“What happened?” she asked, her voice faint.
“She set the paraffin oil on fire. It explodes,” he said.
“What was she doing?”
He slung one arm around her shoulder. “It’s why the burner failed,” he said. “The oil was contaminated. Anything would have done it, but I suspected she was using dirt and grass.”
“So, she was coming back to do it again?”
He nodded.
Suddenly, Ralston was there. Ralston, with his shirt half off his body and his face covered in red-and-black welts. His white hair was standing up in tufts, and for the first time in their acquaintance, Ralston looked angry.
“Are all right, sir?” he asked, voice quavering.
Montgomery nodded. “Where’s Tom?”
“He’s fine, sir. I had him by me watching.”
“We need to find ...” his words broke off as he turned to Veronica. “What’s her name?”
“Millicent,” she said.
“We need to find Millicent,” he said. “If she’s alive,” he added. Ralston nodded, disappearing into the crowd of people from Doncaster Hall.
During the next several hours, Veronica’s fire brigade performed admirably, arranging themselves in position within moments of the blaze. A line was formed leading to the river, and within two hours, the fire was extinguished. The distillery was reduced to rubble, nothing of the walls or roof remaining. Surprisingly, one of the last of the whiskey kettles still stood, a little battered, but remaining as a stubborn testament to the building’s original purpose.
The location where the paraffin oil barrel had once stood was covered in earth, a preventive measure to ensure any remaining oil wouldn’t be a hazard.
He and Veronica were surveying the damage when Ralston and Tom approached, each holding the arm of a woman writhing between them.
“We found her, sir,” Ralston said.
Millicent struggled, but the two men held her tight. Suddenly, she fell to her knees in front of Montgomery.
“Oh, sir,” she said, raising a tear-streaked and scorched face to him. “It wasn’t you, Your Lordship.”
Ralston frowned. “Fair words won’t make the pot boil, girl,” he said.
Millicent’s voice changed, grew rough as she sent Veronica a sweeping look of contempt. “It was her, sir.”
“Explain yourself,” Montgomery said.
Before the other woman could answer, Veronica stepped forward, grabbed his hand, and gripped it tightly. She didn’t look in his direction, her attention on the maid.
“Did my cousin tell you to do such a thing? Was it Amanda?” Veronica asked, her voice emotionless. “Did she promise you a position in London?”
He squeezed her hand in wordless comfort, but she didn’t look away from Millicent.
“I don’t know your cousin,” Millicent said.
“Then why?”
“I worked for that position,” she said. “I deserved it. Five years I’ve worked here, and I do a better job than anyone.”
Veronica couldn’t find any words to respond to that shocking comment. Millicent and Amanda were separated by country, status, and appearance. Yet they were alike in their single-minded pursuit of what they felt was owed to them.
“What shall we do with her, sir?”
