The Longest Night: A Drake Chronicles Novella (12 page)

“I suppose we ought to help,” Penelope said dubiously. She
spotted Mr. Cohen cowering under the cover of an elm tree. “That tears it,” she muttered.
“Let’s, shall we?”

Emma followed her gaze. “I thought you liked him.”

Penelope glanced away, her cheeks red as berries. “Not anymore.”

She scowled. “What did he do?”

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

“Penelope. I’m wet and cold and perfectly willing to shove him into the shrubbery.”

“He called me fat.”

Emma hissed out a breath. “I beg your pardon.”

“It’s nothing, really.” She forced her voice not to wobble. “He embarrassed me, is
all.”

“Think how embarrassed he’ll be when I wrap his smalls around his fat head.”

Penelope, feeling decidedly more cheerful, had to drag Emma toward the burning house,
where they stood uncertainly at the edge of a line of shouting men. Someone broke
the window from inside the ballroom, glass cracking into the hollyhocks. Smoldering
drapes followed, coiling like a smoke-breathing serpent.

“Why does Emma look like she’s swallowed a bee?” Gretchen asked when her cousins pushed
their way toward her.

“Mr. Cohen called Penelope fat,” Emma replied.

Gretchen’s smile died. “Did he, now?”

Penelope now felt perfectly vindicated and couldn’t quite recall why she’d let Mr.
Cohen hurt her feelings in the first place. “It’s nothing.”

“I hope he wakes up swollen like a balloon,” Gretchen muttered.

While her cousins stewed and plotted painful vengeance involving Mr. Cohen swelling
to such proportions that all the buttons popped off his evening wear and he ended
up naked in the ballroom, Penelope couldn’t help but admire the parade of half-dressed
men under a flash of lightning. “Well, now,” she grinned appreciatively, wounded pride
utterly erased. “There should be more fires, don’t you think?”

“What?” The sight of Cormac in his shirtsleeves, the wet fabric clinging to his muscles
was particularly distracting. Emma felt compelled to stare, as if under some sort
of spell. She blinked rain out of her eyelashes when Cormac went blurry. She had to
remind herself that she’d sworn to hate him. She turned her attention back to the
buckets sloshing from hand to hand, until her fingers cramped. Smoke stung her eyes
and seared her throat.

“And I had no idea Tobias was so well-muscled, did you?” When the rain faded to a
patter in the leaves, Penelope pouted. “Drat. What a shame. If we’re not all going
to die horribly in flames, I’d rather like to see more shirtsleeves.”

Emma was still wondering why the sight of Cormac lifting heavy buckets and wiping
mud off his face made her feel so peculiarly warm. Even her toes in her paper-thin
dancing slippers were hot. She must be catching a fever from standing out in the storm.
Cold water spilled down her dress but she barely noticed. The rest of her was burning
with sweat and screaming muscles. She didn’t look up from the endless parade of heavy
buckets until Gretchen came out of a cloud of smoke, grinning and covered in soot
and dirt. “Fire’s nearly out.”

The rain started to fall again, the wind pushing it mostly
toward the house. The cousins remained relatively untouched, darting under the widespread
boughs of an oak tree.

“Should rain be able to do that?” Penelope asked, perplexed. “Not that I’m complaining
but . . .” She shook her head. “Do you think someone slipped laudanum in the lemonade?
Because this is turning out to be the strangest night.”

The pink dog leaned against Gretchen’s ankles, looking miserable. She bent to scoop
him back up into her arms so they could shiver together. The guests became a river
of silks and wilted cravats pushing toward the waiting carriages.

“I need to find the doctor,” Emma remembered.

“Why?” Gretchen looked instantly concerned. “Did you burn yourself? You should have
left the buckets to me.”

“I didn’t get near enough to burn myself,” Emma assured her. “But a girl was hurt
during the tremor. She’s broken her collarbone.”

“I thought I heard someone say the doctor was with the ladies near the hideous cherub
statues,” Gretchen said. “They sent someone to fetch him as soon as the curtains caught
fire. I’ll get this dog back to Lady Pickford, after I inform her the fire was no
doubt penance for abusing this poor thing with pink fur and ridiculous ribbons,” she
added, spotting Lady Clara self-administering smelling salts.

“I’ll get your Aunt Mildred to the carriage,” Penelope added to Emma before picking
her way through the wet grass.

Covered in mud and soot, Emma went in search of the doctor. She found him surrounded
by pale ladies clutching smelling salts, and a footman with a nasty burn on his forearm.
His shirt was charred into tatters. She told the doctor where Margaret was waiting
and then returned to join her so she wouldn’t have to wait alone. The main path was
currently congested with girls in various states of dismay, both feigned and unfeigned,
surrounded by attentive young gentlemen eager to help. Cutting through the garden
seemed the path of least resistance.

She really ought to have known better.

She’d already had every indication that the night was an unmitigated disaster. She
wasn’t sure what made her assume the worst was over. Chronic optimism, perhaps.

Or chronic madness.

It did run in the family, after all.

ALYXANDRA HARVEY
is the author of the Drake Chronicles—
Hearts at Stake, Blood Feud, Out for Blood, Bleeding Hearts, Blood Moon
, and
Blood Prophecy
—as well as the standalone novels
Haunting Violet
and
Stolen Away.
Alyx likes medieval dresses and tattoos and has been accused of being born in the
wrong century—except that she really likes running water, women’s rights, and ice
cream. She lives in an old Victorian farmhouse in Ontario, Canada, with a few resident
ghosts, her husband, and their dogs.

www.alyxandraharvey.com

http://drakechronicles.tumblr.com/

www.facebook.com/thedrakechronicles

www.pinterest.com/alyxharvey

@AlyxandraH

Read the Drake Chronicles

from the beginning . . .

Ruling Passion—includes Hearts at Stake,
Blood Feud, and Out for Blood

Find out more about the Drakes at
www.alyxandraharvey.com

www.bloomsbury.com
www.facebook.com/BloomsburyTeens

The passion continues with three original
e-novellas featuring your favorite characters
from the DRAKE CHRONICLES . . .

www.bloomsbury.com
www.facebook.com/BloomsburyTeens

In the mood for more romance?

www.bloomsbury.com
www.facebook.com/BloomsburyTeens

Copyright © 2013 by Alexandra Harvey

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