by The Bargain
"Here, allow me." Brett smiled as he came behind her and gently turned her to face him.
As his fingers closed over the silver braided frog under her chin, Ashleigh chanced to look up. Intent on his task, Brett didn't realize she was watching him, and she took the opportunity to study him at close range. She loved the way his mouth was set in a determined line as he concentrated on the mechanism of the fastener; she adored the way a lock of his chestnut hair brushed his forehead as he worked; she noted the way his height made him tower above her in such an overpowering way. Suddenly she felt nearly undone by the turn her thoughts were taking and began to squirm and fidget with the realization.
"Hold still, you moppet," he chastised with an indulgent smile, "or I shall never have this done. Ah, there we are!" His eyes left the fastening and moved upward. There was a long moment of silence.
"You're beautiful," he breathed.
Caught off-guard, Ashleigh murmured the first thing to come into her head. "S-so are you."
His mouth quirked in an odd smile, and she had the feeling he was remembering something in another time, another place. "I am content to know you find me so," he murmured. "But come, sweet, there's a beautiful night awasting in the gardens."
He led her outside and they began to walk, talking desultorily as moonlight silvered the branches of the trees and shrubs, turning the garden into an oasis of soft shadows and lambent quietude. It was a warm night for early March, and the soft, rich scent of the sun-warmed earth beneath the awakening foliage hinted at the coming of spring.
"The children love you, you know," said Brett. "I can see it in their faces when you look at them or read them a story."
"Oh, but look who's talking!" Ashleigh exclaimed. "Only two days in their presence, and they absolutely adore you!"
Brett chuckled. "I suspect I'm just a novelty right now. Something like the rich uncle who visits once every few years, bringing gifts from his trips abroad... that sort of thing. But the feelings they so obviously have for you, and for Maria, well—" he shook his head "—I've never seen such a manifestation of love."
"Maria's really the one responsible for it all," said Ashleigh. "She's an extraordinary woman, isn't she?"
"Remarkable," he agreed. "And I wonder about her. Here she is, with all the wealth and comfort anyone could want, a life of ease, and yet she selflessly gives of herself, day after day, in ways that might seem totally alien to others of our class. Oh, there are those with wealth who do their share with charitable contributions and the like, but this woman actually rolls up her sleeves and plunges into the heart of it! I wonder what it was in her background that made her what she is."
Ashleigh's response was cautious. "You... suspect something, ah, out of the ordinary?"
He nodded. "I'm sure of it. It's in her eyes. I've seen things there that—" He shook his head. "Yet, every time I've tried to question her about it, she's steered the conversation deftly in another direction." He laughed. "In the most charming manner, of course!"
Ashleigh began to wish she had some of Maria's skill now, for the conversation was hovering dangerously about a subject she'd sworn not to reveal. "You, ah, find her mysterious, then?"
"Quite. It's nothing I can put my finger on, but I have this unshakable feeling Maria's not all she appears to be... or perhaps that she's something more." He glanced at Ashleigh. "I don't suppose you'd be able to shed any light on the subject? I mean, she did say she was an old friend of your family's."
Shifting her glance from his face, Ashleigh hoped the shadows hid her flush as she responded. "Oh, I know, but Brett, you must remember that I was such a tiny girl in those days. There isn't much I can recall."
"Hmm. Yes, I suppose you're right. Perhaps Patrick's the one I ought to be asking."
They walked a while in silence, and then he said, "She doesn't seem to have any children of her own, natural children, that is, yet she's as nurturing and maternal as any mother I've ever seen. And then there's this other feeling I have...."
"Other feeling?"
He nodded. "That I've seen her somewhere before... known her. I realize it doesn't make sense." He shrugged.
Determined to steer the conversation elsewhere now, Ashleigh dug the toe of her slipper into a crack in the walk and pretended to stumble.
Instantly, Brett's arm shot out to steady her, and when the other arm joined in, she found herself encircled in his embrace.
"Careful, little one," he murmured. "You carry a precious burden these days."
