“I’ve hardlybeena friend. I’d be a hypocrite to condemn them. Go back inside.”
He moved her through the door and then shut it. He would deal with this alone. Taking a deep breath, he faced the approaching mob. They weren’t close enough for him to pinpoint faces. They were at least ten minutes away. There was still time for disaster to be averted if he went out to meet them.
The explosion came without warning. First the ball of light, then the sound, and then the shockwave that knocked Benedict off his feet and rattled the door.
As he sat up, his ears ringing, he saw the red glow of a fire in the distance.
He stood, woozy on his feet. The line of torches had scattered, the little balls of light running in every direction—all away from the house.
The firm.
Chapter32
By the time Amelia arrived at the firm, after pushing past Greenhill and every footman who tried to hold her back, it was a mass of rubble and fire.
Ten-Tonne Tessie no longer existed. All that was left were twisted pieces of metal, many impaled into stone by the force of the blast. The main workshop had collapsed on one side, the roof falling in.
The stacks of coal and firewood that had been placed a far distance from the buildings were burning, sending vicious, choking plumes of smoke into the sky. It was the biggest bonfire she’d ever seen. Even fifty feet away, she was buffeted by the roaring heat. She threw an arm up to protect her face as she searched for Benedict.
Bright orange spots danced in her vision as she scanned her surroundings until she saw him, hunched over against the wall of the smaller workshop.
“Benedict!” She couldn’t even hear her own voice over the fire. She grabbed her skirts and ran to him, stumbling over fallen rock, cutting her hands on twisted metal, refusing to let the pain stop her from reaching him.
“Benedict!”
As she got nearer, she could see his shoulders heaving in heavy sobs. The palms of his hands were pressed into his eye sockets. He was shaking his head.
“No.” There was more pain in that one word than she’d heard in a lifetime.
“Benedict.” It was a whisper he couldn’t possibly hear as she scrambled toward him, but he looked up nonetheless.
“He was so young.”
Amelia recoiled. The mass of red at Benedict’s feet was not a reflection of fire on scrap metal but a body. Her hand flew to her lips. The figure was unidentifiable, but there must have been something in what was left that told Benedict who he was because, as he cried, he kept repeating the name: Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy.
The sight of her husband in such sheer agony almost broke her. Her knees buckled and part of her wanted to collapse in a heap, wreckage on wreckage. But she couldn’t. Because he needed her now.
“Oh, my love.” She stepped around the body and knelt beside him, running her fingers through his hair. “My love.” She went to press a kiss on the top of his head, but he moved out of reach. He scuffled away from her, refusing her touch.
“Benedict.” Her throat tightened as she tried to hold back the tears. She bit the inside of her lip, looking to physical pain to keep the sharp stab of grief at bay. Gently, hesitantly, she reached for his hand.
He shook her off. “I did this,” he said, his words choked. “I did this. I should have been around. I should have kept an eye on him. I knew that Tucker had his claws into him. And I did nothing.”
“No. Sweetheart—”
“I should have spent my time with my workers, my friends, my people, instead of playing dress-up for your lords and ladies.”
She shrank away from the viciousness of his voice. The cruelty of his words. This was not him. This was not the man she knew. “His death is not your fault.” Despite desperately wanting to be calm and controlled, her voice wavered. That he would shoulder the blame was agony. But there was something else in his words that frightened her. He was pulling away from her. From them.
“Then whose fault is it?”
She paused, choosing her words carefully. “If he set the fire, then it’s his fault.” It was a stupid, stupid decision made by a reckless boy. And it could break all of them.
Benedict turned away from her, leaning into the wall, his arms caged around his head as if he could block her words out.
She approached him. Slowly. And sighed in relief when he allowed her to run a hand in circles across his back. It made no sense, but she was sure that the only way they’d get through this whole was if she didn’t let him go. She needed to hold tight to him now, or it was over.
“Death is a high price to pay for stupidity,” she said. “But it happens more than anyone cares to admit. You can’t take this on. You’re a good man, my love.”
