CHAPTER 1
“Douglas!” Jeremy Bolt bellowed through hallways thick with black, choking smoke. “Douglas, where are ye?”
His eyes streamed, the damp cloth over his mouth barely doing anything to keep the slithering coils of smoke from clawing at his throat. But he’d be damned if he would give up before he had his brother safely outside, where the air was fresh and not trying to kill anyone.
Why did ye go racing back in?He raged silently as he felt his way through the halls, the stone walls warm to the touch. Up ahead, the crackle of fire was louder, wavering pulses of orange fading in and out of the black smoke. And the heat… He dripped with sweat, certain that Hell itself couldn’t be much hotter.
He’d told Douglas that he would see to Beatrice and Sophie’s survival, but stubbornness ran in the brothers’ blood. Douglas, injured by falling masonry, had limped into the burning castle anyway, determined to rescue his wife and daughter with hisown two hands. Heroic or foolish; there was hardly a difference, as far as Jeremy was concerned.
Just then, he heard a cry, muffled but nearby.
“Douglas?” the desperate voice called. Beatrice’s voice.
A soft, hopeless sob punctuated the word, too high-pitched to be Jeremy’s sister-in-law. It had to be Sophie, his niece.
She’ll be terrified. She doesn’t like it when the sparks from the fire get too close, much less this…
Jeremy didn’t know what had caused the blaze, as he had been fast asleep in the stables after spending most of the night waiting for his prize mare to foal. The scent had woken him first, then the sound, like soldiers marching on fallen leaves, had roused him from any lingering fatigue. By the time he reached the entrance of the castle, the small number of servants were already spilling out, screaming that Douglas was trapped inside.
Only when Jeremy had reached his brother, stuck halfway up one of the servants’ staircases, pinned by a fallen chunk of stone, had he been informed that Beatrice and Sophie were still upstairs.
Jeremy had managed to lift the stone and help his brother outside, ignoring the slightly older man’s protests, reassuring Douglas that he would return for Beatrice and Sophie in a moment. But no sooner had Jeremy managed to get his brotherto safety than Douglas had charged back inside, the threat to his wife and daughter’s lives apparently giving him the strength to ignore his pain.
I can’t have passed him,Jeremy thought with some trepidation.I’d have noticed him if I’d passed him.
Then again, with the smoke so dense and disorienting, it would have been easy for Douglas to make a wrong turn somewhere.
“Douglas!” Beatrice cried again, as a great crash echoed through the hallways, and Sophie unleashed a bloodcurdling scream of terror.
Jeremy lunged toward the sound, his hand closing around the iron ring that served as a door handle. A second later, his hand recoiled as the heat scorched his palm. He swore loudly and ripped the damp cloth from around his mouth, quickly wrapping it around his hand before reaching again for the iron ring.
He heaved the door open, his blurred eyes seeing only shapes within the smoky room beyond.
“Give me the lass, Beatrice,” he commanded, barely able to swallow a cough. “And hold onto me shirt, so ye stick close to me.”
“Where is Douglas?” Beatrice demanded to know.
A muscle twitched in Jeremy’s jaw. They didn’t have time for this. Soon enough, that blaze would come sweeping further down the hallway, and their last opportunity to escape would be gone, unless Beatrice decided she’d like to take her chance by leaping from the windows. The fall would be crippling at best, fatal at worst.
“Just hand me the lass!” Jeremy barked, holding his arms out. “Sophie, lass, come to me. I will have ye outside in no time at all.”
The little girl was suddenly in his arms, and he swept her up, tucking her head into the dent where his shoulder and chest met. It would not do much to keep the smoke out of her five-year-old lungs, but it was better than nothing.
“Take hold of me shirt, Beatrice,” Jeremy said sternly. “If ye don’t, I can’t promise ye’ll make it out of here. I can’t wait for ye, so make up yer mind quickly. I will worry about Douglas once the two of ye are safe.”
He’d considered lying to her, telling her that Douglas was already outside, but he thought better of it. She would only come running back in to try and save her husband if she discovered he wasnot,in fact, outside with the staff.
To his relief, he felt Beatrice grasp a tight fistful of his shirt. She had made her choice.
Without hesitation, Jeremy turned and, with one arm holding Sophie tightly to his body and his other hand skimming theincreasingly hot wall, he retraced his steps back to the entrance. At least, he hoped that was where he was headed, as he cursed the labyrinthine hallways of McIver Castle. A place, a home, that had been good to the brothers until now.
“Oh, milady!” a gaggle of maids cried as Jeremy staggered out of the castle with Sophie and Beatrice, the women crowding around their mistress and the beloved little girl.
Someone pulled Sophie out of his arms, a gasp rising up. “She’s burned! Fetch a salve!”
“Too soon for a salve,” someone else shouted. “Get her to the brook.”
Rubbing the blur from his eyes and pausing for just a moment to catch his breath, Jeremy watched a few of the servants carrying his niece off toward the stream that babbled merrily past the castle. It was one of Sophie’s favorite places to play, where Jeremy had recently been teaching her how to swim.
