Make Her Wish Come True Collection. Ann Lethbridge
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suddenly dry, she swallowed. Her shoulders sagged. She could see from his expression that he knew he had her in a cleft stick. She had no proof the jewels were hers to sell. Or that she had not taken his money. She’d have to let him take the girls or risk prison.
He stepped closer, his smile triumphant. ‘Well, Lady High and Mighty. If you care for your liberty and your life, stop this nonsense and come home with me now.’
Hot fury coursed through her veins. She snatched up the broom leaning against the wall. ‘Out! Get out.’
It wouldn’t be the first time she had given Herbert a trouncing. He also clearly recalled the occasion he’d attempted a slobbery kiss and she’d slapped his face. He backed away. He narrowed his eyes, while maintaining a safe distance.
‘You leave me no choice, then. I will be back with the authorities and we will see who has the upper hand.’ His smile widened. ‘Oh, and what it this I hear in the village, dear Stepmama, about the friendly widow and her landlord? Not a good example to set two young girls, is it? Or to impress the courts.’
She stared at him, mouth agape. ‘Sir Josiah was an octogenarian.’
‘My father was not much younger. That is your method, is it not? Marry an old man and pilfer his money.’ He waved an airy hand. ‘It is all a great heifer like you could possibly hope for. Too bad this one died before you had a chance to get him to the altar.’
Her face flamed. Herbert really knew how to twist a knife in an opponent’s breast. ‘Leave before I do something you will regret.’
‘With pleasure. But make no mistake, I shall return.’ He bowed. ‘I wish you good day, dearest Stepmama.’
He swaggered off.
Rage mingled with fear blocked her throat. Blood roared in her ears. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She put down the broom and walked out to the lane to be sure Herbert was gone. He would be back with the magistrate. No doubt about it, if he was that desperate for funds. But not today. Sir Josiah’s death meant there wasn’t a magistrate closer than fifteen miles.
She swallowed. Thank heaven Mr Royston had departed before her stepson’s arrival. The shame of him hearing those terrible accusations of theft would have nigh killed her.
She ran back into the house. ‘Girls,’ she called out. ‘Start packing. We leave first thing in the morning.’
‘But tomorrow is Christmas Eve,’ Diana wailed from the top of the stairs.
Standing at the bottom, watching her, Lucy’s face showed sadness and understanding. Emotions far too old for such a young child. ‘I’ll help you, Diana. It will be fun. We’ll sing carols while we fold.’
Curse the unfairness of it all. Damn Herbert, she would not let him win.
The snow had stopped. Adam stared out into the darkness, looking across the lawns he could not see, staring in the direction of Ivy Cottage, wondering what Cassie was doing. Tomorrow he’d go. He was packed and ready to leave at first light. He wouldn’t let another day pass and risk his father sending out a search party. Hopefully it would stop snowing by morning. He unbuttoned his jacket with a sigh.
He should have left that morning, but after a night of dreams, some bad, some ridiculously erotic involving a certain woman whose gorgeous body he adored and whose feelings he’d hurt, he had finally dropped deep asleep near dawn. Naturally, he’d woken at noon, far too late to think of setting out. He’d also recalled that he hadn’t finished going through the last of old Sir Josiah’s ledgers.
Excuses.
He’d spent the balance of the day arguing with himself about whether he should or should not pay one more visit to Ivy Cottage. So why had he walked away last night? Going to bed alone, when he could have been in the arms of a warm and willing woman, made little sense. She wasn’t after a husband. He liked her, perhaps more than he’d liked any woman, even—
Shocked, he stilled. Guilt swamped him.
He clenched his fist and pressed the side of it against the cold glass. How could he think of liking any woman better than Marion? It wasn’t possible he could be so disloyal.
A twinkle of light flickered through the trees.
He frowned. Usually he could see nothing of the cottage from this window at night. Only in daylight did the smoke rising above the trees from its chimney give its presence away. Perhaps it was some sort of trick of the light, reflection on snow.
The light seemed to grow brighter. And it was flickering in an odd… Fire!
He raced downstairs, grabbed up his overcoat and gloves and was outside in minutes. He ploughed through drifts that in some places were shin deep. His heart thumped painfully in his chest. The cold stung his ears and his cheeks. His frosty breath was whipped away by the wind. A wind that would fan flames.
Blast. He had to be in time. He would not let it be otherwise.
He turned up the narrow lane to the cottage. Flames had already engulfed the interior of the lean-to shed and were now licking up through its thatched roof. A thick oily smoke filled the air. Sparks flew about on the wind and landed on the roof of the cottage. Thank God for the layer of snow. Where the hell was Cassie? And the girls?
He banged on the door. ‘Cassie,’ he yelled.
No answer. One of the upstairs casements was ajar. The smoke from the fire would have trickled inside, stunning the occupants or worse. His heart lurched. Fear set his heart thumping and his brain racing. He ran to what was left of the woodpile, found the axe, broke open the kitchen door, horrified to see flames eating through the parlour wall. He tore upstairs.
At the top he found Cassie, coughing and struggling on the landing with a girl on each arm. He swept the girls up and carried them downstairs, depositing them in the kitchen. Smoke billowed through the room. He closed the parlour door as Cassie arrived, still coughing with her arms full of coats. ‘Boots by the back door,’ she gasped.
Together they got the bleary-eyed shivering girls into their outerwear and outside into the lane. The girls clung to each other.
‘Wait here,’ Adam said. ‘I’ll see if I can put out the fire.’ He ran to the back of the house. The shed was little more than a pile of collapsing timber, but only one wall of the parlour was affected, the one adjoining the shed. Someone must have boarded up a window in that wall when the shed was added.
Cassie rounded the corner. ‘Heaven help us.’
‘Buckets,’ Adam said.
‘In the kitchen. I’ll get them. You work the pump.’ She dived through the back door hanging precariously off its hinges.
Adam pumped a steady stream of water into the two buckets Cassie brought. Without words they worked together. While he took one bucket to the fire, she filled the next.
Slowly, slowly the smoke lessened and he became aware of the two little girls standing in the corner of the yard shivering and cold with tears running down their faces.
‘I think we are done here,’ he said to Cassie. ‘Take the girls into the kitchen and get them out of the wind.’
She stopped pumping and blinked as if the words made no sense.
He gave her a little push towards the back door. ‘Take the girls inside and pass me a lantern so I can make sure there are no lingering embers.’
She nodded and led the girls back into the house, returning seconds later with a lamp. She patted his arm in thanks, but also as if to reassure herself he was real before going indoors.
He crossed the yard and peered inside the shed. It was little more than a burnt-out shell. Nothing left but scorched beams overhead and on the floor, ashes, burnt bits of wood and lumps of melted metal.
Something glittered in the lamplight. He gazed down, then crouched to get a better look. Now, what were bits of glass from a broken lamp doing outside