Three Redeemable Rogues

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  “Why?” he cried, as Sarah started out the door.

  God... it seemed the corridor swayed beneath her, unbalancing her like a rug pulled out from beneath her feet.

  “Where’s my daddy?”

  Sarah would be damned if they would simply wait here in this room to meet their deaths! For all she knew, Peter Holland had set the fire. She wasn’t simply going to wait here to die. No bloody way! And neither was Christopher. Ignoring Christopher’s questions and sleepy protests, she found her way through the darkness and hurried toward the front hall, bouncing off of walls as she made her way out. There wasn’t any smoke, only darkness, but she couldn’t seem to see the way before her. When she reached the foyer at last, with moonlight piercing the sidelights, she followed it, and nearly cried with relief as she unlatched the front door and threw it open.

  Tears coursed down her cheeks as she carried her cousin’s child into the frigid night air. Once outside, she snuggled him within the charred baby blanket as curious onlookers began to congregate.

  A few ran screaming, “Fire!” as Sarah crumpled to the street with Christopher in her arms.

  At the far end of the house, a window glowed in the darkness as though it were a demon’s eye. Smoke seeped into the brisk night air, dark, sinister wisps against the cloudless night sky.

  Sarah held Christopher tight, rocking him.

  He whined, “I want my daddy.”

  “I promise everything will be fine,” she whispered to him, and tried with all her might to stay awake. Somehow she couldn’t seem to. It was as though she’d been drugged...

  Someone had drugged her.

  The realization smacked her across the brain before a wave of blackness hit.

  Someone had started the fire, too, she realized suddenly, and without doubt.

  Someone didn’t want her around.

  Why?

  She had only just begun; they couldn’t possibly have suspected her so soon. And yet... someone did perceive her as a threat.

  Who?

  The answer, she knew, lay with whoever had drugged her tea.

  Chapter 11

  Smothering the fire was not the easiest task, but they did it eventually. The last flame was extinguished in the wee hours of the morning.

  When Peter stood examining the damage in the eeriness of twilight, he saw the curtains had been completely consumed. The interior of the room was completely charred, the wood floors burned, the windows shattered by the heat. Even the bedclothes were singed. Had the flames licked a little higher, the ceiling would have begun to burn as well, but as it was, it was only thickly layered with soot. The curtain rods were torn from the brackets on one side and it was obvious that they had been wrenched from the wall. It appeared to him that Sarah had tried to put out the flame and she had very likely saved them all. Peter hadn’t had to deal with a fire on the ceiling, merely a potential inferno.

  By the time the fire department had responded, the fire had been contained.

  Peter walked away with lungs burning and soot covering him from head to toe. Weary as he was, his first thoughts were for his son... and for Sarah.

  He’d abandoned them in Christopher’s room, only because it was so near to the front of the house. If his efforts had failed, he would have retreated to get them at once, and then carried them to safety. It was only now, however, as he walked away from the night’s blaze, that he realized how deadly his decision might have been.

  As he contemplated the possible outcomes, he felt his stomach churn.

  His head began to race with thoughts of what if...

  What if he had not been able to put the blaze out?

  What if he had endangered himself by going into the burning room, and somehow mortally injured himself? No one other than Sarah had known his son’s whereabouts.

  And Sarah... what the hell had she been doing with a lit candle in her room? What need had she for light?

  Weariness settled into his brain.

  Perhaps someone had brought it in—Mel—and had forgotten it. But who would have been so bloody stupid to set a candle so close to the curtains?

  He’d found the brass candleholder on the windowsill. The window had been left only slightly ajar... enough so that the updraft had blown the flame toward the curtains, catching it afire.

  Whatever had possessed someone to do such a thing?

  Someone had endangered them all with their carelessness tonight, and he had quite a few questions to ask of his guest and her aide.

  First, however, he wished to see to their comfort, and to make certain Sarah hadn’t been injured by the fire—thank God she’d awakened in time! He shuddered to think what might have happened.

  He entered his son’s room and his heart jolted to a stop.

  It was empty.

  He’d left them both here to wait—where had they gone? It wasn’t so much a sense of immediate danger that made him suddenly sick to his stomach, but the realization that had he needed to usher them to safety, he wouldn’t have been able to find them.

  Where the hell were they?

  He hurried into the hall. “Sarah!” he shouted.

  There were strange people walking through his house now. The volunteer fire department, and police as well. They peered at him through suspicious eyes, but at the moment he didn’t give a bloody damn. He hurried outside, into the morning light, and sucked in a sigh of relief to see his son with Sarah, the two of them huddled together.

  Ignoring the press who were already gathering like hyenas after a kill—intrusive bastards—he made his way toward them, shoving aside one man who approached him.

  Sarah’s eyes were closed, and she was rocking Christopher in her arms, soothing him. There were a few reporters gathered around her already, asking questions she didn’t seem able or willing to answer.

  “Sarah,” he whispered, not wishing to startle her.

  “Sarah?” She didn’t open her eyes, but turned her face up to the sound of his voice.

  “Peter?”

