No sooner had the words left her than the sound of a great commotion rose beyond in the great hall. Footsteps and muffled shouts reached them. Sybil rushed across the music room, throwing open the door.
And that was when she saw the smoke pouring into the room, thick and black. Figures were rushing about in the mayhem, children racing suddenly down the staircase from above. Pandemonium took over.
Above the screams, one word could be heard repeatedly, growing louder above the din. It made Sybil’s blood go cold as understanding dawned.
“Fire!”
“Fire in the kitchens!”
“Everyone out!”
She turned back to Verity, panic rising as her lungs began to burn. “The orphanage is on fire! What should we do?”
“Oh dear God.” Unmistakable fear was etched on Verity’s face. “We’ve got to make certain the children get out.”
They moved into action, rushing toward the stairs.
Everett had been wrong.
He had realized the grievous error he had made almost the second that Sybil had left his study. He had watched her go in a swish of silken skirts. Leaving him.
Leaving him with his permission.
And he had known, to his marrow, that he couldn’t bear it.
He simply could not allow her to go to Riverdale Abbey and return to her footman. She washiswife, damn it. He was going to fight for her. And to do that, perhaps he was going to have to commit the final act of vulnerability that he had been denying for so long. The one that his past had left him so unwilling to allow.
He was going to have to tell her he loved her.
And that was why he was presently guiding a pony phaeton through the streets of London on his way to the Children’s Foundling Hospital. Because he couldn’t wait another moment to tell her. He couldn’t simply sit calmly and answer his correspondence, knowing she intended to leave for the rail station immediately upon her return.
He was running out of time.
He didn’t want to lose her. That was the thought that propelled him as he deftly guided his phaeton to the Children’s Foundling Hospital. But as he turned onto the street where the large old edifice that housed the orphanage was situated, all rational thought fled.
Smoke was billowing out of the windows of the Children’s Foundling Hospital. People were shouting on the street, otherswere pouring from the doors of the orphanage, and others still were running across the street. A fire brigade was approaching from the opposite direction.
He recognized his carriage immediately, stationed near the front doors to the orphanage, telling him that both his sister and his wife were possibly inside the burning building. A curse fled him.
He had to get to them. To find them. To save them, if need be. He couldn’t lose Verity and Sybil. Not now. Not ever.
Everything that happened next was a blur as he urged the pony into a faster speed and stopped as close as he possibly could. Then he was leaping out of the conveyance, racing to the door as soot and smoke fell around him and flames lashed the sky. The air was hot, the fire showing no sign of relenting.
“Sybil!” he cried out, searching through the throng that had gathered. “Verity!”
Again and again, he called for them, parting the crowd, searching soot-streaked faces as panic welled up within him.
“Has anyone seen the Duchess of Riverdale or Lady Verity Saunders?” he asked. “Please! Have you seen them?”
A child spoke up at last. “Last I saw them, they were upstairs with us, ’elping us out of the classroom.”
Bloody hell.
Everett ran. Ran through the milling crowd, through smoke pouring from broken windows, debris falling from overhead. If they were in the building, then there was only one way to save them. He had to go inside. He had to try. The flames were licking higher and higher, the sound of breaking glass rising above the shouts and hollers and screams.
He shook off the hands of those who tried to stop him and raced into the burning building, determined to find them and to save anyone left within.
Or die trying.
