Colonel Fitzwilliam's Challenge

by Jennifer Joy

  Leaning forward, Dovedale said, “I will attend to the matter personally. It is to your advantage that you let me apprehend the true criminal, so that there is no question about your promotion.”

  Richard saw how it was. Dovedale wanted full credit for catching the spy. It would make him look good in front of the Duke of York.

  “I would rather not go back to the continent.” Richard had to say his piece before he lost his opportunity.

  “I understand, my old friend. However, it is only for a short time. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that it is for the best— for our nation and for your advancement.”

  “Can I not help you here? I would stay in the shadows. It is not glory I seek.”

  In a firmer tone, Dovedale said, “That is enough. I have decided, and as your superior, you must follow orders. Or are you content to continue in your current position?”

  Richard said nothing, distrusting his emotional tongue. What he would like more than anything was to tell Dovedale precisely what he thought of his character. Dovedale was good at making promises. A more honorable man would have kept them. But, like it or not, Richard’s promotion rested in Dovedale’s hands.

  His voice softened in sympathy, Dovedale said, “I know this is a disappointment for you, Fitzwilliam. I have to think of the greater good over the comfort of one officer.”

  If Dovedale brought up the security of the country one more time, Richard could not answer to how he might respond. He had already sacrificed more than he thought he ever could for the security of his nation. He had bribed others to seek out information against the woman he wanted to marry— a woman who would never forgive him if she found out why he had arranged to spend so much time in her company.

  Oh, blast! Adélaïde. If he wanted a future with her, she deserved to know the truth. He prayed she could find it in her to forgive him.

  “Good work, Fitzwilliam. As soon as I can arrange your transfer, I will send a message. Until then, stay with your family. Enjoy your time with them before you leave.”

  Dovedale’s praise felt like a slap across his face, cutting him far worse than the punch he took earlier to the cheek.

  “Thank you for joining me for a celebratory luncheon. For now, I want you to eat, drink, and be merry. We have all worked very hard, and beginning this afternoon, this will be our new place of business. Is it not lovely?” Adélaïde let her eyes wander lovingly over the shop. “I only wish Yvette could be here with us.” She wished the same of Richard, but she could not say so aloud.

  “Her loss. You told her she could come, but she wanted to stay behind,” said Mary. Relations between Yvette and Mary had worsened over the past few days.

  “Mary, you ought to speak kinder of one who has taught you so much. I think we should bring her a plate so that she does not feel that we are indifferent. Will you see to that please?”

  Mary, ready to please Adélaïde more than continue in the same surly mood, complied. Adélaïde chalked it off to the rain of the morning, rain which had stopped pouring in buckets when the sun hit its peak in the sky. Granted, it still hid behind clouds, but they were not so dark and heavy as the ones it had chased away earlier in the day.

  Unable to wait until night, Adélaïde had the chandelier lit. With the mirrors surrounding it, the effect was better than she could have hoped for. Little flames flickered their reflections, and the glimpses of sunbeams reflected off the mirrors to shoot the sunshine that could be caught through the room. A picture of a field of flowers she must have played in as a little girl flashed through her memory. She would bring fresh flowers for their grand opening tomorrow.

  Hopes and dreams filled the room, as each girl proclaimed her optimism for their future. Even Maman shared in their happiness, going so far as to order a new gown for herself so that she could be the first customer to have her dress sewn from Mademoiselle Mauvier’s Dress Shop on Bond Street. Maman had not had a new dress in far too many years, though Adélaïde had insisted she would make her one at no cost. She was unsure Maman could afford more extravagances than the ones she spent on her table.

  The afternoon warmed, and the girls wanted to stroll along the street just as the fashionable set did at the height of the season. Locking up behind her, Adélaïde joined them.

  Chapter 22

  So rarely did Adélaïde permit herself to revel in ecstasy, today would go down forever in her memory as being very nearly perfect. Perfection would be if Richard were there to share her joy. Long gone were thoughts of living a solitary life, surrounded by nothing but dresses and the fashionable ladies who wore them. Richard was the sort of man who would be proud to have a wife with pursuits independent of his own. He would not stifle her, she was certain.

  Down the street, she saw a man with his color hair peeking out from under his hat. His coat sagged from being caught in the rain. Adélaïde knew it was rude, but she could not pull her eyes away from him. She could not see his face clearly, but her heart beat faster— and not from the quickening of her pace.

  “Miss, must you walk so fast?” complained Mary, trying to keep up with her shorter legs.

  Adélaïde ignored the question, intent on the nearing figure in front of them. Had it not been entirely inappropriate, she would have burst into a run, straight into his arms. It was Richard. What a happy sight!

  The grin on his face did not hide the swollen flesh at his cheek. Adélaïde reached out to touch it as she walked nearer, but she had to put her hand down when she remembered that she had no right to do so. Not yet.

  “Colonel, what a surprise to see you here.”

  His damp hair curled at his neck and temples, tempting Adélaïde to trace the curlicues with the tips of her fingers.

  “My family’s home is close to here. I was on my way there.”

  “Oh. Well, do not let us detain you. You are injured and in need of care.” Years of polite replies forced the words out, though she dearly wanted to detain him.

