And that was all it took.
Tears Melanie hadn’t even realized were there welled up and began rolling down her face, slow at first, then faster, surely carving messy white lines through the ashy residue on her cheeks.
“I’m fine,” Melanie said. “I’m safe now. I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“Ah, Mellie,” Caroline murmured, pulling a clean handkerchief from somewhere—Caroline always had a handkerchief—and dabbing at Melanie’s face. “You’ve been through enough for ten lifetimes today. Let it out.”
Melanie collapsed into Caroline’s arms and sobbed quietly into her shoulder, the weight of everything that had happened seeming to crash down upon her all at once. The fear, the heat, her desperate climb from that window—it all swirled in her mind alongside the deeper grief she’d carried for so long. Their father. The fire that had taken him. And now, something else that had been a part of him was gone, too. His townhouse—the place that had held so many memories—likely reduced to rubble.
Her tears slowed as Caroline pulled back, reaching for a vial on the nightstand. Uncorking it, she poured a measure of the liquid into a teacup and handed it to Melanie.
“Is that…?”
“Laudanum.” Caroline grimaced. “Just this once, though. No more than that. But it’ll help with your cough, and you need to sleep.”
Melanie wrinkled her nose at the sickly-sweet scent wafting from the amber liquid. Unpleasant as it was, she drank it all in a few careful sips while Caroline steadied the glass in her hands.
After, she simply welcomed her sister’s comforting presence as Caroline guided her to lie back against the pillows, pulling the covers up to her chest.
“Once you’re feeling a little better, you’ll stay with Maxwell and me.” Her sister’s voice did not invite any argument. Not that Melanie had the strength for that even if she wanted to put up a fuss.
The effects of the drink were already spreading through her, dulling the raw images in her mind, every anxious thought and painful memory. But even as her body began to relax, she couldn’t stop replaying everything that she’d been through—Crossings forcing his way into her chamber, clinging to the trellis and hoping it wouldn’t break, but most of all—Malum.
She could still hear his voice, calm and sure, urging her down. “You’re safe… I’ve got you…
“I love you.”
Her thoughts swirled, drifting between his words and his actions.
He loves me.The realization soothed her like a comforting balm.
With heavy eyelids, Melanie blinked up at Caroline, who was watching her with an almost motherly fondness. She hesitated, then said it aloud, her voice weak, roughened by the smoke as she whispered. “He loves me. He said he loves me.”
Caroline’s smile widened, her expression warm and knowing. “Oh, we know,” she replied and in a deeper voice, added, “‘Dearly. Passionately. Desperately.’”
“‘And I always will…’”Melanie remembered.
“And in case there is any doubt, just ask anyone who lives on Regent Street. It’s the worst kept secret in the neighborhood now, you know.”
Her sister’s words wrapped around her, settling into the deepest corners of Melanie’s heart.Harry loves me—dearly. Passionately. Desperately, she thought, the realization both wondrous and certain. And with that, as the drink took hold and exhaustion finally claimed her, Melanie drifted into sleep.
NOT OVER YET
The fire was finally out. Well, mostly out. It would be a while yet before they managed to smother every last glowing cinder, but the danger of reignition was almost certainly past.
Malum stood at the window of his study, one shoulder braced against the frame, looking down upon the smoldering in the ruins of Melanie’s home.
Miraculously, the brick facades had done their duty—his home was scorched but intact, the damage to Regent Street’s neighboring houses mercifully minor. Most importantly, aside from a few injuries, everyone had made it out alive. The servants were rattled, some bearing singed clothing and soot-smudged faces, but otherwise unharmed.
And now, hours later, Malum, Helton, and Standish waited in the relative calm of his study. Relative being the operative word.
After discussing what Melanie had remembered, Malum had sent Westcott and Beckworth looking for Northwoods, because the wily earl had disappeared apparently, right after Crossings’ not-quite-tragic fall. Malum, Helton, and Standish had stayedbehind, and once they knew the fire suppression efforts had been successful, they’d met here, in Preston Hall.
Having lowered himself onto one of the leather armchairs, Standish sat staring into the empty hearth, his jaw tight. “At least Goldie didn’t see it,” he said quietly. “The fiend is her father, after all.”
Standish’s wife might be safely tucked away, but her estranged father, who had somehow managed to survive his fall, was none too happy, cuffed to a cot in one of Malum’s utility rooms.
Even with one leg practically snapped in two, he’d been found crawling around, gathering letters as though doing so might somehow protect him. Until now, there hadn’t been time to question him.
