“Fire!” their coachman yelled as the coach came to an abrupt stop, jolting them all.
“Harold, it’s our house!” Danielle cried.
“Nonsense,” Harold huffed as he leaned over to look out the small square window. “It is!”
Robert was already jumping out of the carriage and running before the last word was out of his father’s mouth. Ahead of him, Lord Norwood and, damn it all to hell, Elizabeth were also running towards the large blaze.
“Johnny’s in there!”
“Who’s Johnny?” Elizabeth asked, getting the attention of the maid closest to her.
“He’s the cook’s grandson. He’s visiting. Oh, he’s so small!” the maid cried, her horrified gaze fixed on the townhouse quickly being consumed by flames.
She grabbed the maid’s shoulders, ignoring the smoke and blaze for a moment. “Where is he?”
“In the back! In the servant’s quarters!”
“Elizabeth, get back!” her father yelled from the line of men handling the buckets of water.
“You’re sure he didn’t make it out?” Elizabeth asked the maid, ignoring her father’s demands.
“Yes! He was crying when they dragged me out!”
“The back, you say?”
“Yes!”
Elizabeth grabbed a passing bucket of water and poured it over herself. “My Lady?” the maid asked, stunned by the odd behavior, but Elizabeth was already running into the smoke-filled house.
“Elizabeth!”
“Beth!”
She ignored the shouts and pressed her wet shawl to her mouth so that she could breathe through the thick smoke. She ducked low and moved forward. Her eyes were already stinging by the time she made it to the front step. She wasn’t sure how the fire started, but she had a good idea that it had started on the second floor since she couldn’t see any hint of flame through the thick smoke. Old houses like this went up quickly once the flame took hold, so she knew there wasn’t any time to waste. She moved to the back of the house, jumping over rubble and avoiding the crumbling ceiling along the way as she prayed that she was headed in the right direction.
“Johnny!” Elizabeth screamed, coughing as she made her way through the smoky kitchen to the back rooms. She hadn’t been in this house in over ten years, but once she was able to get her bearings, she was able to remember the layout of the house.
“Johnny!” she yelled again when she reached the servants’ quarters. She remembered the cook had the room at the end of the small hallway and kept walking, praying that nothing had changed since she’d last been here.
Halfway down the small hallway, a hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her to a stop. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Robert demanded, yelling so that he could be heard over the loud crackling of the fire and the sounds of timber crashing close by.
Desperate to find the little boy, Elizabeth pushed at his arm until he let her go and practically ran to the cook’s room. She threw the door open. Through the smoke, she could just barely make out a small bed made up on one side and a small pallet on the floor on the other. This was the room. It had to be.
“Johnny!”
“Here,” a small voice said, sounding terrified.
“Under the bed!” Robert yelled.
They both quickly dropped to their knees. Elizabeth leaned down and peered under the bed and nearly wept with relief when she spotted the small boy curled up beneath the bed.
“Come here, sweetheart,” Elizabeth said softly around a cough as smoke threatened to suffocate her.
The little boy shook his head. “Come here, you’re worrying your grandmother. You don’t want to do that, do you?”
“No,” Johnny said, shaking his head, “but I’m scared.”
“I am, too. I need you to come out here, Johnny, and help me,” Elizabeth said firmly, hoping the demand would be enough to convince him to come out.
