The Highlander's Woman (The Reckless Rockwoods #3) (9 page)

“I’ll have Hughes find you a room for the night.” With those final words, Patience walked to the door. Her hand had just touched the doorknob, when Julian’s voice filled the air.

“Understand this, Patience. I’ll no’ give you up,” he said in an inflexible, resolute voice. “Do no’ think to ask for a divorce. I will no’ give it to you.”

Patience looked over her shoulder at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. His profile could have been etched in marble for how severe his expression was. Her heart skipped a beat. If he didn’t love her would he be so set in his determination not to let her go? Could a man who was so decisive in his purpose actually have betrayed her? The fact that she didn’t have an answer was what terrified her the most. It meant she didn’t trust him and without trust how could their marriage survive? Without replying to his words, Patience fled the room.

P
atience woke up coughing. Groggily, she reached for the glass of water at her bedside and swallowed the liquid. The mantel clock chimed four, and she pushed aside a strand of hair that had escaped her braid. The moment she smelled smoke, each of her senses were on high alert. Hoping the damper had simply fallen closed inside the fireplace flue, she slipped out of bed. The floor beneath her feet was warm, and an ember in the fireplace sparked and created a flame that illuminated small tendrils of smoke swirling gently in the air. In the distance, she thought she heard cries. Patience ran to the door and cautiously open it. Smoke billowed into her room from the hallway and set off another bout of coughing.

Dread tightened her chest as she stepped out into the corridor and looked toward the main staircase. Patience’s eyes widened in horror as she saw a wall of flames at the stairs. Terrified she let out a wild scream of fear. On the opposite side of the burning staircase, she saw Sebastian fling his arm around Helen to prevent her from racing through the flames toward Patience. Devin and Lucien were doing the same with her sisters as all three women struggled with their husbands and screamed mad wails of terror.

“Oh dear god,” she whispered as she remembered the nursery was behind her. “The children.”

The door across from hers opened, and Aunt Matilda emerged from her room coughing. As the Scotswoman looked toward the stairwell, she blanched with fear before a calm expression settled on her face. She touched Patience’s arm.

“I’ll see to the children, dearie,” her aunt said in a quiet, but urgent, voice. “Rouse Caleb.”

With a nod, Patience hurried through the smoke to Caleb’s room, which was closest to the fire. Through the flames, she saw Percy shove Julian against the wall of the corridor to keep him from plunging through the fire engulfing the floor at the top of the staircase. Terror spiraled through her like a swiftly moving serpent. Her gaze met Julian’s for a brief moment before she turned away and threw Caleb’s door open. It crashed against the wall to reveal her brother, still dressed, sprawled across the bedcovers. The smoke was stronger in Caleb’s room, and her coughing worsened. Racing toward the bed, Patience shook her brother hard.

“
Caleb, get up
,” she shouted. “The house is on fire.”

His response was to push her hand away with a grunt and continue sleeping. In the hallway she heard more shouts and cries of fear.

“Caleb, please,” she frantically pleaded as she shook him again. “Wake up.”

He grunted again, but still didn’t move. Patience glanced desperately around the room for something that might awaken her brother. A vase of flowers on a nearby table made her leap forward. The blooms scattered beneath her feet as she yanked them out of the vase and raced to the bed where she dumped the water on Caleb’s head. Her brother came to with a loud snarl. Sitting upright in bed he glared at her.

“What the devil is wrong with you, Patience?” he shouted in a slightly slurred voice.

“The house is on fire,” she screamed at him. For a long moment, Caleb stared at her as if she were mad. Then in the next instant, he was wide-awake and off his bed in a flash of movement.

“The children,” he ground out with visible fear on his face as he headed toward the door.

The two of them ran into the hallway, and Patience saw the fire had crept even closer toward Caleb’s room. Aunt Matilda had reached the nursery and with the help of Nanny Smythe was hustling the children out into the hallway. Both Patience and Caleb reached their aunt at the same time. The Scotswoman was holding her namesake in her arms, while the nurse held Caleb’s baby girl, Greer. The older children had taken charge of the younger children, and her brother knelt next to Alma and Braxton to give them a quick hug.

“It’s all right, my darlings, papa’s here. Everything’s going to be all right.”

