Two gentlemen moved at the centre of the disorder. Elizabeth squinted through the smoke as what was visible of the men rushed toward the fire.
One stood near the pump, issuing directions with brisk authority. The other dragged a ladder toward the façade, his movements swift and unhesitating.
Elizabeth scarcely marked them at first. Her attention fixed upon the window where smoke thickened, where someone might be dying while the street below descended into useless panic. Without thinking, she moved closer, drawn by the desperate cries of the woman.
Then the second gentleman lifted the ladder into place directly before her, and something in the set of his shoulders made her breath catch.
She could not have said what arrested her—the height of his figure, perhaps, or the economy of his movements. He mounted without waiting for assistance, one hand steady upon the rail, the other shielding his face as smoke poured around him.
The crowd murmured. Someone cried out that the roof might fall.
He did not pause.
For one terrible instant, he disappeared entirely into the blackened window.
Elizabeth's breath stopped.
"Lizzy," Mrs. Gardiner called sharply from somewhere behind her. "Come away from there!"
She did not answer. Could not.
The gentleman reappeared, a little girl of about five years gathered against his shoulder. A murmur of relief rippled through the crowd as he descended carefully, each step measured despite the press below. The man at the pump stepped forward at once to receive the child, his face lifted in anxious gratitude.
Elizabeth watched, transfixed, as the gentleman on the ladder vanished into the smoke again. When he emerged moments later, guiding a coughing maid toward safety, the crowd erupted in applause.
He descended steadily, shielding the maid with his body. When his boots struck the ground, he removed his coat and draped it over the maid's shoulders, speaking briefly to someone near the pump. Soot marked his shirt. A faint line of blood traced his temple where glass must have struck him.
Then he turned slightly, and light struck his profile through the smoke.
Elizabeth's heart stopped.
No.
The word formed silently, desperately.
It cannot be.
But even through the haze, even at this distance, she knew that face. Knew the precise angle of that jaw, the set of those shoulders, the way he moved with that particular economy of motion.
The gentleman beside him—the one who had taken the child—turned as well, animated and earnest, and Elizabeth felt the air leave her lungs entirely.
Mr. Bingley.
Which meant—
A tremendous crack split the air before she could complete the thought.
Elizabeth looked up in time to see the roof buckle, timbers groaning as flame consumed the last supports. The crowd screamed. People scattered backwards.
She stood frozen near the building's façade, staring upward as a section of burning roof broke free and plummeted directly toward her.
"Miss Elizabeth!"
She heard the shout, saw a figure running toward her, and then something struck her shoulder—a hard shove that sent herstumbling sideways. She fell awkwardly, her hands scraping the cobblestones as she caught herself.
The crash of falling timber was deafening. Heat and sparks erupted where she had stood only a moment before.
For several seconds, she could not move, could not breathe. The acrid taste of smoke filled her mouth.
