Two Beaux and a Promise Collection

by Allison Lane

  Thank God she was not prone to hysteria. She found the disguised handle and pulled. The air inside was nearly clear.

  She coughed. “Can you manage Alice alone?”

  The spiral was too narrow for two abreast, so he nodded. But Maggie must have known how weak he was. When he nearly fell from the last step, she caught him. Together, they shifted Alice to his other shoulder, then cracked open the door.

  On this floor, the entire west wing was ablaze, and flames had spread to the lobby. But the door to the nearest parlor was ajar. Stumbling across the hall, he collapsed against the window frame.

  “Hand Alice down!” Maggie shouted, pulling him out of a stupor. She’d opened the casement and jumped the four feet to the ground.

  He complied. The last thing he remembered was Maggie tugging on his wrist.

  * * * *

  Maggie tried to ease Marcus’s fall, but she was too weak. They went down together in a sprawl of arms and legs. But at least he was out of the building. For a moment, she’d feared he would collapse inside. Even if she’d pulled herself back in, she could never have lifted him to the window.

  “What happened?” demanded a man, materializing from the gloom. Night had descended. She must have been unconscious for at least two hours.

  “Too much smoke,” she gasped. “Help me pull them clear.” Alice’s face looked gray in the flickering light. Marcus didn’t look much better.

  “You’re cut,” the man said, touching her head.

  “I fell.” A crash sent flames roaring through the dining room windows. The ceiling must have come down. “We have to move,” she said firmly. “Can you help?”

  He summoned others, who carried Marcus and Alice to the park dividing Queen’s Garden Road. The relative coolness made it easier to breathe. Cradling Marcus’s head in her lap, she looked around.

  The street teemed with people, garishly lit by the blazing west wing. Some sat in stunned silence, staring at the flames, but most were milling about, screaming, sobbing, or shouting orders.

  A rope of sheets tumbled from a second-floor window above the dining room. A dark figure emerged, oblivious to the flames already threatening the fabric. But even as a scream welled in Maggie’s throat, men tugged the sheet away from the window. A fireman directed a stream of water onto the flames, allowing the man to scramble safely down. The crowd cheered.

  A shrill whistle cut through the noise. Before she could figure out who had signaled, a shout drew all eyes to a man wearing the soot-stained uniform of a kitchen servant.

  “DuPré done it, I tell yuh. After that fight, ’e vowed ’e’d prove ’e were the best chef on earth. ’E’s been in there two whole nights and two whole days, a-bakin’ away. I told ’im this mornin’ that wall was too ’ot. But ’e turned ’is nose up, just like you’d ’spect from a mad Frenchie.”

  “Nonsense,” said Mr. Simmons calmly, pushing through the crowd toward the speaker. “The kitchen was designed for twice the ovens that are currently installed. They could burn around the clock for weeks without endangering anything.”

  “The wall was ’ot,” the servant insisted stoutly. “Ol’ DuPré were stokin’ them ovens night an’ day, yellin’ fer more an’ more coal. I tol’ ’im the wall was burnin’, but ’e don’ care. Too busy boffin’ the maids to listen to honest workers.”

  “The wall could not have smoldered all day,” insisted Simmons. “Now cease this prattle at once.”

  “Prattle?” shouted someone.

  Growls were already sweeping the crowd.

  “What sort of hotel installs a madman in the kitchen?” demanded another. “He nearly stabbed my wife last week. And how do you explain that fight?”

  “The flames are in my room,” sobbed a girl. “All my new gowns are ruined!”

  “Who’s going to pay for my lost trunks?”

  “And my missing jewelry?”

  “Maybe it’s the Frenchie what’s been robbing us.”

  “He could have started the fire to cover his crimes.”

  Robbing? Maggie shivered, pulling Marcus closer. The crowd was becoming a mob. Two men held Simmons. The servant was inciting even more anger. Gratified to have an attentive audience, he regaled them with every complaint he’d ever heard against DuPré. Most of his claims were embellished, but his listeners didn’t care. They wanted someone to blame for their losses.

