by Laura Martin
Josh held Lady Elizabeth’s hand in his, not caring about the impropriety, just wanting to know she was safe by his side. Quickly they followed the crowd, every so often checking over their shoulders for the flicker of flames.
By the time they’d reached the stairs the fire still wasn’t visible on the upper level but black billows of smoke were starting to pour out of the doors to the boxes and fill the corridor.
‘My mother.’ Lady Elizabeth turned a worried face up towards him. ‘What if she hasn’t got out?’
‘She was closer to the stairs. She will be somewhere in front of us. She’s probably outside already.’ It was the truth, their box had been further from the exit than any of the others and they were here with the rest of the audience trying to escape, but he hoped Lady Hummingford hadn’t frozen in fear as some people did when faced with fire. He let his eyes flicker over the crowd, hoping to see her statuesque figure but not able to pick anything definite out just from the backs of so many heads.
Tightening his grip on Lady Elizabeth’s hand, he surged forward, knowing that even if her mother wasn’t outside he wasn’t going to let the woman beside him re-enter the building. He’d seen the devastating effects of a fire first-hand and knew once Lady Elizabeth was outside he would pin her to the ground rather than let her risk her life by going back into the building.
With relief he spotted Leo a little ahead of them, helping an older lady who was struggling with the pushing crowd and the angle of the steps.
‘Why has everyone stopped?’ Lady Elizabeth’s eyes were filled with fear as she looked up at him. It was true the crowd was only inching forward at the bottom of the stairs, the grand entrance foyer completely packed wall to wall with people.
‘They are moving but the doors are holding everything up.’
Not designed to let people out in an emergency, the grand glass doors would only let a couple of people through at once.
Josh allowed himself to glance behind them at the smoke rapidly advancing. They would get out, he was sure of it, but not before they had inhaled lungsful of the harmful smoke. Quickly he took hold of Lady Elizabeth’s wrap and began looping it around her chin and mouth.
‘It’ll protect you from the worst of the smoke.’
‘What about you?’ She had to repeat herself a couple of times to make him understand her now her mouth was covered.
‘I’m fine.’
They were halfway across the foyer now, swept along in the crowd, which seemed to have grown a mind of its own. Josh wasn’t sure they would be able to get out of its pull even if they wanted to. Behind them the doors to the lower auditorium stood open and they could feel the heat of the flames on their backs. The fire had spread from the stage area, devouring the heavy curtains and then starting on the plush-covered seats in the stalls.
Beside him he could feel Lady Elizabeth trembling and realised she’d glanced back too, and he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
‘We’re nearly there, we’re nearly out.’
It was thirty more agonising seconds before they were at the front of the crowd and out through the doors into the fresh air. Lady Elizabeth clawed at the wrap at her throat and then sucked in great breaths of air and he felt the fresh air tickle his throat and make him bend over double coughing.
‘We need to get you further away.’
‘What about you?’
‘I have to see that Leo got out.’ Even as he said the words he saw the top of his brother’s head across the crowd and felt some of the tension he’d been holding inside start to dissipate.
‘And my mother. I need to know she’s safe.’ Lady Elizabeth’s eyes were flicking over the crowd, the tension evident. He knew the moment she spotted her mother, saw the relief blossom on her face.
‘She’s moving in the same direction as us, further away from the fire. You can meet up with her in the street. The crowd will be impossible to get through until it thins a little.’
People were standing around dazed outside and Josh was horrified to realise no one had started to organise the effort to put out the blaze. There were shouts of ‘Fire,’ and people from nearby buildings had started flooding onto the streets, but as yet everyone was just looking in awe at the smoke billowing from the opera house, seemingly mesmerised by it.
He led Lady Elizabeth through the crowd, making sure she was a good half a street away from the fire before stopping and facing her.
‘Are you hurt?’ He looked over her, taking in the mussed-up hair and smudge of soot on her cheek. Without thinking for who might see, he raised his hand and gently rubbed the smudge away, feeling the softness of her skin beneath his fingers. He let his fingertips rest on her cheek for a moment even when the smudge was gone, before remembering where they were and what was happening.
‘Just a little shaken.’
‘You’re safe, you’re out of the fire.’
He glanced over his shoulder, not wanting to leave her but knowing he had to help put out the blaze or it would be more than just the opera house that burned today.
‘You’re going back.’
‘It takes a lot of water and a lot of men to fight a fire like this.’
She nodded and he saw her visibly square her shoulders and straighten her back.
‘Then I want to help.’
‘No, it is too dangerous.’
‘Mr Ashburton, you have no say whatsoever on what I do. You are neither my father nor my husband and as such I would thank you to keep your orders to yourself.’
‘You’re not going back near that burning building,’ he said, gripping hold of her hand.
‘I’m not stupid. I won’t go back inside. But I can help with the chain of water. I’m just as capable as any man of passing a bucket up a line.’
He eyed her for a moment, seeing the determined set to her jaw and the steely look in her eye.
‘Promise me you’ll keep right back.’
‘I promise.’
