“Here.” Aunt Wilcox pushed her smelling salts into Daniel’sface. As he recoiled, eyes and nose stinging from ammonia, she said, “Not for you, boy. For Mr. Brandon.”
“Those will not help him,” Daniel said tersely, pushing her hand away. “Unless you have any laudanum about you—”
“Afraid not.”
A shriek cut the air between them, and Daniel spun around instinctively, because he knew that sound. It wasn’t the noise you made when you fell, or were pushed, or couldn’t get where you wanted.
“Fire! Fire!” a man shouted.
Dear God.“Stay here. Watch Brandon,” Daniel ordered, and vaulted over the rail, plowing into the crowd, chasing the screams rising a few yards away. Someone—perhaps trying to beat a way through with a cane or umbrella—had broken a lamp on the wall.
“Out of my way!” Daniel bellowed.
Beyond the churn of people, he spied curls of smoke and a leaping flame whipping from a wide skirt. He tore off his coat, ignoring the volley of screams as the crowd surged in panic.
One man was already beside the screeching woman, beating the flames from her skirts as she kicked wildly. Daniel shoved forward, flinging his coat at the fire eating its way up her back, and pushed her to the floor. “We must smother it! Your coat! Quick!”
“Here!” Someone tossed him a cloak, and Daniel pressed it over her, smashing down on the burning dress where lamp oil had splashed her. Fire and heat licked his fingers and wrists as her screams wrapped around him.
“Don’t check yet,” he yelled as the man who’d been working on the flames on her skirts tried to lift the cloak. “Starve it of air!”
If their efforts weren’t working, they’d know soon enough. Flames would eat through the cloak, scorching their hands. Another coat dropped on top of him, but Daniel didn’t look up, seizing the dark cloth and clapping it atop the other layers.
“It will be all right,” he promised over her cries.
When he was satisfied that the flames were extinguished, he peeled back layers of smoldering cloth, revealing a pale, shuddering woman with hair falling sideways and over her face. “I’m a doctor,” Daniel told her.
“Not her doctor.” He looked up and saw Adams.
She stretched a bleeding hand to Adams. “Help me.”
“We must get you home,” he said. “Check your burns and dress them.”
“Yes, as quickly as possible.” Daniel sat back on his heels as Adams and the woman’s escort lifted her. He didn’t seem needed anymore. Not surprising that Adams had many patients in the crowd. He kept a large acquaintance in this neighborhood.
The few who hadn’t panicked remained in small clusters, and though there was still congestion around the doors, no one was pushing or shoving anymore. The screams offirehad extinguished with the woman’s dress, and the crowd had sobered at the sight of her needless injury. The woman’s low moans and the sobs of the elderly gentleman were the only sounds of distress—flotsam on a churning sea of whispers.
Daniel picked himself up, fingering a scorch mark on his sleeve. The elderly gentleman—Brandon—was surrounded by Harry, Nora, and Horace, urgently conferring. Aunt was just as he’d left her, in the same chair, hands folded in her lap, visibly shaken.
“I’ll go with you,” Harry told the elderly man reassuringly. “As soon as the doors are clear, we’ll carry you to a carriage.”
“I’ll come,” Horace added.
“I know how to rig a traction splint,” Harry grumbled.
Horace raised his eyebrows.
Nora met Daniel’s eyes, and he watched her take inventory of his scorched sleeve, relief washing over her face when she found he was unharmed.
No time to exchange words. They were all hurrying about, making arrangements for Mr. Brandon, assisting Dr. Adams with the evacuation of his patient, and improvising a dressing for a young man with a cut forehead.
But at last the hall cleared, leaving Daniel and his wife nearly alone. Nora leaned in to his chest, her face tired and pale.
“Will you come with me and Aunt Wilcox?” Daniel asked. “I need to see her home.” He wanted Nora’s company. In the turmoil, he’d been so preoccupied caring for the people in front of him that he hadn’t thought of his wife. The omission scared him, and now he wanted her near, within arm’s reach, with a comfortable, reassuring quiet lying between them.
He wondered if she’d sought him in the crowd. If she’d noticed he hadn’t been looking for her. He hoped she’d been sensible and stayed clear of the melee.
“I should go home,” Nora said. “I think my nerves—”
