Lord of Fire

by Gaelen Foley

  “Not at all, dear boy, not at all.”

  “Your books have arrived, and,” Lucien announced, “I have brought someone to meet you.”

  “Oh?”

  He opened the door wider and stepped aside, passing an elegant gesture before him, inviting Alice into the house. Full of curious anticipation, she stepped past him into the cottage and promptly found herself in the shrewd, bespectacled gaze of a frail old man hunched down in a cushioned armchair.

  “Mr. Whitby, may I present Miss Alice Montague, the daughter of Baron Glenwood. Miss Montague, it gives me great pleasure to present to you the hero of my wretched boyhood,” Lucien said sardonically, “my most esteemed tutor, Mr. Seymour Whitby.”

  Alice curtseyed to him. “How do you do, sir?”

  Through a grave effort, leaning on his cane, Mr. Whitby doddered to his feet. Alice started to protest at his taking the trouble to rise at her entrance, but Lucien touched her arm and shook his head. Her heart clenched as she realized—a gentleman always remained a gentleman, even if he did appear to be a hundred years old. She walked over to the old man and steadied him on the pretext of shaking his hand. He squeezed her hand, leaning on her.

  “I am so pleased to meet you, sir,” she said warmly.

  He lifted his chin and peered sharply at her through his spectacles. The flat line of his mouth slowly pulled into a heartfelt smile. “La, child, you are as kind as you are pretty. May I offer you some tea? I am afraid at the moment my housekeeper is at church, but I think we can manage—I say, do shut the door, Master Lucien.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled with a boyish smile, shoving the door closed.

  “I have been trying to teach the lad that for twenty-five years,” Mr. Whitby told Alice, his blue eyes twinkling. “Calculus, Greek—these, he masters in a glance, but the boy cannot learn to shut the door.”

  Alice chuckled and cast Lucien a smile, quite beguiled. The old gentleman adjusted his gnarled fingers over the head of his cane.

  “Mr. Whitby had the unenviable position of tutoring me and all of my brothers before we went off to school,” Lucien said.

  “What a task that must have been!” she exclaimed.

  “Hercules had his twelve labors; I, my five young Knights.”

  She laughed, charmed. “Well, I shall be most keenly interested to hear some of your tales, but do please sit down. I think some tea would be lovely. You must allow me to prepare it. I insist. We’ve brought muffins and a sponge cake to tempt you with, and your pupil has brought you some books. Here, why don’t you take a pillow, Mr. Whitby? Lucien, hand me that cushion from the couch.” He quickly did so. She put the pillow behind the old man’s back as he eased down once more into his chair. “Are you near enough to the fire? Lucien, move his chair.”

  “Oh, dear, I’m sure I don’t wish to be any trouble,” Mr. Whitby protested, clearly delighted by her fussing over him.

  “Not at all,” she scolded gently.

  Lucien caught her gaze for a second and sent her a deep, soulful look of appreciation before moving to do her bidding. He slid his old tutor’s armchair nearer to the fire, then pulled the cushioned ottoman closer and sat down on it, shuffling out the books. As the men began to discuss the books, Alice made her way to Mr. Whitby’s kitchen and found the large water cauldron standing over the very low fire, just as she would have expected a capable housekeeper to leave it. She found the kitchen bellows nearby and stoked the fire to get the water boiling again. Caro would have considered the task impossibly beneath her station, but Alice did not mind. She enjoyed taking care of others.

  “Wasn’t that wind fierce last night?” Lucien asked the old man as she came back out into the parlor to fetch the tea caddy.

  “Why, it blew one of my shutters off the house,” Mr. Whitby declared.

  “It did? Where?”

  “Right there, off the parlor. Mrs. Malone leaned it against the side of the house this morning.”

  Lucien stood. “I’ll go rehang it.”

  Mr. Whitby protested at his offer, but Lucien waved him off.

  Alice smiled at him in approval. “Tea will be ready soon.”

  “I’ll be back in a trice.” He sent her an answering smile over his shoulder that warmed her to the core, then closed the door firmly as he went out. She became aware of the blush in her cheeks and the faint smile on her lips only when she noticed Mr. Whitby studying her.

  “Well, this is all very curious,” the old man said, peering over the rim of his spectacles at her.