  His fingers reached up to his cheek. “It looks worse than it really is. Please, do not concern yourself.” He looked up into the sky. “The day is too nice to spend indoors. May I join your party?”

  Maman, who walked just behind Adélaïde held up her cane. “It is time this old woman went home. Might I suggest, if it is not too far out of your way, Colonel, that you accompany us as far as my home? We can see to your wound there. Afterward, the girls need to return to the old shop to pick up the fabric, and I am certain you will ensure the servants pack everything properly.”

  She ordered him about, knowing full well he would not refuse. Well done, Maman.

  Cramming into the coach, they arrived to Maman’s home, where he held in his exclamations while she applied a salve to his bruise. Adélaïde would have laughed at the scene had she not known how much he hurt.

  Lending her coach and coachmen to Adélaïde for the safe transport of her treasured fabrics, Maman left them to continue their work.

  “Miss, do you smell that?” asked Mary, the carriage bringing them closer to her shop.

  Despite her misgivings in sniffing the poisonous London air, she smelled. There was something odd. Looking out the small window, she saw nothing. The girls looked at each other in alarm. Richard stretched his neck up, smelling the air, and trying to see out the window. It was smoke.

  “Someone is having the worst day of their life,” he commented. “It must be a house.”

  Adélaïde shivered. She knew what it was like to have everything you cherished blaze up, reduced to nothing more than ashes.

  Carts and ponies, carriages, and riders rushing in the opposite direction slowed their progress through the busy streets. The smoke thickened.

  Try as she might to calm her anxieties, Adélaïde’s nerves increased with the intensity of the smoke. Clenching her hands together, clawing her palms with her fingernails, she breathed through her nose and out her mouth to stop the bile from rising up her throat.

  A blurred crowd of people stood in
front of the shop, not to admire the beautiful dresses in the display window, but to look at the smashed window where smoke poured out.

  She reached for the door of the coach, blindly grasping for the handle, but someone pulled her back. She swallowed the bile down.

  A deep voice said, “Please, Adélaïde, you must wait.”

  Hot tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them spill. She would not let them see her cry or see how much she hurt knowing they had come to take them away from her.

  “Let me go, Luc. We must do something to save them. They will kill them! Mama! Papa!” She grasped for the door again, sinking her nails into the hand that tried to stop her.

  The coach stopped and the door opened. Disoriented, Adélaïde ran to her home. The smoke stung her eyes, and it took a moment for her to realize that her parents could not be saved. Bitter disappointment rendered her helpless.

  People moved around her, shouting.

  Two strong arms encircled her.

  “Adélaïde!” Richard scooped her into his arms and ran her back to Aunt Beatrice’s coach. The driver held the horses steady, while the other coachmen and seamstresses joined the bucket brigade leading into the house.

  He could not leave her there alone.

  “Miss Mary!” he ran over to the line of people passing bucket after bucket from the nearest well. “Miss Mary, Adélaïde is not well. I need you to stay with her.”

  Trusting the girl to stay with her, he ran back to the house. Pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket, he tied it around his head to cover his nose and mouth and went in.

  Coming down the backstairs with a bucket of water, the butler ran in front of him and tossed it onto the wall of fabric in the shop where a few flickers remained. Directly to his left was a figure in skirts beating at the wall with a blanket.

  It was not so hot inside as he had expected it to be. Still, he looked above him at the structure. The back of the house appeared sound, but he could not say the same for the front.

  Quickly, he went over to the woman, her identity clear to him— even under a thick layer of soot. “Miss Yvette, you must go outside. You must get out of this smoke. These walls could collapse any moment.” As if to prove his point, the ceiling above them groaned.

  Grabbing the blanket from her, he pushed her toward the window. The hole in it was more than large enough for a person to fit through.

  “Everybody out!” he yelled.

  Another creak from the ceiling, and the sounds of screams as it dropped a few inches in warning.

  “Out! Out!” Richard yelled, as he crossed through the house to the door, making sure no one got trapped inside.

  He relaxed as he reached the threshold, and the start of the bucket line.

  A large crack sounded behind him, deafening in its intensity. The man standing with a bucket in hand in front of him stared with his mouth open at what lay behind Richard. Dumbstruck, he did not move when everyone behind him had fled. Spinning his shoulders with a forceful push, Richard kept his hands on the man’s back, forcing him forward through the noisy commotion behind them.

  Reaching the crowd, he let go of the man, and turned to view the damage, the blanket still in his hand.

  “Another second and the front of the house would have landed on you,” said Miss Yvette, the whites of her eyes blindingly bright against the black of her skin and hair.

  Startled alert by the piercing crack of a rifle, Adélaïde bolted upright. Mary grabbed her hands, stroking them, and speaking softly. “There, miss. There, miss. You are all right now.”

  “What is happening?” she asked at the same time she opened the carriage door to the horrendous sight in front of her. That had not been a rifle. It had been her house. Luc’s house.

  Neighbors, servants, and passersby milled about. “Is it out?” she heard several ask.

  Richard stood there consulting with her butler, a blanket in his hand, and streaks of black covering the wound Maman had so carefully bathed moments ago.

