’d been upright and laughing with Ernest in his study, his belly quaking. And the next, he’d whittled away, turning green and then a grisly, pale yellow.
Ernest drew back, his heart squeezed with fear. There was nothing that promised this impossibly beautiful woman would stay around for long, nothing that assured him she would live. He had to guard himself.
There was simply no telling where this life would take him.
The woman Ernest had initially encountered approached from the side and fell to her knees beside him. She shook violently and reached for her niece’s hand with her sandy, aging one. Ernest shuffled to the side a bit, blinking up as an older man, the very same one from the painting, limped up from the crowd. He looked rickety and fatigued, perhaps sickly. He stabbed the cane i
n his right hand into the mossy ground beside Ernest, blinking down at his daughter.
“My Christ,” he murmured.
The Wild Passion of an Eccentric Lady: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 31