  She was wondering how to protect Marcus and Alice from a riot when the arrival of a clanging fire wagon distracted everyone’s attention. Simmons jerked free and hustled the servant away. Tempers eased as new firemen jumped down to assault the blaze.

  She relaxed, aware of her pounding head for the first time since Marcus had burst into her room.

  Bells, horses, and a crying child formed a counterpoint to the crackle, hiss, and roar of the inferno, beating against her temples in unrelenting cacophony. Exploding windows showered spectators with glass. Firemen worked feverishly to pump water on the blaze. Others rushed inside to attack walls and floors with axes, hoping to contain its spread.

  Smoke burned her throat. Heat baked the side facing the hotel. Plants withered before her eyes.

  Alice groaned. Her color had improved and she was breathing easier, but Marcus remained inert.

  “Marcus!” she cried, running her fingers across his face and through his hair. When he failed to respond, she slapped his cheeks and chafed his hands. How could she live with herself if he had sacrificed his life to save hers?

  “Maggie?”

  Thank God. “We’re safe.” She smoothed his hair one last time, then helped him sit up against the tree.

  He coughed deeply, then took in the scene. “The crowd looks dangerous.”

  “One of the servants was blaming DuPré, which unleashed tempers.”

  “Why DuPré?”

  “The servant swears the ovens overheated and set the wall on fire, but it had to be Robert.”

  “So you said. But if he wanted to kill you, why leave you alive?”

  “He wanted it to look like an accident. He knows a vicar who will sign his special license without a formal ceremony – apparently the man is an opium-eater. Marriage would negate my will, so he could claim everything.”

  Marcus muttered something creatively vile.

  “I agree. He smashed a lamp over my head, then waited for Alice. That was several hours ago – plenty of time to stage an accident that would shift suspicion to someone else. You said he was adept at such chicanery.”

  A shout rang out. “There he goes! The mad Frenchie! Make him pay.” Half the crowd raced away.

  “DuPré?” asked Marcus.

  “Yes.” She peered after the retreating mob. “I hope he escapes.”

  “He should. For all his size, he’s quick.” Marcus struggled to his feet. “I must tell the firemen about Robert so they can search for evidence. Will she be all right?” He nodded toward Alice.

  “She is coming around.”

  “Wait for me here.” Kissing her lightly on the forehead, he strode away.

  -7-

  Maggie sipped a cup of tea, relaxing for the first time since last night’s fire. Marcus had commandeered a cart and brought them to Richard’s town house.

  Alice had wakened fully by the time they’d arrived, but the doctor demanded that she stay in bed for a week to allow her concussion to heal. Maggie was under similar orders, but she’d come down to the drawing room anyway. Now she let her eyes take in the decor.

  Unlike her sitting room at home, which was decorated in blues and creamy whites, this one had deep red walls and draperies. Red also figured strongly in the chair covers and carpet, complementing the dark woods of the ancient furniture. Under other circumstances, she might have found the intensity overwhelming, but today it was comforting. Even the room’s clutter seemed almost cozy.

  Footsteps on the stairs announced Marcus’s return.

  She had lain awake well into the night, trying to accept the truths yesterday’s terror had revealed. She sho
uld have known where befriending Marcus must lead. Yet what could she have done differently? She’d been doomed since running him down in the lobby.

  “Any news?” she asked when he reached the drawing room.

  “You are supposed to be in bed,” he reminded her.

  “I am not one of your fragile English maidens.”

  “True.” He poured wine, then leaned against the mantel as he examined her. Apparently her appearance satisfied him, for he relaxed.

  “The firemen confined the damage to three floors of the west wing, so my room was spared. My belongings reek of smoke, but are otherwise undamaged. Your suite was destroyed.”