The little boy and girl clung to Caleb as he tried to stand. When they wouldn’t let go, he rose up with them still in his arms. Coughing, he looked at Patience and then their aunt.

“Will go down the servants’ staircase,” Caleb said with a calm she would have expected from Sebastian, never from him. Before he could move forward, Aunt Matilda shook her head, her mouth thinned in a tight line of worry.

“The fire has reached there as well. It’s blocked.”

“The window,” Caleb bit out as he strode toward the end of the corridor with Alma and Braxton still in his arms.

From where she stood, she saw his back grow rigid. He whirled around and returned to where the group of them was huddled in a small tight group. The children were beginning to cough badly, and Patience met her brother’s worried gaze.

“The flames are shooting out from the dining room window below. We’ll not be able to get out that way.” Her brother’s voice was grim as he looked at first Patience and then Aunt Matilda. “The whole downstairs on this side of the house must be burning out of control. None of the windows below us will be free of the flames.”

Patience’s heart sank down into her stomach before rising up in her throat. A young hand slipped into hers, and she looked down to see Devin’s and Louisa’s oldest child at her side.

“My feet are hot, Aunt Patience,” Charlie said in the midst of a coughing spurt.

“Mine are too, darling. But we’ll find a way out of here, all right.” Patience bent over the boy and kissed his forehead. Inside, she prayed fervently that the night would not make a liar out of her.

“Then we’ll have to brave the lion’s mouth,” Aunt Matilda said quietly. Caleb and Patience looked at her then followed her gaze. In disbelief, she looked back at her aunt and shook her head violently.

“There has to be another way,” Patience exclaimed with horror.

“There’s no way out on this end, child,” her aunt said softly. “The servants’ stairs at the other end of the house are still usable. They’ve already formed a fire brigade to try to reach us.”

Patience looked over her shoulder and saw Sebastian empty a bucket of water on the fire before Julian passed him another one. Lucien, Devin, and Percy were passing buckets they were receiving from someone in the servants’ stairwell. She looked back at her aunt and Caleb who was contemplating the grim prospect.

“How will we keep the children—or us— from being burned?”

“We will cover the wee bairns with wool blankets from the nursery. Wool does no’ burn fast, and we can wet them down with water from our rooms.” Confidence filled the Scotswoman’s voice, and Caleb nodded in agreement.

“We’ll do it. Aunt Matilda, let Sebastian know what we’re going to do. Patience and I will fetch—” A loud crack interrupted Caleb, and they all turned toward the end of the hall where the nursery was. Flames flew upward as a small portion of the floor broke away and gave the fire room to breathe.

“Saints preserve us,” Aunt Matilda whispered, and for the first time, Patience saw fear on the Scotswoman’s face.

“Move the children toward the main stairs, Aunt Matilda,” Caleb commanded with a sharp precision their eldest brother would be proud of. “Patience come with me, we’ll need water to wet the blankets.”

Following his orders, Patience left her aunt and the nurse to usher the crying children toward the middle of the house. With silent gestures, Caleb pointed to her bedroom as well as her aunt’s to get what they needed while he moved toward the nursery. Fear created a knot in her throat and she coughed hard as she entered her aunt’s smoke-filled room. One arm covering her nose and mouth, Patience moved quickly toward a vase of flowers to merge the water with what was in the pitcher sitting beside the washbasin.

Pitcher in hand, she grabbed the wool blanket off the bed and returned to the hallway. She hurried to where her aunt and the nurse had gathered the children and set the water and blankets on the floor. The heat of the fire had forced them to stop several feet away from where the main staircase was on fire.

For the first time, Patience was able to see the gap between them and the rest of her family. She drew in a breath of horror. There was barely even a third of the hallway remaining for them to walk across to reach safety. Sebastian was rapidly throwing bucket after bucket on the small stretch of walkway and looked up to meet Patience’s gaze. His grim expression made her heart pound with fear as she turned around and raced back down the hall to retrieve water and blankets from her own room.

The smoke in her room made her eyes sting and it was almost impossible to breathe. She worked quickly and in seconds she’d returned to the hall where she met Caleb on his way back to the frightened group of children. The grim expression on his face matched the expressions of the men on the opposite side of the stairwell.

“We’ll send the oldest children across first,” Caleb shouted at his oldest brother over the roar of the fire.