  “What is, sir?” Trying to hide her embarrassment, she busied herself with the task of laying out the sponge cake and muffins.

  “Master Lucien has never brought a young lady to meet me before.” He lifted his bushy white eyebrows and regarded her expectantly. “Has he asked you yet?”

  “Pardon, sir?”

  “Has he offered yet? Proposed, my girl?”

  Alice stared at him, taken aback. A jolt of tingling wonder shot through her body. With a tremble, she dropped her gaze, her blush deepening. She dared not explain the strange circumstances that had brought her into Lucien’s company. “Mr. Whitby, Lord Lucien and I are little more than friends.”

  He snorted. “Then you haven’t noticed how he looks at you. Miss Montague. Surely you have not allowed his wily ways to confuse you?”

  She looked at him, then smiled with a reluctant sigh. “Everything he does confuses me.”

  “I will concede the lad has difficulty being straightforward at times, but that is only because he has never been quite sure of his welcome in the world. It is this old business of comparing himself to Master Damien,” he said in answer to her questioning look. “He never quite felt up to par, especially having been so ill as a boy, while Damien enjoyed perfect health.”

  “Lucien was ill?” she asked, taken aback.

  “Why, yes, he’s lucky to be alive. Did he not tell you?”

  She shook her head, wide-eyed.

  “Dear, me. He would call me a meddling old fool for speaking of it, but between you and me, he was afflicted with childhood asthma. For much of his early years, it prevented him from keeping up with Damien and the others. He spent a good deal of his time alone—or, in any case, with me. He never learned quite how to fit in, at least not comfortably. But I’ll tell you one thing—he got a jolly lot of reading done as a result. He was three years ahead of his classmates in his studies by the time he went off to Eton. Damien may have the muscle, but Lucien’s got the brains,” he told her with a conspiratorial smile.

  She stared at him, quite shocked. “He does not still suffer, does he?”

  “No, no. He had outgrown it by the time he reached his teens, thanks to God.” He shook his head sadly. “By then, however, certain patterns had been set. Damien had long since appointed himself Lucien’s protector—the twins have always been quite devoted to each other—but, as you may imagine, this was rather damaging to Lucien’s pride. Ever since he got well, in all his activities, especially in sports, he has pushed himself relentlessly. It’s not enough for him to be equal to other men, no, indeed; for his pride’s sake, he must exceed them.”

  “To prove himself?” she murmured.

  “Precisely. So, you see, my dear, you must be very gentle with him and very patient, but I promise you, he will be worth it. He doesn’t take to many people, doesn’t give his affection easily, but when he does, he is unswerving. Each of my young masters is dear to me, but I admit, Lucien was always my favorite. Heaven knows—” He sighed. “—he needed to be somebody’s favorite.”

  She was still pondering this a moment later when the door opened and Lucien returned, bringing in a gust of wind with him.

  “Note that I am shutting the door,” he announced, closing it firmly behind him. “Your shutter is fixed, sir. Unfortunately, the weather is turning steadily more foul.” He took off his greatcoat and tossed it on the couch.

  Alice picked up the tea caddy and hurried back into the kitchen, where the cauldron had co
me to a low boil. She warmed the china teapot with hot water, then measured out four teaspoonfuls of Ceylon tea, one for each guest and one for the pot. While the tea steeped, she poked around in the unfamiliar kitchen until she found teacups, small plates and spoons, sugar, and milk. In short order, she returned to the parlor, bringing out the tea tray.

  Suddenly struck shy, she could not meet Lucien’s gaze as she handed him his tea on a saucer. The old man smiled knowingly as he watched them together. Alice sat down and inhaled the steam from her tea, looking on politely as the men discussed the books, but inwardly, she continued mulling over Mr. Whitby’s description of Lucien’s lonely childhood. Her hands shook slightly with the overwhelming emotion that Mr. Whitby’s revelations had roused in her. Realizing now how deeply Lucien had meant those words, I am alone, she lifted her gaze slowly from the unknown fortune in the tea leaves to his chiseled face.

  He was smiling warmly as he argued with the old man about some theory of Hippocrates’s. It did not seem possible, but how much more plainly did she need him to say it? This beautiful, charming man was desperate for someone to love him.