  She shuddered, but they were lucky to be alive. When set beside that, the loss of a few possessions was nothing. And in truth, she had saved everything important. Alice’s recipes and her father’s papers had been in her writing case. The locket still hung from her neck.

  “I spoke to the magistrate. He needs your statement but will wait until you are recovered. Robert is under arrest.”

  “They found enough evidence?”

  “More than enough. He was seen in the basement just before the fire started.”

  “I’m not surprised. He went more than a little mad.”

  “Perhaps, though that would not matter under normal circumstances. Few people would believe a servant’s word against that of a viscount’s heir.” He shrugged. “But this case won’t come down to a gentleman’s word. The fire clearly began in the basement hallway, climbing the wall to the dining room. The kitchen was untouched until the dining room floor collapsed into it. Thus the fire cannot have started inside the kitchen wall.”

  “I suppose he tried to emulate the rumors about the Ipswich Gardens.”

  “They weren’t rumors.” He joined her on the couch. “That fire really did begin in an overheated wall. What rotten luck that Formsby was nattering on about it the night Robert dined with you.”

  She refilled his glass, pleased that her hand remained steady. “It was actually good luck. Without Formsby’s hints, Robert might have killed me outright. He took a chance, though. How could he be sure the fire would reach my suite before someone put it out?”

  “A bucket of turpentine spread in the hallway. The pot boy saw him carrying it, but DuPré distracted his attention before he could mention it.”

  “So they arrested Robert.”

  Marcus nodded, but his eyes were troubled. Setting his glass on a table, he clasped her hand. “Not just for arson, or even for the attack on you. A maid died.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “She had returned to the attic for her things – including a hoard of stolen jewelry – and was overcome by smoke.”

  “Just as you were.” Her voice trembled.

  “It’s over, Maggie.” He stroked her fingers as he’d done in the carriage. “But I will never forget the moment I realized you were still in your room.”

  “It can’t have been worse than when you nearly collapsed in that parlor,” she admitted in a moment of weakness, then cursed herself. She had not meant to reveal her feelings. Nothing could come of them.

  “I love you, Maggie.” His eyes bored into hers.

  “That certainly complicates matters,” she complained, though her heart was trying to batter its way out of her chest.

  “It doesn’t need to.”

  She sighed. “I can’t stay here, Marcus. I have too many responsibilities at home.”

  “I know. But I can come with you – if you’ll have me.”

  She stared. Was he serious? “But women always follow their husbands.”

  “Because men are usually tied to estates. But I have no estate. I can live anywhere.”

  “You don’t understand what you are offering, Marcus. I live in Pittsburgh. We are growing steadily, but you would hardly consider us a city, and we are remote even from the rest of the United States. Life is very, very different from what you know.”

  “It might be more remote than Washington, but I doubt it is odder than Russia.”

  “Don’t make light of this.” She blinked back tears at fate’s cruelty. His offer was too good to be true. “You have so many ties here.”

  “Family, yes. But they will never approve of how I wish to live. Nor will my friends. Leaving will keep me from embarrassing them. And I don’t enjoy the ton any more than you do. So will you marry me?”

  She closed her eyes, a lifetime of wariness holding her back. She wanted to believe him, yet he could not imagine what life would be like. England was so small and so tame when compared to America.

  “I do care, Marcus,” she finally admitted, “but you don’t comprehend what you’re offering. It took me three months to reach London. Granted, I could have done it faster if I hadn’t been covering my tracks, but not by much. If you go back with me, you’ll never see your grandfather again – you know his health is failing; it will be years before you could return. And you would be leaving behind everything you’ve known.”

  “Trust me, Maggie. I’ve served in places just as different. If I am with you, I can live anywhere.” He gripped her shoulders. “Yes, I will miss my family, but if I’d stayed in government service, I would have been posted to some foreign place anyway. The only family I need is you.”

  His words warmed her, but there was one last question. “Father trained me to take over his business. I won’t give that up.”