Casual as they sounded, his words reminded her that she did indeed carry a precious burden—his heir—and suddenly she remembered other words spoken about an heir of Brett's. She had a swift recollection of Elizabeth's hurting words that morning, and all at once she felt pain so real it was almost palpable.
"Brett, why did you marry me?" she whispered.
Brett paused, his arms still about her as he saw the anguish in her eyes. She'd caught him off guard with this sudden question, and he wasn't sure he could give her a ready answer. Slowly, as if he half expected her to vanish if he mis-stepped, he groped for the right words.
"The immediate reasons, the awkward circumstances, we are both well acquainted with, Ashleigh. But beyond that, I think—I believe—there was something more, something deeper...." His hands moved from about her girth and settled gently, but firmly, on her shoulders. "You were—are— different from any woman I've ever known, Ashleigh. And if I didn't consciously realize it when I married you, I've come to realize it more and more during these months we've been apart. Beyond that, I'm not sure." He sighed, then moved a hand to touch her cheek gently with his knuckles. "Ashleigh, why did you flee from me that morning?"
The blue eyes darkened as she focused again on the scene with Elizabeth the morning after their wedding. "She said the only reason you—you had for wedding me was that—that—" Ashleigh bit her lip and glanced down at her belly "—you wanted me to bear you heirs."
A sharp frown creased Brett's brow. "Who told you that, Ashleigh? Who?"
A sob cut him off as Ashleigh dropped her eyes and turned her head away. "It was Elizabeth! She rowed across the lake after you left to see about the—"
"Elizabeth!" he stormed. "Elizabeth came to see you that morning?"
"Yes, and she said you could never be faithful to one woman, that marriage would make no dif—"
"That cold bitch!" he snarled. "She's so consumed with jealousy and self-love, she—" He ran a hand distractedly through his hair, then caught her chin with the other, forcing her to look at him. "And you believed her?"
The pain in Ashleigh's eyes deepened, then changed to anger. "There were good reasons! Hadn't I just seen the way you—you cast Pamela Marlowe aside so casually? Because your appetite required new conquests?"
Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but Ashleigh dashed them aside with an angry hand as she plunged onward; it was as if a dam had been opened, and all the pent-up anger and pain of the past months was suddenly let loose. "And later, in London after we quarreled, can you deny that you went to other—"
At that moment, there was a confusion of screaming and shouting at the end of the garden nearest the house. Ashleigh turned and saw Giovanni moving toward them as swiftly as his aged legs would allow.
"Duchessa, Signore Duca, coma queek! Incendio! La villa! She's-a-burn! The leetle ones! Hurry!"
Behind him were several of the servants, all waving their arms and shouting, and then Patrick.
"Brett, Ashleigh!" Patrick yelled. "It's the children's wing! It's afire! Come quickly!"
Ashleigh threw Brett a horrified look. "Oh, my God!" she gasped, then began to run toward the house.
But Brett was already far ahead of her, pausing only to shout over his shoulder, "Be careful, Ashleigh! Mind your steps in the darkness!"
As she neared the house, Ashleigh could see smoke pouring out of a couple of the upstairs windows, while, in the courtyard below, a number of people, children and adults alike, were rushing a
bout, crying and shouting. She saw Patrick dash into the house, only to emerge helping Megan make her way down the walk as she clasped two infants in her arms.
Brett met them first, shouting, "Who else is up there?"
But Megan just shook her head at him, appearing dazed.
One of the children's nurses came dashing out, coughing and gasping for air. Patrick took the blanket-covered toddler she carried while Brett helped the stricken woman to a seat on a nearby stone wall.
"Water!" he called to one of the servants he spied carrying a bucket.
Several of the children standing about in their nightclothes were crying, and Ashleigh hurried over to them, speaking quietly in reassuring tones. Then she withdrew her cloak and, gathering them close, wrapped it about them.
The nurse drank the water Brett had given her from a wooden dipper, then pointed agitatedly to the upper reaches of the house. "La contessa," she gasped, "la contessa!"
"Contessa? Maria's in there?" Brett questioned.
"Si!" The nurse nodded, then began coughing some more.