  She suddenly felt a lump rise in her throat of sheer remorse for having hurt him yesterday. Now she knew how hard it was for him to reach out to anyone; he had chosen her and what had she done? Deliberately cut him, in her cowardice. It was all she could do to sit still by the fire, fighting the impulse to rush over and hug him for all she was worth. He looked at her suddenly, taking her off guard, for her soul was in her eyes.

  “We had better go if we’re to stay ahead of the weather.” He glanced meaningfully out the window. Blushing, Alice followed his gaze and saw that the day had indeed darkened.

  She nodded mutely, doing her best to hide the turmoil of her emotions as they bid Mr. Whitby farewell. Lucien threw another log onto the fire for him; Alice felt moved to give the grandfatherly old fellow a kiss on his papery-thin cheek.

  When they stepped outside, Lucien shrugged deeper into his greatcoat and looked uneasily at the sky. “The temperature’s dropped. We could be in for a storm. Maybe we should wait it out here.”

  “Mr. Whitby is tired from our visit, Lucien. I’m sure it’s only a bit of rain.”

  He gave her a brooding look, nodded, and hurried her down the garden path to Mr. Whitby’s front gate, where they met Mrs. Malone, the housekeeper, coming back from church. They greeted the woman and left the property, striding down the dirt road side by side.

  In the distance, the bells from the country parish church were chiming in restless agitation. The gale was high, carrying in mysterious changes, as though it had come to blow away the old life Alice had known. She turned her face into the fierce, cleansing wind and watched as a crow blew by, screeching and pumping its wings against the current. Then the first raindrops began to pelt them sporadically. They glanced at each other in surprise.

  “Come on.” Unburdened by books or basket, Lucien took her hand, the wind rippling through his black hair. As the rain began falling faster, they raced hand in hand down the road to the path, then plunged into the darkened woods.

  Chapter 8

  “Come on, come on,” he said, pulling her along by her hand. They dashed through the woods, leaping over a fallen log, rushing past the limestone formations that jutted out from the hillside. “Climb!” he urged her, helping her up the steep grade of the path from behind.

  The canopy of the trees shaded them at first from the light drizzle. Leaves rushed around her on chilly spirals of air that blasted her in spurts from all directions. The woods turned dark, and as the wind mounted, everything began moving. Trees were blowing, leaves scattering, branches snapping. Alice kept looking at Lucien for reassurance. He strode through the woods with an unflinching stare and an air of power, his black greatcoat billowing behind him. There was something almost supernatural about his self-possession, as though he had summoned the storm himself.

  An image flashed through her mind of him as a dauntless soldier, marching into battle amid clouds of black smoke. It comforted her to remind herself that light infantrymen were experts in using the terrain. One of their chief functions was to scout out the land ahead of the regiment’s marching columns, discerning safe routes and possible dangers ahead. Clearly, no mere foul weather was going to scare Captain Lucien, but as thunder rumbled in the distance, Alice could not say the same for herself. Growing ever more nervous, she stayed close to him, close enough to feel his body heat. The sky, she noticed, glimpsing it through a parting of the swaying trees above her, had turned the leaden color of his eyes.

  They had gone almost half the way to Revell Court when suddenly, without warning, the drizzle turned into a heavy shower. They ran, drenched in minutes by the frigid downpour. It pounded the forest’s carpet of leaves with a deafening babel and turned the steep uphill path into a river of mud, up which they went slogging. Alice could not believe they had at least another mile to go before they reached shelter. She was already soaked to the skin, her fur-trimmed coat, her gown, her gloves and boots all thoroughly ruined—as she herself would be if anyone ever found out she had been staying at Lucien Knight’s house without a chaperon, she thought grimly. Then a deafening thunderclap exploded right overhead. With a small cry of fright, she lurched instinctively against Lucien.

  He put his arm around her, steadying her. “It’s all right.”

  She clung to him, but could barely hear his soft reassurance over the din of wind and thunder. She looked up at him, her face ashen. “Let’s hurry!”