  “You don’t have to. I’ve dreams of my own, love, and the means to pursue them.”

  “Are you sure? I’ve been confronting fortune hunters since I was sixteen. You are the first man who ever looked at me and saw Maggie Adams instead of money. No one else can tolerate me for long.”

  “Just what did your father leave you?” he asked, then kissed her forehead. “American men must be very strange. I cannot imagine anyone not wanting you.”

  “Thank you.” She squeezed his hand, then gasped when he pulled her against his side. She melted into him, knowing this was where she belonged. “As to my inheritance, it started with Uncle Peter’s glassworks – I always called him Uncle, though in reality, he was Father’s partner and the creative genius behind the company. He made some of the most exquisite glass I’ve ever seen, but mostly he produced sturdy ware that settlers could afford. Pittsburgh is where they board the flatboats that take them down the river.”

  “I am not following.”

  “The easiest way to move west is to follow the Ohio River, which begins where two smaller rivers join at Pittsburgh. Many people bring little with them. Some buy goods before hiring flatboats. Others wait until they are settled – we ship glassware to a dozen river towns.”

  “So you inherited part of a glass factory.”

  “Actually, I own the whole thing. Uncle Peter died in a factory fire ten years ago, leaving everything to Father.” She sighed. “By then, Father had started other businesses.”

  “Which are—”

  “He bought fifty thousand acres of land.”

  Marcus choked.

  “America is huge – much larger than England. The bulk of our land is unsuited for crops, but it holds coal and iron.”

  “He owned the mine where he died?”

  She nodded. “He’d just completed plans for building an iron works. It should be running by the time I return. And we supply much of the timber for the local boat builders.”

  “Pittsburgh sounds like the ideal place to start my own company.” Visions of steamboats and locomotives flitted through his head.

  “You are serious.”

  “I love you, Maggie. I can’t live without you. Discovering that your home fits my own aspirations is merely a bonus. Do I get an answer now?”

  “Yes. The thought of leaving you behind has bothered me more than I wanted to admit. I love you, Marcus.”

  He pulled her closer, kissing her as he had wanted to do since she’d run him down in the lobby. Passion exploded, newer than the world to which he’d committed himself, hotter than the fire they’d escaped last
night. He needed all of his control to keep from taking her immediately. By the time he lifted his head, he was shaking.

  Maggie was more than willing to continue. She had not expected his lips to ignite so much heat. It spread and sizzled until even her toes tingled. When he pulled away, she moaned.

  “Later, love,” he promised. “I won’t dishonor you by anticipating our vows, though if we don’t restore a little propriety, I may change my mind.”

  She stroked his cheek. “Can we be married here, or would it be easier to wed at sea like my parents?”

  “Here. We owe the family that much. I will get a special license tomorrow. Alice should recover soon, so we can wed in a week or so.” He smiled. “Are you financing her hotel, by the way?”

  “No. She’s been my governess and companion since Mother died. Father left her more than enough to follow her dream.”

  “I wish I’d known him.” He kissed her again, then resolutely put her aside. “I can’t think when I’m holding you, but we must make plans. William is already swearing that Robert is innocent. He is powerful enough to have his heir released on the promise of sending him abroad. Neither of them will forgive you. You will take the place of your father in their minds.”

  “So we must hide our destination.” She sighed.

  “We can go to France, then take a French ship to America using false names.”

  “Good. I really do not want to retrace my steps so late in the year.” She frowned, contemplating her uncle’s displeasure. “William will also hate anyone to whom I give money, so turning Father’s legacy over to another Adams could bring disaster.”

  “I doubt he will actually harm anyone. That would be too difficult to hide.”

  “Perhaps not, but he will put pressure on them. I would rather not have that on my conscience. The estates can go to the residual beneficiary and one other remote cousin – you must help me decide which. But I will put the rest into a trust.”

  “For what?”

  “To help scientists and inventors.”