He had the urge to kiss her, to take her in his arms and kiss her without caring who else saw. Josh even felt himself take a step towards her, but quickly he caught himself. This wasn’t the time or the place for any romantic gesture and Lady Elizabeth was not the woman he should be bestowing a kiss on.
Chapter Six
The smoke was billowing out of the opera house now, great black clouds coming from the windows and the roof. Mr Ashburton still held her by the hand and Beth found the contact more reassuring than she would like to admit. Never before had she been in a fire, but she knew of the devastating consequences they could bring. Only a few weeks ago a cottage near their country estate had caught fire and now it was a blackened husk rather than the family home it had once been.
‘Leo,’ Mr Ashburton called, diverting from his original path and leading her over to his brother.
Leonard Ashburton was doubled over coughing, but he managed to straighten as they approached. His eyes flicked curiously to where his brother held her hand and quickly Beth pulled away, coming up short as Joshua Ashburton continued forward to embrace his brother.
‘Thank goodness you’re safe.’
‘You too. I was worried as you were still in the box, closest to the fire.’
‘We need to organise a water line.’
‘We do or the whole street will soon be in flames. Might I suggest we find your mother, Lady Elizabeth, and she can take you back home?’
Beth wanted to find her mother, to reassure herself that she really was safe and well, but there was no way she was going home when she might be of use, even in a very small way.
‘Thank goodness you’ve not been hurt, Elizabeth.’ Her mother pushed through the crowd to the left of them and came and embraced her daughter stiffly. Even after such a horrific experience Lady Hummingford still struggled to hold Elizabeth for more than a few seconds and even that felt uncomfortable and f
orced. ‘Thank you for getting her to safety, Mr Ashburton.’
Beth had to suppress a smile as her mother looked between the two men in front of her, still struggling to tell them apart.
‘It is my brother we have to thank, Lady Hummingford. He escorted Lady Elizabeth from the opera house.’
‘Thank you, Mr Ashburton.’ Her eyes narrowed slightly as they settled on Josh, and Beth could tell her mother was wondering why the wrong Mr Ashburton had been the one to play her hero.
Mr Joshua Ashburton nodded briefly, then excused himself and began hurrying back over to the entrance of the opera house. She heard him shout a few words, gathering the men in the crowd close to him and issuing instructions. He looked as if he were born to lead, a natural at giving orders and expecting them to be followed. Beth found herself watching him with interest for a few moments before remembering what was happening and the company she was in.
‘I must go help my brother,’ Leonard Ashburton said, bowing formally to her and her mother.
‘Come, Elizabeth, we should go home. I have no idea where the carriage will be but I’m sure we can walk a little way without too much trouble.’
‘I’m not leaving, Mama. Not yet.’
As Lady Hummingford looked at her in surprise Beth squared her shoulders and straightened her spine. If she was going to help she needed to get into position in the human chain, taking her place to pass buckets up and down the line, not stand here arguing with her mother.
‘I’m going to help.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘I’m going to help, Mama.’ Elizabeth turned and started over to the rapidly growing crowd centred around Joshua Ashburton. Lots of people had already retrieved whatever containers they had available from nearby buildings and already the first chain of people had been set up, snaking along the street to a nearby public water pump.
‘Elizabeth, don’t you dare defy me. This is no place for a lady. You’re coming home with me.’
Beth hated that she actually hesitated for a moment, hated that she almost nodded her head in agreement.
‘No. You go home, Mother. I’ll ask Mr Ashburton to see me home after the fire is out.’
Without waiting for an answer she pulled her arm out of her mother’s grip and ran forward, inserting herself in the second line that was forming between a woman dressed in a plain woollen dress and a man who kept anxiously looking at the buildings around him.
Beth didn’t know where the water they passed up the line was coming from. Perhaps another public pump. She didn’t think they were near enough to the river to access that ready supply, but she could have been wrong. The next half an hour passed in a blur of aching muscles and repetitive movements as she passed bucket after bucket of water one way and empty buckets back down the line for refilling.
At some point the horse-drawn carts began to arrive, laden with the firefighting equipment: large tanks filled with water and hand pumps to direct the stream of water where it was needed the most. Between buckets Beth caught a glimpse of Joshua Ashburton striding out to meet the man in charge, and before long their line had been redirected and now they were tasked with filling up one of the great reservoirs whilst the men on the carts pumped and directed the stream.
She wasn’t sure how many hours later the cautious cheer began to spread through the crowd as the fire was declared under control. She felt more exhausted than she ever had in her life before, her arms ached, her shoulders screamed in agony every time she tried to move them and her clothes were stuck to her body with sweat. Her once fine dress was without a doubt ruined, covered in soot and dirt, ripped in places and looking as though it were twenty years old, not a mere few weeks.
Beth managed a weary smile, allowing herself to be embraced by the woman who had stood in front of her in the line before staggering over to the edge of the street and sinking down onto a low wall.
‘Careful, you look as though you could fall asleep.’
