Chase cursed, limping as he followed Sam out of the room. They split in the hall. As Sam suspected there was a linen closet near the back stair.
“Do it,” he waved at Chase.
“Fire! Fire!” Chase yelled.
The screams and yelling were immediate. Footfalls thundered up the stairs.
“Get in here!” Sam said. They tucked themselves inside the closet as a stampede of people entered the hall and the countess’s bedroom.
“Buckets!” Someone cried.
Sam peeked out. People ran back and forth, footmen coming with pails of water. It was a panicked melee.
“Head down. Let’s go.”
Chase followed him, and Sam squeezed past the servants that came up the stairs with pails of water, all of them too frightened to consider who was coming down the stairs or for what reason. They followed a current of people out into the stable yard where a groom pumped water into buckets as a chain of people formed. Once past the mews, Sam and Chase took off into a run.
Each breath burned as if he’d inhaled too much smoke, but Sam didn’t stop running until the cart was in sight, and only then did he slow enough to hop in the back, turning to help Chase, who was a few strides behind him, jump in.
“Go!” Sam yelled to the driver.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Daisy had stayedup to wait for Sam, but at some point, she’d fallen asleep. She woke in the early morning and didn’t bother to dress as she took the back stair and entered his room.
He lay in bed, not sleeping, and arm tucked behind his head.
“Sam?”
He smiled lazily at her. “Good morning, sunshine. Come here and kiss me before Petrov returns.”
“Are you all right?” she asked as she approached the bed.
“I am. I’m only sore after last night’s...” he sighed heavily then winced, “escapade. Come here. I need to touch you.”
Daisy climbed onto the bed, resting on her hip facing him, but her heart, normally a bird with wings when Sam was near, pumped in a sorrowful rhythm. She just knew he was hurt. And he’d done it for her, so they could be one step closer to marrying, and all she’d done was sit at home. Today she was supposed to meet with Cliffton and Lady Claystone. She still did not have any idea what she was supposed to do.
“I’m sorry you have to go to all this trouble for me.”
He cupped her cheek, pulling her near and brushing her lips with his.
“I’d do it all again for you.”
Daisy turned her face into his hand. “I would never ask that of you.”
“No, you rarely ask for what you deserve. That changes now. I’d do anything for you, and I know you’d do it for me.”
“I haven’t been asked to risk my life just to marry you.”
He watched her for a moment, the pale gold stubble of his jaw begging for her fingers.
“What happened last night?” she finally asked.
“I had to take something from Claystone Terrace,” he answered reluctantly.
Daisy put a hand over her pounding heart. “What was it?”
“Lady Claystone’s diary, of all things.”
