Beatrice, however, had not yet moved, her hand still grasping the back of Jeremy’s shirt in a tight fist.
“If me husband dies, I will never forgive ye,” she hissed, finally releasing her hold on him.
Jeremy turned slowly, his gaze hard as he looked down at her. “If me brother dies, I will never forgive meself.”
Striding past her, sending up a prayer to the heavens he hadn’t prayed in a long time, he took one last gulp of clean, crisp dawn air and marched right back into the blaze. Douglas was in there somewhere, and he would not rest until they were both outside, lying on the grass, catching their breaths.
With trudging footfalls, exhausted to the very marrow of his bones, Jeremy made the last few steps down the front stairs of McIver Castle. There, every muscle in his body protesting this final effort, he slowly lowered his brother’s body onto the dew-drenched grass.
Douglas was alive. Barely.
“Bring me niece and me sister-in-law,” Jeremy croaked as he sank down beside his brother and stared into Douglas’ glassy, listless eyes. “He will not last long.”
The servants appeared confused for a moment, but as they saw Jeremy slide an arm under his brother’s shoulders to lift him slightly, they understood. The master of their burning castle was somewhere on that bridge between the living and the dead. Too much smoke had filled Douglas’ lungs; it would take a miracle for him to survive, and since no one else had died, Jeremy sensed they had run out of miracles.
“What did ye do that for, eh?” Jeremy asked his brother, who gazed at him as if he didn’t know him. “What did ye go running into the castle for? I told ye I’d save them. Ididsave them.”
But I can’t save ye…The fact boiled in Jeremy’s stomach as if he had gulped down a mouthful of molten bronze. To havealmosthad everyone survive such a blaze was too cruel a twist of fate. It felt to him like losing, and he did not like to lose. He could not accept it.
“Sophie?” Douglas managed to rasp, his throat undoubtedly ruined by each scorching inhale he had taken while stumbling aimlessly through hallways.
“Aye, she’s coming,” Jeremy said. “Ye just wait so ye can say goodbye to her. Don’t ye dare leave us before then. Ye can’t leave before ye’ve said farewell.”
He could almost feel his brother slipping away, like witnessing the last flickers of a candle about to sputter, with the wick burned down to the very last fibers. There was no way to prevent it from extinguishing, and the same was true for Jeremy’s brother.
“Nay, brother,” Jeremy urged. “Ye just stay right here a moment longer. Yer daughter is coming. Yer wife, too. Just ye wait.”
He shook Douglas as if his brother were merely dozing off, and though Douglas seemed to rally once… twice… once more, it was all in vain. With a rattling breath and a roll of his eyes, Douglas went limp in Jeremy’s arms… just as he heard Sophie calling out for her ‘Papa’ and Beatrice wailing for her beloved.
All too late.
To add insult to injury, the bruised Scottish skies saw fit to unleash a drizzling downpour as Jeremy pulled a blanket over his brother’s face.
Beatrice had brought Sophie back to the stream, where the little girl curled up in her mother’s lap as they sat under the sparse shelter of a weeping willow. Jeremy could hear his niece’s sobs, even through the rain and the distance, just as he could feel the burn of Beatrice’s glare pricking down the back of his neck.
As if I am not torturing meself enough, I don’t need ye joining in.From where he kneeled beside his brother, Jeremy slowly rose to his feet, telling himself that he could not be angry with his sister-in-law. She needed someone to blame for this tragedy, and if that was him, and that helped her in some small way, then so be it. He would bear it, at least for now.
“Mr. Bolt, someone’s coming up the hill,” the housekeeper said, wiping her eyes as she pointed her knobbly hand to whatever was behind him.
Not bothering to shield his eyes from the rain, grateful for the downpour soothing their soreness and hiding anything he didn’t want his people to see, he turned.
Sure enough, a carriage was coming up the rough hillside road, the horses struggling with the last bend. The beasts lookedexhausted, their heads low, as if they had been traveling for some time without rest or water.
The sight immediately raised Jeremy’s hackles, for if there was one thing he couldn’t abide, it was the mistreatment of horses. Or, perhaps,heneeded somewhere to divert his anger and his grief, too, just like Beatrice.
The carriage rolled to a standstill, though it was a good few minutes before anyone emerged, and Jeremy did not bother to approach. Whoever this was, they would not be greeted warmly. In fact, if it were not for the horses clearly needing a respite, he would have sent them on their way before anyone could step outside the carriage.
As it was, an old man stepped out, his neck craning as he observed the sight of a castle collapsing inward, the fire still burning inside its walls. Unless the rain grew heavier, the blaze would burn for several days, leaving only ash and ruin.
We’ll never live here again.The thought came to Jeremy as a pinprick to his brain, as he waited for the old man to move closer.
“Do you know where I might find the master of the… uh… castle?” the man asked, his voice carrying the clipped accent of the far south.
The same accents that had surrounded Jeremy when he went away to school as a boy, transforming his own from the brogueof his childhood to something that always seemed stuck between the border of England and Scotland.
“Thatwasme brother until this morning,” Jeremy replied coldly, gesturing to the covered body on the ground. “Who wants to know?”
The man cleared his throat, grimacing. “I sincerely apologize for the… um… poor timing of my arrival,” he said, his tone genuine at least. “Had I but known, I would, of course, have waited for a more… um… appropriate moment. I was unaware that–”