  “Mary, how long was I out?” Shame, from the tip of her toes to the top of her head, filled Adélaïde. She had fainted when she should have been helping.

  “Not long at all, miss. You spoke strangely right before it happened.”

  Adélaïde nodded numbly, looking at the wreckage before her.

  Strings of conversation floated past. “Such a shame…” “How fortuitous it did not get our house…” “Good thing Mr. Mauvier had a fire mark…” “Yes, the insurance will help with the structure, but the furniture is gone…” “… she is French, after all…” “She is not one of us, though she gives herself airs…”

  Tears burned Adélaïde’s eyes through the smoke. How dare they! How dare they judge her when they knew nothing.

  Furious, she lit out of the carriage, straight to Richard. Grabbing the blanket from his hands, she marched to a patch of burning embers near where her fabric would have lined the far wall of what once was her home.

  She beat at the charred shelves with a vengeance she had carried in her since she and Luc had been forced to leave their home, to leave their parents to their fate. Grinding her teeth, she hit the enemy before her time and time again until she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. Spinning about to see who would dare stop her, she saw Richard. He stood too close to her for her to do much damage to him with her blanket.

  “The fire is out. You can stop,” he said. His hand remained on her shoulder.

  Adélaïde did not want to stop. She wanted to beat the flames until she was too tired to hurt anymore. She wanted the satisfaction of knowing that those closest to her were safe. Yet, there she stood, beating out embers instead of seeing to her girls or the household staff.

  She opened her mouth to ask what he knew.

  “Everyone is accounted for,” he answered before she could voice the question.

  Calming her emotions, she breathed deeply. “I must see if anyone was hurt,” she said.

  “And I will inquire if these people saw anything noteworthy.” Richard spoke through his clenched jaw. It brought comfort to Adélaïde to know that he shared her anger, though for distinct reasons.

  She stepped aside to let him pass, bringing her face to face with her butler. “Is anyone hurt to your knowledge?” She looked at his face and hands, checking for burns, but he was so covered in smoke it was difficult to see clearly.

  “I am well, miss. Everyone upstairs should be unharmed, but I am still making sure.”

  “Thank you. I must go to Yvette; then once I am certain that everyone is safe, we will assess the damage. Perhaps Yvette knows what happened.”

  Adélaïde breathed deeply as she went around the side of the building where the soot thinned. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined herself gulping in the putrid London air, but it smelled sweet to her smoke-filled nostrils.

  She found Yvette standing next to Richard, her hands held out in front of her. Adélaïde hurried her pace as she got close enough to see why.

  Chapter 23

  Angry, red burn marks ran up Yvette’s hands and forearms. Adélaïde cupped Yvette’s face between her hands, tears springing to her eyes.

  “We must fetch a surgeon. Oh, you brave, brave woman.” Adélaïde looked around her. Richard stood there, but he would not know where to go to find the closest surgeon. Just behind Richard stood Mary.

  “Mary, please fetch the surgeon up the street for Yvette. Tell him that she has suffered some burns to her hands.”

  Mary ran off, and Adélaïde sought cool, damp cloths to be brought to soothe Yvette’s red skin— no small request since most of her possessions had gone up in flames, and every drop of clean water had been used to put out the fire. Once she had taken care of those more important things, she returned her complete attention to Yvette. Richard, too, stood by eagerly waiting for any news.

  “Please, tell me what happened,” said Adélaïde, as she led them to the side street and the backstairs where they could sit.

  “Miss Yvett
e, please leave nothing out. No detail is too small. We must find the person who did this,” said Richard, his eyes level and intense.

  Yvette closed her eyes, and began talking. “I was in the workroom when I heard it. The front glass broke like a brick had been thrown through it. I went out to see what had happened, and saw that the fabric was on fire. Not thinking clearly, and having nothing but a needle and thread in my hands, I slapped at it with my hands.” She looked down at the burns and winced in pain. “I then ran into the room and grabbed a blanket, pouring the water from the washstand on it first. By then, the servants from upstairs had heard the commotion and came down. I was too busy trying to keep the flames from spreading up into the ceiling and destroying the whole building, I did nothing more than yell for water. I regret that we could not save more of the house.”

  Adélaïde forced her mind to concentrate on Yvette. The shop, workroom, the girls’ bedchamber, the front stairs, drawing room, and her own bedroom had burned. Even worse, the loss of the fabric meant that she could make no more dresses until she acquired more. With all her money spent, she did not know how she could possibly continue. Luc’s home was insured against fire, but only the structure, and who knew how long it would take to rebuild. Until then, the house was uninhabitable.

  “You saved some of Luc’s home, and for that, I cannot thank you enough.” What would he and Anne think when they returned to find that they could not live in their home?

  A maid brought a bowl with cool water and clean strips of cloth. Yvette, on seeing the water, dunked her hands into the basin, her breath hissing out of her in both pain and relief. Adélaïde soaked a cloth, squeezing it over Yvette’s forearms.

  Before the maid who delivered the basin could leave, Adélaïde asked, “How was it that there was enough water on hand to put out the fire?”