Beth looked up into Joshua Ashburton’s smiling face and managed a weak smile of her own. She realised he must have kept an eye on her the whole time, even when co-ordinating the efforts of all the volunteers, to know where she had staggered to so quickly.
‘I’ve never been so tired.’ She wanted to lean against him, to allow him to wrap his arms around her and rest her head on his chest.
‘You were incredible. It’s been four hours and you never flagged.’
‘Four hours? Really?’ She wasn’t sure if it felt like forty minutes or four days. Shaking her head in disbelief, she looked up at him again. ‘I was just one small pair of hands in the line. You played a much more important role than me.’
Mr Ashburton looked as if he was going to protest when his brother came up and clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Well done, Josh.’
Leonard Ashburton was as sooty and ruffled as the rest of them, although his upright bearing hadn’t changed. His eyes danced curiously over her and she wondered if she imagined the slight tightening at the corner of his lips.
‘You stayed to help, Lady Elizabeth.’ It was phrased partway between a statement and a question and she wasn’t sure if there was a hint of disapproval in his eyes.
‘I couldn’t leave.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She went home.’ Leonard Ashburton raised an eyebrow but said no more to her, instead turning to his brother. ‘You did well, Josh. I think the fire would still be blazing if it weren’t for your quick actions at the start.’ For the first time Beth saw a softness in Leonard Ashburton’s expression. He might be a serious man, a man who didn’t often let his emotions show, but it would seem he cared for his brother.
‘Go home and get some rest. I’ll see Lady Elizabeth home.’
For a moment she thought Joshua Ashburton might protest, but he just nodded and she realised she was silly to hope he would insist he be the one to escort her home. It was his brother she was soon to be engaged to, despite the undeniable attraction between them.
‘Rest well, Lady Elizabeth,’ Joshua Ashburton said as his brother offered her his arm.
She had to resist the urge to look back over her shoulder and instead focus on putting one foot in front of the other as she tried not to lean too heavily on Leonard Ashburton.
* * *
For the first five minutes they barely said a word to one another. Beth was so exhausted it took all her energy to just walk without stumbling and she wondered if, despite his stoical expression, Leonard Ashburton might also be struggling to continue.
‘You didn’t have to stay this evening,’ he said eventually when they were a few streets away from the opera house. There were no carriages for hire in the streets at this hour and Beth was starting to accept they would need to walk all the way back to her rented residence.
‘I couldn’t leave, not when there was a chance I could help, even if only in a very small way.’
She felt his eyes on her and wondered if she had said the wrong thing but found herself too tired to care. Leonard Ashburton was an enigma, so quiet and hard to read. For all she knew he might thoroughly approve of her defying her mother and joining the water line, or he might think less of her for her unladylike response to the situation.
‘I’m sorry I was called away last week. And today our outing was cut short.’
‘The fates are conspiring against us.’ Beth wasn’t sure why she said it—it was hardly the right thing to say to convince the man next to her they should marry within the year. She wasn’t normally superstitious, preferring fact and logic to anything occult, but their path to an engagement hadn’t exactly been smooth.
Guiltily she tried to suppress the memory of the kiss with Joshua Ashburton. She felt the heat begin to rise in her body and the blush spread across her cheeks. Staying to help fight the fire at the opera house Leonard Ashburton could probably forgive, but she doubted he would be a
ble to move past her kissing his brother.
‘Indeed. Hopefully our next meeting will be more of a success. My brother tells me you had a pleasant evening at Vauxhall Gardens.’
She shot him a sharp look, but there was nothing but polite interest on his face.
‘It was. Thank you. It was kind of him to accompany me when you were called away. I’ve never been to a pleasure garden before and the experience was one I had been looking forward to.’
They walked in silence for a few minutes, Beth concentrating on her aching feet and legs, too tired to try to impress the man next to her. Equally he didn’t seem overly enthused to use the opportunity to get to know her any better, but she supposed he must be at least as tired as her, if not more so given his active role at the heart of the firefighting.
At her door he waited until the maid had responded to the loud knock before giving a sharp little nod of his head and turning on his heel. It was hardly the farewell of a fond suitor.
Chapter Seven
The atmosphere in the dining room was decidedly frosty when Beth finally rose the next morning. She had contemplated skipping breakfast completely but in the end had decided she would have to face her mother at some point and the ache in her stomach wouldn’t be silenced until she ate a few slices of buttery toast washed down with delicious tea.
Her body ached from the exertion of the night before. Beth had thought of herself healthy and strong, back home she walked miles every day and rode her horse at every opportunity, but the repetitive action of passing the heavy buckets of water backwards and forwards had worked, not only her arms, which felt leaden now, but also the muscles in her sides, which pulled as she walked.
Silently she took her seat to the left of her mother, hoping she would at least get a few mouthfuls of tea before her mother began her tirade.
‘I am very disappointed in you, Elizabeth.’
The cup hadn’t even reached her lips. Beth clenched her jaw and then forced herself to relax and take a soothing sip of tea before she placed the cup back on the table and turned to face her mother.