Brett whirled toward Patrick, taking off his coat as he moved. "I'm going up there. Is there any count as to—"
"Enrico just took a nose count," Patrick told him as he watched Brett soak his coat in the bucket of water. "Only Maria and the twins are missing. He thinks she went in after them after she brought the first group out."
As Ashleigh watched Brett run into the burning villa, flames began to shoot out of one of the lower windows.
Oh, my God! she thought. It's burned through to the lower floor!
Several of the servants must have noted the same thing, for there was a mad scramble for the well while others, their buckets already full, began running toward this new source of flames.
Meanwhile Ashleigh saw more servants coming from the direction of the stables; they were pulling a small wagon loaded with several huge barrels, and she recalled that ironically, these were water barrels kept on hand in case of fire in the stables— while no one thought to keep a single such barrel on hand near the house itself, she thought.
Then, as she watched the chaos about her, she had a flash of another fire long ago. She became, for a moment, a tiny child again, and Mary Westmont was wrapping her in a blanket and carrying her to safety.
A shout brought her back to the present. The gallery outside the children's wing had collapsed in flames, nearly missing Enrico and a group of stable men below.
She saw Patrick moving toward them with an entire water barrel on his shoulder, saw Megan wrapping her robe about two of the older girls, saw Giovanni standing near a tree with his arm about Lady Dimples, gazing about, shaking his head.
But Ashleigh's thoughts were on the burning building. Maria was in there—Maria who had saved her life from just such a fire... and Brett! He'd been gone for several minutes, now. Where was he? And there were the twins, poor blind babies! And Finn! Where was Finn?
Suddenly Ashleigh knew she couldn't just stand by and do nothing; she had to act! Moving quickly through the chaotic throng of people, barrels and buckets, she approached the door Brett had entered. As she neared it, she heard a whimper, and then saw Finn emerge from the smoke; clinging to his back was Allegra, one of the twins!
"Oh, thank God, Finn!" she exclaimed.
Allegra was sobbing, but appeared to be unharmed. Ashleigh rushed up to her and pulled her into her arms.
"Oh, the poor darlin'," said Megan from behind them. "Here, come t' Megan, macushla." She took the child from Ashleigh adding, "Ye oughtn't t' be carryin' her, darlin'. She's a might too heavy fer ye in yer condition. And, fer Heaven's sake, get some rest while ye're at it!"
Rest? How could she rest when Maria and Brett and a little blind girl were still in that inferno? Without another moment's hesitation, Ashleigh withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve, dipped it in a passing bucket of water, and, tying it about her face like a highwayman's mask, slipped into the burning building.
Upstairs, in the children's wing, Brett was frantic. He'd checked almost all of the rooms, those nearest the fire first, but still no Maria. And now the smoke was growing so thick, even at this end, he was forced to go down on all fours, close to the floor where the air was less noxious. And even here, he kept his sodden jacket over his head to protect himself.
"Maria!" he called. "Maria, where are you?"
No answer. And there was only one chamber left.
Brett crawled to the door up ahead of him. He could barely make out the shape of it in the hazy, smoke-filled hallway. Feeling his way, he reached the aperture he knew was the doorframe and gave the door a shove.
Raising the jacket slightly, he called, "Maria!"
A childish whimper met his ears, and his eyes followed the sound. Then he saw them. A tiny girl was huddled near the window. Beside her, on the floor, lay Maria's prone form.
"Sweetheart," Brett called. "Alissa, isn't it?" He moved toward the whimpering child. Reaching out to touch her, he said, "It's il duca, sweetheart. Put your arms around my neck and try to climb onto my back. I'm going to take you and the contessa out of here."
Surprisingly, the girl ceased her whimpering and complied, as Brett removed his wet jacket and wrapped it over her.
"Hold onto this, too, cara" he told her and forced the lapels of the jacket between her clutching fingers.
Then, summoning all his strength and whispering a dimly remembered prayer, he took Maria's prone body in his arms and rose, sucking in a great gulp of relatively clear air before he did so. Then he raced out the door and for the stairs at the end of the hallway as fast as his double burden would allow.