  He reached out and took her into his arms, drawing her against him, and Christ help him, his body reacted at once as she fell into his embrace. “I’m here,” he told her, confused by his untimely physical reaction. His heart began to hammer with something other than fear.

  Something about the embrace triggered a longing deep within him.

  Sarah held his son while he held her, and something inside him responded to that communion.

  God, it felt bloody damned good to hold them, to protect them.

  To protect somebody.

  To know he hadn’t failed... again.

  She seemed unable to speak, and he didn’t know what else to say. She looked so like a dirty little waif sitting there in her blackened nightgown and soot-begrimed face. Her expression was one of bewilderment.

  Without her dark glasses, he could see her face more clearly, and it was lovely despite the filth. The only thing that possibly detracted from her perfection was her blindness. And yet, did it truly? If he allowed that to influence his feelings, was he any better than those who judged his son? Did he love his son any less for his disability?

  The answer was no.

  “Daddy?” Christopher whined sleepily.

  “Yes, son,” Peter answered, and reached out to take him from Sarah’s arms. “Everything is all right,” he assured Christopher. His son latched his little arms about his neck as the news hounds began to gather en masse. He shook Sarah. “Come, Sarah.”

  “Mr. Holland… William Neil with—”

  “No comment!” Peter snapped out, and urged Sarah up, dragging her gently to her feet. It wouldn’t look good to the press for him to throw her over his shoulder like some medieval savage with his stolen bride, but he wasn’t about to stand about answering questions for a bunch of reporters with their own bloody priorities. They hadn’t had the least compunction about ruining his reputation once before, nor had they given a second thought to dragging his dead wife’s name through the proverbial mud. “Sara
h,” he urged her once more, and she followed his lead as though she were in some hypnotic state.

  He led her into the house.

  “T-tea,” she stammered.

  “How did you get outside?”

  “It was the t-tea,” she repeated, and swayed a bit on her feet, scarcely able to stand. If Peter didn’t know better, he would suspect her drunk or drugged. Perhaps she was drugged? Some women, he knew, were quite fond of laudanum as a remedy for all ailments. His sister was. But Sarah Hopkins somehow didn’t seem the type.

  Ruth met them at the front hall. “Good God!” she exclaimed. “What is that child doing outside?”

  “I don’t know how they got there,” Peter answered. “Take Christopher to his room and stay with him while I see to Miss Hopkins. She doesn’t seem well.”

  “Certainly,” Ruth replied at once, and pried Christopher out of his arms.

  “And fetch Mrs. Frank as well,” he directed her. “Send her to Mary’s room.”

  “Mary’s room!”

  “Where else?” he snapped, and with his son in good hands, he lifted Sarah into his arms and carried her to his suite. “And bring some tea,” he added. “She seems to be asking for it.”

  “No... head aches,” she said. As they entered the master’s suite, Sarah moaned softly, lifting her hand to her head.

  Good Lord... her lungs ached too.

  They no longer burned but were sore, and she felt as though the chill of the night air had crept into her very bones.

  “Everything is fine,” he assured her once more.

  Sarah was aware enough not to look him in the eyes. She closed her eyes tight, trying to regain her bearings, trying to think. She had to think.

  The entire night had been like a terrible dream, and still she had yet to awaken.

  She clung to Peter as he laid her down in the bed, afraid to release him. He appeased her by kneeling at the bedside and allowing her to retain the sleeve of his nightshirt in her fist.

  “Sarah,” he said. “How did you get outside?”

  “I went outside... with Christopher,” she explained, her thoughts still too fragmented to construct sentences.

  “I know. But how?”

  “Don’t know,” she explained. “I was... afraid.”

  His tone was firm, but not harsh. “Do you realize how dangerous that was?” he asked her.

  Sarah didn’t answer. She hadn’t been thinking straight... but neither had he. The least dangerous place for them to be had been outside.

  She had known that at least.

  “Was afraid... Christopher,” she told him. “Safer outside...”

  He couldn’t argue that point and didn’t—thank God, because Sarah couldn’t think clearly enough to defend herself. Raw fear had set her in motion last night, but whatever she had been drugged with worked with sheer fatigue now to bring her to the edge of oblivion.

  She needed to sleep. Exhaustion held her firmly in its grip.

  She peered up into his face. “Need to,” she pleaded, “sleep...”

  He was staring down at her, frowning. Maybe angry? She didn’t know what she had done, but she couldn’t think about it right now. She turned away. “Need to sleep.”

  “Very well,” he relented. “Sleep, then.” He pulled the bedsheets out from beneath her and drew them up to cover her. “We’ll talk later, Sarah,” he whispered softly against her cheek as he tucked her beneath the covers.

  Sarah was vaguely aware that he had to pry her fingers loose from his nightshirt.

  And then he was gone and she fell at once into a dreamless slumber.

  Chapter 12

  Her eyes were blue.

  And she wasn’t blind.

  The second revelation had come close on the heels of the first.

  Drugged though she appeared to be, when she had turned to look at him, begging him to let her sleep... he had been struck first with the vivid clarity of her eyes—blue like the pale blue of a cloudless summer sky.

  And then he had been stunned to find her eyes beseeching him.

