And then she hit the ground with a hardthwack.
At the same time, the candle clattered to the ground, rolled, and landed among her skirts. She seemed to be watching it in slow motion as it flickered for a moment, and then, to her horror, her skirts caught flame.
Chapter Two
“Rosalie!”
Nathan’s shout was instinctual. He could hear the fear in his voice, the urgency, as the end of her dress went up in flames. But before he could move, before he could even properly understand what had happened, he was gone.
He was back in that flaming building. Red and yellow fire was licking through the rooms, clouding his vision and his ears. That was the worst part—the way all he could hear was the cracking of flames, the screams, as if it were happening now and not years ago, and all the while, the smell of smoke was filling his nose, gagging him.
“Help me! Help! I’m on fire!”
It’s not going to end that way!he told himself as Rosalie’s screams wrenched him out of the nightmare flashback.I won’t let it.
His body leapt into action. He ran forward, not even bothering to take the stairs but hurling himself over the railing and landing in a squatting position. The shock of landing on the hardwood floor sent pains throughout his legs, but he hardly noticed. His body didn’t even seem to belong to him—it was like some giant machination, poised and ready to act.
He stood and ran across the floor of the library towards Rosalie where she still lay on the ground. Her skirt was on fire, flames licking up the silk crinoline. It was thankfully small, but he knew that a fire like that could spread quickly, especially—his heart tightened painfully—in a place like this, full of books.
“Roll!” he shouted as he finally reached her. “Roll, Rosalie.”
“I can’t!” she yelled, her wild, fearful eyes meeting his. “It’ll burn me.”
“It’ll put out the flames!” he shouted, and then he was ripping off his jacket. She began to roll while at the same time he threw himself onto her skirts, the jacket first, tamping down the fire. She screamed as the fire licked up around him, but he didn’t stop.
“We have to smother it!” he yelled, and she didn’t argue again. She continued to roll back and forth while he forced himself to press the jacket down onto the flames, even as he felt it starting to burn the fabric and his fingers.
It was working but not fast enough. The dress was burning higher and higher, and soon, he knew, it would reach her legs.
I need to get it off of her!
Without thinking, he reached forward, seized the silky fabric, and wrenched as hard as he could, tearing a huge swath of it off the rest of the dress.
Rosalie let out a frightened shriek, but now that the cloth was separated from the rest of the dress, it had nowhere else to burn, and Nathan was able to smother it in his jacket.
At last, the fire was out, and he was able to sit back, breathing hard.
Without the light from the fire, the room now seemed oddly dark. He peered through the gloom, and the smoke that still clung to the air and clogged his nose with its acrid smell, to where Rosalie lay on her back, her hands still up in front of her chest in a protective manner. He was crouched over her, he realized, with a piece of her torn, burnt dress in his hands.
Slowly, he lowered the fabric. His hands were smarting, but he ignored this. He’d endured worse pain. His main concern was for Rosalie.
“Are you all right?” he asked, and he was surprised to find that his voice was husky, probably from the smoke that was still scraping against his throat.
“I-I think so,” came her small, terrified answer.
“You’ll be all right now,” he said gently. “The fire is out.”
There was a long moment of silence during which Nathan tried not to look at where the fabric had torn off, exposing her white lace chemise and even—his stomach tightened—a sliver of her calf. He looked away quickly. It was only her voice that brought his eyes back to hers.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “You saved my life. And maybe all our lives if the house had burned as well.”
How had he never noticed before just how beautiful her eyes were? They were big and doe-like and green as the ocean during a storm. And he could tell, just from looking into them, that they held similar depth.
She is no longer a girl, he thought, his heart beginning to pound.She has grown up.When he’d last seen her, she’d been a skinny, devilish thing with strong opinions and fanciful notions of love.
Now, she looked warier, more reserved, but still with that adventurous glint he remembered. And while she was still skinny—too skinny, he ought to tell James’s cook to feed her more—she was no longer gangly and awkward, but instead she was elegant and poised.
“It’s nothing,” Nathan said gruffly, tearing his eyes away from hers. He didn’t want her to think well of him for this—or get any romantic notions. “Anyone would have done the same.”
