The air was suddenly black. Chunks of bricks thudded against the side of the building as loud as if God Himself were hammering the observatory.
Douglas swore, and pulled her deeper into the building, but the explosion wasn’t the only danger. A fireball scorched through the grass and licked at the doorway. He reached up, tore the linen from the ceiling, then stood on one of the shelves and began opening the roof. The wheel had evidently been oiled, and it swung open easily.
He reached down for her. “Come on, Sarah.”
In a moment of sickening clarity, she understood. They were in grave danger and must escape the observatory.
However, she was never going to fit in the opening with her hoops. Reaching below her waistband, she tore the tapes of her hoops, pulling at them until they were free. She stepped out of her hoops, grabbed thematerial of her skirts, and scrambled up beside him.
He made a step out of his interlinked hands, and she put her right foot against his palms, holding on to his shoulders as he gave her a boost. The opening wasn’t large, but she could fit. Could he?
“I’m not leaving until you promise to be right behind me,” she said.
“Not only right behind you,” he said, “but right next to you.”
She peered out the top of the observatory. The fire was racing through the fields to the west, but they could still escape to the rear of the building.
A moment later, he boosted her up even farther. She pulled herself up with both arms, elbows striking the copper of the roof.
The tile was rough on the side of the building, abrading her fingers as she grappled for a handhold. The small iron ladder built into the curve of the roof was a godsend, however, and she managed to hold on to it, lower her legs, and fall into the grass, thankful that it had grown so high.
Douglas was right behind her, and she hugged him when he landed next to her. He stood and caught her up in his arms a second later.
She didn’t have a chance to protest, because he bent his head and kissed her, silencing her as he carried her from the flames.
Chapter 29
Douglas carried her through the crowd of servants as she pressed her face against his bare chest. Each of her separate breaths, heated and soft, seemed to burrow beneath his flesh, into where the essence of him lived, and brand him for all time as hers.
“She’s fine,” he murmured to Thomas, and pushed himself past Jeremy Beecher and Mrs. Williams. He nodded to Cook, and with an aside only a few heard, said, “Can you send a tray to the Duke’s Suite? A bit of fruit, perhaps. Maybe some tea?”
She nodded and turned, disappearing into the crowd so sleekly she might have been an eel.
He made it to the rear of Chavensworth, caring hands brushing against him like palm fronds. Sarah was not light, but neither was she a burden he had any intention of releasing.
Two young men stood beside the door, and when he gestured to it with a lift of his chin, they hurried to open it.
Once inside Chavensworth, he set Sarah down on her feet, gathering her into his arms and pressing his cheek against the top of her head.
“Are you certain you’re all right?”
One hand came up to rest against his bare chest.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I think so. I also think I shall never be able to face anyone again.”
He pulled back and tilted up her face with one hand. “Yes you will. You’re Lady Sarah Eston.”
“I’ve never appeared nearly undressed in front of my staff, however.”
“You’re only missing your hoops,” he said, smiling. “Not your corset. Brazen it through,” he said, bending to kiss her. He didn’t mention that her lips were swollen and pink, or that her cheeks were delightfully flushed. Anyone with any experience would be able to look into her beautiful gray eyes and know that she’d recently been kissed, and well.
They began walking up the stairs to their chamber, Sarah careful to keep her skirts, which trailed without their underlying hoops, from tripping her up.
The Duke of Herridge was not going to be happy about the explosion.
Douglas found it absurd that he slept in the man’s bed, all the while loathing the arrogant peer. Despite the poverty he’d been born to, and the privilege the duke enjoyed, Douglas would have easily chosen his life over His Grace’s. There was nothing about the duke that he would emulate, least of all the way he treated his daughter. Sarah was simply a commodity to him, and the Duke of Herridge had rid himself of the problem of his only child in exchange for the promise of diamonds.
As if Sarah were only worth a mere purse of diamonds.