  He nodded and grasped her hand firmly. The ground leveled out; the path twisted this way and that. On and on, they ran. The wind assailed them like a horde of devils chasing them through the darkened woods, throwing leaves and bits of bark and twigs at them, sending branches crashing onto the path around them. They slowed as they approached the next upward grade, which was as steep as any staircase, stepped with large rocks here and there like islands amid the stream of mud.

  Lucien led the way. He climbed the hill ahead of her, turning every few steps to pull her up by the hand. Alice pressed on, clumsy with fear, her teeth chattering in the cold, her face flecked with mud, her knees shaky beneath her. The storm roared through the valley like the bellow of a warlock trapped within the mountain. When a bolt of lightning stabbed down out of the sky at them with a thunderclap that seemed to smash the world in one blow, Alice let out a small scream and jerked sharply in terror, slipping in the slick mud. She felt herself lose her footing and screamed Lucien’s name.

  Just out of arm’s reach ahead of her, he whirled around as she lost her balance. She caught only a glimpse of his horrified expression as she fell backwards and crashed down the hill, rolling through the mud. She felt her knee bump a rock, but what stopped her fall was a slender tree trunk on the side of the path. Her left shoulder rammed it with a jolt that knocked the breath out of her.

  Lucien was there in an instant, scrambling down to her with astonishing agility as she lay crumpled on her side, the rain pounding her stunned face.

  “Alice!” He dropped to his knees beside her. The instant he touched her, she was able to breathe again.

  She sucked in a sharp gulp of air and looked at him in a mix of fear and abject humiliation. His face was white, his expression fierce.

  “Don’t move. Just breathe,” he said in forced calm.

  Her next inhalation trembled with the threat of tears. She pushed herself up to a seated position, looking around in revulsion at the mud and slimy leaves that stuck to her.

  “Don’t sit up—”

  “I’m filthy!”

  “Thank God you didn’t break your neck,” he whispered. “Did you hit your head?”

  “No, my shoulder,” she said, her lips trembling. She reached over and grasped her left shoulder, massaging it.

  “Let me check to see if it’s broken,” he ordered curtly.

  She whimpered a little as he palpated her shoulder joint and collarbone up to the base of her neck with intense concentra
tion on the task. His hard face streamed with rain, and his breath misted in a cloud. Alice watched him in a state of misery. She felt like such a fool. She was covered in mud from head to toe.

  Relief slowly eased the taut set of his mouth. “Where else does it hurt?”

  “My knee.”

  She was too shaken to object when he pulled her skirt up over her knees. His lips pursed, and Alice looked at him in fear upon seeing the bloody stain that had seeped through her white stocking at her right knee.

  “Can you move it?”

  She gingerly bent her knee a few times, then nodded at him.

  “You must have just given it a good bang.” Looking up from her limb, Lucien met her gaze and saw the tears in her eyes. His expression instantly softened. “Sweeting,” he whispered, gathering her into his arms. “Shh, don’t cry.” As he held her, sheltering her from the rain and storm, she could feel his heart pounding. “Lord, you gave me such a fright.” Pulling back, he produced a soggy handkerchief from inside of his waistcoat. He wiped away the mud that streaked her face while she gazed somberly at him. She felt his hand trembling slightly as he dabbed the rain out of her eyes. “Put your arms around me,” he ordered gruffly.

  By his tone and the way he avoided her gaze, Alice wondered if he was disgusted or angry at her for her ineptitude, but was too chagrined to ask. She obeyed without argument. He lifted her into his arms and stood. Narrowing his eyes with a look of resolution, he studied the ascent for a moment, then began carrying her up the hill, climbing with sure strides and tireless strength. At first, she was nervous, though she doubted she could have managed the hill with her knee so badly bruised and cut; in moments, she realized that she was in good hands. She stared in wonder as the ground passed swiftly beneath her. Lucien bowed his head against the rain, but she felt the supple power of his muscled body working all around her, bearing her safely through the wind and storm.

  She stared at him in grateful awe. His cheeks were flushed with the cold, and his black hair was soaked. At the top of the hill, he paused for a moment, catching his breath; then, squinting his eyes against the rain, he continued the march with renewed vigor. With her arms wrapped around his neck, she rested her head against his broad shoulder and nestled against him a little closer with each thunderclap. At last, they reached the lookout rock. Alice furrowed her brow as he walked toward it.