Down below, Patrick was soaking his own jacket in a bucket of water, preparing to go after Brett, who'd disappeared into the building a frightening number of minutes ago.
"Patrick," said his wife as she came rushing up to him, "have ye seen Ashleigh? Nobody's seen her fer some time!"
Alarm on his face, Patrick looked about him in panic. "God, no, Megan! I haven't, and I was just about to go after—"
Suddenly a shout met his ears, and he and Megan turned in the direction of the door to the villa where two of the stable men, buckets in hand, were urging someone to do something in rapid Italian.
Then they saw what they were shouting about. An apparition that appeared to be a headless giant carrying something, came lunging through the door.
"It's Brett!" Patrick shouted, "and he's got Maria and Alissa!"
"Saints be praised!" Megan cried.
Rushing forward, the two of them relieved Brett of his burdens, Patrick taking Maria, who was beginning to cough and sputter, while Megan clasped the sobbing Alissa to her breast.
Brett was gulping in huge breaths of clean air, but he managed to get out, "I... think... that... does it. How's... Maria?"
Bending over Maria, whom he'd laid on a coat one of the men had spread on the ground, Patrick said, "She's taken some smoke, but I think she'll be all right. But Brett," he said, grimly facing his friend, "no one's seen Ashleigh for some time!"
The blood drained from Brett's face as Patrick's words registered. Then he whirled and ran toward the villa, pausing only to pick up Patrick's wet jacket.
"Brett, wait!" Patrick shouted. "You're too done in! Let me go!"
"Stay here and see to Maria!" came the reply.
"But—"
"I've got to find her, man! Don't you know that?"
These words were hardly out of Brett's mouth when, from the interior of the villa, he heard a faint bark.
"Finn!" he shouted as he entered the smoke-filled doorway, "Finn, where are you, boy? Where's Ashleigh?"
Another bark met his ears when he reached the foot of the stairs, louder and clearer this time, coming from just above him.
Shielding himself with Patrick's coat, he began to crawl up the stairs. When he was nearly to the top, he could make out the wolfhound's shaggy form on the landing.
"Finn! Where—?"
Then he saw her. She was lying very st
ill under Finn's standing body. The dog was pulling at her gown, as if trying to nudge her over the top step.
"Ashleigh!" Brett cried. "Dear God, Ashleigh!" As gently as he could, Brett retrieved her still form, clutched it to him, turned and flew down the stairs, Finn at his heels.
Outside, a worried Megan was ministering to Maria while Patrick stood by, his eyes on the door to the house. Although he knew the fire was largely extinguished now, he realized there was still a heavy amount of killing smoke. Where were they? The dog's last bark had been several minutes ago.
Then he saw a movement at the door and a second later, Brett stumbled out, Ashleigh clutched in his arms.
"Megan, he's got her! Thank Heaven!" He raced forward to meet the faltering Brett, just as he heard Finn's excited bark.
"Here, man, I'll take her," Patrick said.
Brett shook his head wearily, then sank to the ground, Ashleigh still safely in his embrace. "No!" Then, "No, I—I'll keep her," he managed to get out.
He cradled his wife's head in his lap and gazed anxiously down into her face. "Ashleigh?" he whispered, and when there was no response, the whisper became a frantic cry. "Ashleigh!"
Patrick knelt beside his sister's swollen form and took her wrist, throwing Brett a worried look as he felt for a pulse.
"The dog... Finn... saved her," Brett was gasping between gulps of air. "Please God let him have saved her!"
"She's alive," Patrick announced, "but her pulse feels irregular. She's in a state of shock, I think. I'm going for a blanket."
As Patrick left, Brett heard Ashleigh moan and bent anxiously over her.
"Ashleigh?"
"Brett..." he heard her whisper faintly, "Brett... where... Maria?"
"She's fine, love," he said to her. "Now, hush. Don't try to talk anymore. Just—"
"H-had to... find her," Ashleigh continued, "had to... help...."
Brett was shaking his head. "You silly little fool... Sweetheart, you could have been killed!"