  Damn, he’d had no choice but to let her sleep, knowing she was hardly in any condition to answer his questions. But she was bloody well going to!

  And soon.

  Then again, he wasn’t entirely certain how to handle this. Sarah Hopkins was here for a reason. She’d gone through so much effort for some goal. Peter wanted to know what the hell it was.

  Who was she?

  What the devil was she after?

  Could he afford to let her play her little game?

  Could he afford not to?

  He thought over his options: She was hardly going to come clean and tell him if he asked outright. No, his best recourse was to let her go on, to let her play her little charade, and to watch her.

  There had been something about her from the very first, something he had not been able to place, but even despite this incident, he would have figured it out before long. He lived with his blind son, for Christ’s sake, knew his every mannerism by heart. Sarah Hopkins—if that was indeed her real name—couldn’t have fooled him much longer. Dark spectacles alone were not enough to convince a man with his experience.

  He thought back to the morning... during Christopher’s lessons... She had smiled when his son had smiled. Peter hadn’t missed her reaction, though at that instant he hadn’t been certain what it was about her mirrored response that had troubled him. Now he knew. And then this afternoon at the park... her reference to the flowers... that they were beautiful. That had struck him as odd as well.

  And now that he understood.

  Everything made sense.

  Almost everything...

  He couldn’t fathom who the hell she might be—a mole for the reporters? for the police? after all this time? He doubted it. Whoever she was, she was good—just not good enough.

  And he was going to give her just enough room in her noose to hang herself.

  “Mellie, I swear you are a godsend!”

  “As soon as I heard, and knew all was well, I went back to your home and gathered a few items.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah said.

  “I also took the liberty of purchasing another pair of spectacles for you,” Mel continued. “They wouldn’t let me in the room to retrieve anything.” She reached into her coat and withdrew a pair of spectacles that were nearly identical to the ones Sarah had been wearing. She placed them upon Sarah’s face. “I swear to God, you are the only woman I know who can carry those spectacles off as though it were the very fashion.”

  “You are such a sweet fibber!” Sarah laughed weakly. “Whatever would I do without you?”

  “Shush!” Mel said, her expression one of horror. “Quit saying such things!”

  Sarah gave her a concerned glance. “They didn’t follow you, did they?”

  “Why ever would they? Have you given them reason to suspect you?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Not that I am aware.”

  “Well, then... why would they even consider sending someone to follow your aide, whom they have no interest in at all? Besides, they are much too busy with cleaning up after the fire to concern themselves even with you, it seems. You have been sleeping undisturbed for some time, and I have been with you at least an hour without the first head popping in to check on you.”

  She still felt groggy and out of sorts, almost as though she could go back to bed and sleep for a thousand years. “I suppose I needed the rest,” Sarah replied, frowning. “Mel?”

  Mel’s brows lifted. “Yes, dear?”

  “I think someone drugged me last night.”

  Mel’s brows collided. “Drugged!”

  Sarah hesitated to say, and yet the evidence was pounding away in her head. “Well... I didn’t bring a candle into my room last night. Did you?”

  Mel shook her head. “I don’t believe I am following you, Sarah.”

  Sarah tried to focus, to think more clearly. “Did you come into my room after I fell asleep and leave a candle the
re?”

  “Of course not!” Mel exclaimed. “I mean... I might have come. I thought about it, even—and had I found you asleep, yes, I might have left again. But I didn’t, Sarah, and had I done so, I certainly would never have abandoned a lit candle.”

  “Mel... I have not used any light at all in that room for fear that I would be discovered, and yet I awoke once and there was a lit candle by the window. I saw it, but was entirely too sleepy to understand what it meant. I remember, too, waking and feeling as though someone had been in my room, and yet when I’d opened my eyes, the room had been empty, and once again I had been too tired to pursue it. I fell asleep again without giving either detail a second thought.”

  Mel frowned down at her. “You must have been terribly exhausted.”

  Sarah sat up a little straighter and tossed the covers from her. “I was. Still am. And that is hardly like me, you know.”

  “No, it’s not,” Mel agreed.

  “I feel like a slug.”

  Mel’s expression was one of concern now. “All right, Sarah... let us think about this. What did you eat last night?”

  “I skipped dinner,” Sarah answered at once. “I was so preoccupied and tired already that I could scarcely bear the thought of joining them. I just couldn’t undergo their scrutiny over an entire evening meal—felt I’d borne enough of it for one day already.”

  Mel cocked her head, her face screwing in confusion. “So you ate nothing at all? How could they possibly have drugged you, then?” she reasoned.

  Sarah sat up a little straighter, her hand going to her head. “Well... but I ordered dinner brought to my room,” she explained. “I didn’t eat much from it, just a bite or two of my bread... but I did drink my tea.”

  Mel’s lips twisted as she speculated. “The tea, then,” she said. “Who brought it, Sarah?”

  “How the devil should I know, Mellie? You know the servants better than I. Some woman. Caitlin, maybe?”

  Mel raised a brow at that, and Sarah felt at once contrite for her snappish tone.

  “I’m sorry,” she relented, “I am simply a bit confused.”