In the time since the initial revelation, she had been able to shake the fear Drummond would have somehow been responsible for such an egregious crime. He was aiming for large public gatherings and symbolic buildings, not personal residences. She had yet to betray him, so he could not have laid a bomb in some sort of retaliatory measure if he had someone following her.
He had told her he would, that his eyes and ears were everywhere.
And while she had not seen anyone tracking her movements, she believed Drummond. She knew him. She feared him. It was one of the reasons she had not sought out authorities immediately upon her arrival in London. She was terrified he would watch her every movement and take action before she had a chance to defend herself.
But there was nothing for him to fear from her being wooed by a duke. She had shown her brother he could trust her from afar by delivering the documents as he had asked. She stopped, however, at the dynamite. Before she handed the trunk over to anyone, she would be delivering it to Scotland Yard, along with all her knowledge of her brother. Then, she would flee to Paris before anyone was the wiser.
“I should not have been away from her tonight,” Felix was saying, breaking into her troubled musings. The guilt weighing down his voice cut into her heart. “I should have been there. If I had been, this never would have happened. She would have been safe.”
“The Fire Brigade and this horrible deluge of rain will go a long way toward putting out the flames,” she soothed. “You must not blame yourself for this. Even if you had been at home, there is nothing to say you would have been any more capable of rushing her to safety than others. Perhaps you would have been injured or trapped yourself.”
“Ah, Johanna.” He slid an arm around her shoulders and hauled her into his side in a crushing embrace. “I do not know what I would do if you were not here. You have helped me to battle my demons, to remain as calm as possible, and you have my endless gratitude for that.”
She did not know what to say to his raw expression of thanks. So she held him back, every bit as tightly as he held her. Held him as she wished someone had her after Pearl’s death, when she had been so devastated that every breath she had taken had threatened to break her. But there had been no one for her then, and it was why, she thought, she wanted to be here for the Duke of Winchelsea now.
If, God forbid, something had happened to his daughter Verity, Johanna would hold him just like this. She would hold him all through the night, and the next day as well if need be. She would cry with him. Rage with him. Chase away the pain as best as she could.
She hoped, oh how she hoped, she would not need to do so.
The carriage came to a halt after what seemed the most interminable ride ever. It had felt like years, but it must have only been minutes. Felix jerked away from her and threw the carriage door open. The acrid scent of charred beams and plaster hit her as she struggled to follow in his wake. The street lights were lit, but the tremendous downpour of rain and dampness in the air rendered their effect lackluster.
Smoke filled the air, curling around her as she raced down the street toward the imposing edifice, making it more difficult to see. Fire brigade members were scattered about, along with an assemblage of people she could only assume were the duke’s servants. The downpour refused to relent, and her skirts were heavy and sodden by the time she reached the gathering.
The duke was speaking to a woman who was sobbing wretchedly.
“Simmonds, please tell me you have found her,” he was begging, his voice breaking.
“I am so sorry, Your Grace. I looked for her everywhere until the smoke was too thick, and I had to flee,” the woman said. “No one has seen her. No one knows where Lady Verity went.”
An inhuman cry of sheer agony tore from him.
Johanna pressed a hand to her lips to stifle her own cry of pain on his behalf. She had hoped and prayed ever since first learning of this disaster that Felix’s daughter would have been found by the time they arrived. That all his worry and fear would have been for naught.
He turned away before she could call out to him, and she knew, instinctively, he was going to go inside the home to search for his daughter. She also knew she could not allow him to undertake such a task alone. If his daughter were indeed within, and something had happened to her, Felix would be destroyed. Summoning all her strength, she gathered her soaked, heavy skirts in her hands, and ran after him.
Shouts erupted in their wake, and one of them was the chief of the Fire Brigade, she was sure, alerting them to the dangers within. Felix threw open the front door, and she followed, slipping on the slick marble floor as she did so. The combination of the darkness, the rain, and the smoke outside had made it impossible for her to tell which area of the home had been affected by the damage the most.
“Felix,” she called, feeling as if she must be the voice of reason. “Wait for me! You must take care, or you will injure yourself, and then you will be of no use to Verity.”
But there was no reasoning with a desperate man, and she recognized the futility of her attempts as he refused to pause. Onward he stalked, a man determined. And after she chased, terrified for him. For his daughter. Equally unwavering in her need to help in whatever manner she was able.
Thankfully, the fire had not reached much of the house, it would seem, for lights were still lit deeper within the main hall. Though smoke hung in thick clouds, Johanna could at least see where she was going. Could see Felix’s broad back and long legs disappearing as he headed for a grand staircase up ahead.
She grabbed her skirts in her fists, raised them high, and ran after him. Halfway up them, he snarled over his shoulder, “Johanna, you should not be here. Go back to where you are safe. I will find her myself.”
“No,” she denied, every bit as vehement. “I am not allowing you to do this alone.”
Because if his daughter had indeed been claimed by the smoke and flames, he could not face that agony on his own. She would not let him. Could not bear to contemplate such a nightmare.
“Verity!” he began calling. “Papa is here! Verity!”
There was no answer save the echo of his voice, laden with desperation.
“Here now, we have only just gotten the flames out here below,” called a male voice from the floor. “You should not go up there. It may not be safe.”
“I don’t give a damn if it is or if it isn’t,” Felix growled. “Nothing is going to keep me from searching for my daughter.”
“Madam, if you would please come down, at least,” entreated the voice, presumably speaking to Johanna.
