The immediate effect was to make him release his cock so he could try to break her hold. When he grasped her wrists and pushed he only succeeded in tightening the noose she’d fashioned. He clawed at the linen towel, his eyes bulging, but could not get even so much as a fingernail between his skin and the damp fabric.
Olivia applied steady pressure. The muscles in her arms and across her back trembled with the strain required to sustain it. From the hallway she heard someone call her name again. When she’d heard it before she’d had no voice to cry out. Now she hadn’t any strength to spare for the effort.
His face was ruddy, but no less so than hers. Olivia’s temples throbbed as the hot blood of exertion collected in her head. Her knuckles were nearly as white as the towel she was gripping. There was a similar whiteness at his neck where his skin was pulled taut by the linen garrote.
He was able to heave himself up but not able to dislodge her hold. The space he created, though, gave her the freedom to move out from under him. The towel twisted on his neck as she shifted to one side. When his arms gave way he collapsed face down on the floor, and as quick as that she was on his back, holding the tails of the linen like reins on a horse that she meant to bring to an abrupt halt.
It might have been hearing her name yet again that gave her pause. It could also have been the heat at her back that finally stayed her hands. She gave it no thought at the time. She simply released both ends of the towel and stood, but not without first pressing one knee hard into his spine as she did so.
His groan satisfied her that he was alive, but also made her wary.
Olivia grabbed the towel as she leapt away from him, afraid he would recover the strength to pull her down again. Her attention was drawn to the door as it shuddered hard in the frame.
“Olivia! For God’s sake….Olivia!”
She spun on her heels and ran toward the sound of that voice. It was Breckenridge. She met his pounding by placing the flat of one hand against the door panel. Throwing the towel over her shoulder, she twisted the knob with her other hand. When nothing happened she remembered all the reasons that was so.
Glancing back, she saw that not only was her attacker beginning to stir, but the fire was slipping over the edge of the bed. “I can’t get the key! Go! Go away! Get everyone out!”
She was not at all certain she was heard. She slapped the door and yelled the one word she hoped would garner his full attention.
“Fire!”
Chapter Four
Olivia didn’t wait to learn if Breckenridge understood her. The fire at her back was skipping its way across one of the small area rugs. She turned and ran for the bathing room.
The pitcher and bowl on the washstand were the handiest items to easily fill with water. Once she’d dipped them into the tub she found the bowl was too awkward to carry. She let it drop to the bottom of the tub and hurried back into the bedroom with the pitcher. She aimed her first throw at the fringes of the fire, hoping to keep it from spreading. There was little enough time to judge the success of her action, but the thought she carried back into the bathing room along with the empty pitcher was that her best effort might count for nothing.
Olivia filled the pitcher again, set it down, then yanked the towel from around her neck and took off her robe. She pushed both items under the water until they were sodden before she dragged them out and took them and the pitcher back to the fire.
She tossed the water from the pitcher first, once again at the periphery of the fire, then she used her wet robe to smother a circle of the flames on the bed. Using the wet towel, she beat at the fingers of fire crawling over the edge of the mattress and frame.
Olivia had no sense of the passage of time. What she knew was her own labored breathing and the acrid scent of smoke, ash, and wet, charred wood filling her lungs. Her arms ached, heavier it seemed than the things she was carrying. Each trip added weight to the struggle.
When she got too close to the fire, flames licked at the damp hem of her shift or singed her hair. When she stood back, her efforts merely fanned the flames. If she tried to make her way too quickly, she found herself slipping on the slick puddles that dotted the hardwood floor. If she forced herself to slow down, it seemed that the fire was racing.
She finally fell into a rhythm that she completed by rote: dip, lift, haul, toss, return. There was variation only if she used the wet robe and towel to beat the flames or the pitcher to throw water on them, but even these actions she alternated in a way that made them appear part of her pattern.
In just such a manner she completed trip after trip, holding out for the fire’s unconditional surrender.
Griffin and Truss found her sitting on the apron of the fireplace, her knees drawn almost to the point of her chin, her back resting against the green-veined marble jamb. She clutched each end of a twisted, dripping towel in her fists while the bulk of the linen was wrapped just below her knees, holding them in the tight fold she’d created.
Griffin gently opened Olivia’s fingers and removed the wet towel from her hand. There was little of it that wasn’t blackened, but the small white patch he found he applied to the streak of soot bisecting her cheek like his own scar. He noticed that she retracted a bit from his touch, but he took it as a good sign that she was aware of his presence.
When he’d first come through the door, Truss on his heels, he wasn’t at all certain that that was the case. She hadn’t given the slightest indication that she knew she wasn’t alone any longer. It struck Griffin as unnatural, even otherworldly, that she hadn’t turned her head toward their entrance. She sat, still as stone, as she did now, staring straight ahead at the wisps of smoke and steam still rising in curling ribbons from her bed.
Tears welled at the edge of her lower lashes, though whether they were prompted by some emotion or merely a consequence of the pungent irritants in the air, Griffin could not determine. The towel was useless here. He withdrew a handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. A tear slipped free as she lowered her gaze to the handkerchief. She stared at it a long moment, almost as if she were trying to reason its purpose, then she offered a brief, watery smile and raised it to her eyes.
Griffin used that opportunity to glance over his shoulder at Truss. The butler was stamping out smoldering patches on one of the rugs with all the high-stepping vigor of a fair colleen at her first dance. Griffin’s brief grin turned grimace as he surveyed the damage to the room. At a glance he could see that in every way it could have been much, much worse. Close to the bed, the flocked wallpaper was streaked with water and soot. The bedcovers had supported a great deal of the fire, and he could see that not only were parts of the mattress burned, they might be burning still.
“Cease your jig, Truss,” Griffin said, rising from his crouch beside Olivia. “Help me get this mattress out of doors. I think we can roll it sufficiently small that we can push it out the window.”
Truss stumbled a bit as he brought himself up short. Recovering himself and his dignity, he grabbed one corner of the mattress and began lifting it toward the foot of the bed, smoldering bedcovers and all. Griffin quickly took up the opposite side and helped him. They hefted the bedroll to their shoulders and carried it to the open window.
It required effort, but a bit of cursing seemed to grease the opening, and they pushed it through. Griffin put his head out to make certain it cleared the small porch roof. It bounced, unfolded, then hung on the lip for several long moments before it fell in a cascade of snow, smoke, and feathers.
Griffin retreated from the cold and biting air and shut the window. He instructed Truss to carefully look around and make certain there were no other potential fires, then he returned to Olivia’s side.