Sebastian nodded and turned his head as Devin broke away from the hall brigade. Her brother-in-law said something to Sebastian and pointed toward the wood that still laid between the two sections of hallway. Her brother nodded, and Devin stepped toward the edge of the wood as Caleb returned to their small huddle.

“Jamie. Theo. Imogene. The three of you are to go first,” Caleb said as he used a knife he’d retrieved from his room to begin splitting the blankets they had in two. The three children looked at their uncle with terror in their eyes, and her brother bent his head toward them. “You’ll be perfectly safe. Uncle Devin is on the other side waiting for you.”

“Come on, Gene,” Jamie said as he straightened and reached out for Imogene’s hand. In the far reaches of her mind, Patience remembered how Constance despaired of Jamie’s nickname for Imogene. The girl, who’d been trembling only seconds before, slipped her hand into Jamie’s clearly taking comfort in being at her best friend’s side.

“We’ll be okay, Uncle Caleb,” Theo, Sebastian’s oldest child, said with just a touch of fear in his voice.

“I know you will,” Caleb said as he squeezed the young boy’s shoulder.

“Who will take Greer across,” Imogene exclaimed. The girl had become attached to the baby, and Patience understood her fear for the infant.

“We’ll see that she gets across as well,” Caleb said in a reassuring tone. Imogene’s expression suddenly became one of stubborn determination. If Patience hadn’t known better, she would have thought the child a Rockwood by birth.

“
I
will carry her.” Without waiting for anyone to object, Imogene went to the nurse and took the baby from her hands. “Come along, Greer, you’ll be safe with me.”

Caleb stared helplessly at the young girl holding his baby girl in her arms. Patience could tell he didn’t know what to do, and she directed a nod of encouragement at him. With a grimace, he hurried Imogene back to the oldest boys. Caleb dampened three blankets then showed the children how to keep the protective covering over their heads. Quickly, yet gently, her brother guided them toward the flames. With instructions to keep their heads down and stay close to the wall, he sent Imogene with the baby first, followed by Theo and Jamie just a few steps behind.

Lucien greeted Jamie and Imogene with thankful enthusiasm on the other side as Devin handed the children off to him. The moment Devin handed Theo to her eldest brother, Sebastian hugged his son tight, and Patience saw him shudder. With a kiss on the boy’s forehead Sebastian set his son down and pointed toward the stairs at the end of the hall. Her nephew nodded and set off at a run.

Satisfied the children and the baby had reached safety, Caleb ordered Aunt Matilda to carry Tilly across. The woman shook her head and emphatically insisted Nanny cross the small stretch of wood with Charlie in her arms. An odd expression crossed her brother’s face as he gave her a grim nod. For the first time, Patience realized her aunt and Caleb didn’t think all of them would reach the other side. They were sending the heirs to safety first.

She dragged in a sharp breath of fear, and coughed violently as smoke filled her lungs. Caleb urged Nanny forward who pulled a blanket over her head and wrapped it around Charlie who was sobbing with fear. Cautiously, the woman crossed what was left of the hall floor. Despite Sebastian’s continued efforts to keep the floor wet with splashes of water, the path to safety was quickly being eaten away by the fire. Seconds later, the nurse handed her small charge over into his father’s arms. Devin kissed the boy reassuringly and then handed his son back to the nurse and directed her to go to the end of the hallway.

“Aunt Matilda—” Caleb didn’t get to finish before the Scotswoman shook her head.

“Patience is tae go with Braxton, I’ll—”

“
No
,” she shouted over the noise of the fire. “Take Tilly. Caleb will need help getting the rest of the children across.
Go
.
Now
.”

With a look of resignation on her face, her aunt quickly closed the space between them and enveloped her in a tight hug. The Scotswoman pressed a tender kiss onto Patience’s cheek then stepped back and wrapped a blanket tight around her and Tilly.

The four remaining children clung tightly to Patience’s nightgown as she watched Aunt Matilda slowly carry her precious cargo to safety. When her aunt reached the other side, Patience noted the wood flooring was growing more narrow by the minute despite Sebastian’s efforts to keep the fire at bay. If possible, Caleb’s expression was grimmer than before as he turned toward Patience and she offered him his son.