Page 13 of Fortune’s Final Folly

“Salvation…”

Joshua nearly chuckled as the immediate sense of danger receded, and they were spirited across London toward his townhouse. “No, I was only in the right place at the right time. Now, rest. I will wake you when we arrive.”

Her eyes closed, and her breathing evened out. The smell of smoke hung heavily in the air of the enclosed carriage.

Joshua would let her rest, at least until they arrived at his townhouse, and the physician was ready to attend to her.

He kept watch on her as the carriage swayed gently, noting a dark smudge of soot streaked across her cheek, and the singed fringes of her nightshift. His own jacket was torn at the elbow. The weight of Kate’s situation settled in: she was safe and unharmed. However, they’d both been nearly killed, and Kate’s home was in ruins. Had the fire been set or merely caused by an unattended candle in the schoolroom? Was Cuttlebottom responsible?

There was plenty of time to discuss the elderly man. For now, Joshua wouldn’t bother her with such matters. Tonight, he’d make sure she suffered no lasting effects from the fire. Tomorrow—or the next day—they’d deal with the cobbler and Kate’s ruined home.

The carriage rocked rhythmically as it traveled down seemingly endless London streets. A wayward curl fell across Kate’s face and caressed her cheek. The interior of the coach was lit by two lanterns on either side, making the bridge of freckles across Kate’s nose visible. Her eyes fluttered behind her eyelids, and she sucked in a deep breath on a gasp. The fire was only just extinguished, but the nightmares of the ordeal were already beginning.

Chapter 4

Kate rolled over, heat warming her face as she stretched out her legs, their stiffness nothing new. She’d always slept the most soundly curled into a tight ball. The ache in her legs and back was the same. The hearth that heated the upper floor of her home was not close enough to her room, even if she left the door open, to bring any kind of deep warmth. Neither were her sturdy, woolen blankets soft and inviting. The straw mattress she’d used since her childhood had forever been unforgivingly hard and lumpy.

The hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end.

Something wasn’t right.

In fact, something was certainly very wrong.

She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling around for the edge of the bed. With arms extended in both directions, Kate could not reach either side. What she did encounter was yards and yards of blankets that were cool and smooth to her touch, not tattered and coarse like the ones on her bed. The quilt her mother had worked diligently on for nearly six months before Kate’s eighth birthday was not within her reach either. The cushion under her head felt more like a cloud than her usual straw and horse-hair-stuffed embroidered pillow.

Despite it all, Kate did not have the sense that she was in danger. Quite the contrary, actually. The perceived ease she felt startled her far more than awakening in a strange bed in a room that could not possibly be hers.

She thought hard on the previous night—or had morning not dawned yet? Kate remembered eating a light meal as she hadn’t gone to the grocer in nearly a fortnight. Slipping into her nightgown, Kate had twisted her hair into a knot and tucked it under her nightcap to keep her curls from tangling in her sleep, then climbed into her small bed. She’d forgone her nightly reading to yet again conserve her tallow in case a midsummer storm moved in that made it necessary to light candles in the schoolroom for the children.

Nothing had been amiss as she’d willed her mind to stop churning. She’d fallen to sleep.

However, she most certainly was not in her bed above the schoolroom any longer.

Even the smells were different. She didn’t smell tallow but beeswax. The linens were infused with lavender and, mayhap, scents of a meadow—not that she’d ever been to a true meadow. The fire in the hearth did not reek of the cakes that she bartered for in exchange for Sally Ann’s schooling. No, the heat reaching her had the distinct scent of coal.

Kate hadn’t been afforded the luxury of coal—or wood—since shortly after her father had passed away.

She was not in her Cheapside home with the small window in her chambers that afforded her an obstructed glimpse of the London Bridge. Besides the scents and the softness of the bed, the sounds were also foreign to her. Or, better put, the lack of noise was unusual.

Opening her eyes, Kate took in the expansive room. The bed was easily the size of her entire chambers in Cheapside. Heavy draperies covered a bank of windows that stretched the length of the wall in front of the bed she rested in. The furniture was dark wood; however, the bedding was a pale blue that diminished the masculinity of the chamber somewhat. To her left, a great hearth with a grate did, indeed, burn coal.

“Good morning.” She turned to the right to see Mr. Stuart—Joshua—masked by shadows and lounging in a large chair. He was no longer Mr. Stuart, kindly neighbor and solicitor. He was now Joshua as he’d discarded his coat and his cravat hung loosely around his neck. His sleeves were even rolled to his elbows. “How do you feel? Does your chest ache?”

Kate pushed up to sit, and the blankets that had been pulled high to her chin fell down to pool at her waist. She no longer wore the long nightgown her mother had sewn for her years ago. Instead, the cotton nightdress she wore was made of crisp satin with a row of bows leading from her throat down to her waist and perhaps beyond.

“Where am I?” she gulped, clutching the high collar of the gown as her cheeks heated.

“Do you remember anything from last night?” Joshua leaned forward in his chair, his fingers tightening on the arms of the furniture, but his expression remained hidden in the shadows.

“I—” Kate closed her eyes, and images flooded her mind. Joshua standing on the landing outside her bedchamber door, backlit by flickering light, the smells of smoke and burning wood overwhelming. “There was a fire—in the schoolroom.” She paused, remembering the whole of it: the terror, the smoke, the heated flames. “Where am I?”

It seemed far preferable to question him on such mundane, trivial things rather than inquire as to the destruction of the only home she’d ever known. The same building that allowed her to gain a wage to care for herself without assistance.

His head dipped, seemingly knowing what she longed to ask but in some unspoken way understanding that she was not ready to hear it. “After the fire brigade arrived, I brought you to my home and had my family physician see to your injuries.”

She frantically moved in the bed, pushing the blankets down until she could inspect her entire body. As the daughter of a pious vicar, Kate knew she should feel embarrassed and uneasy about being alone with Joshua—in his home. They’d been unattended on several occasions in the past, but never in such a suggestive and inappropriate way. It seemed all the worse that Kate’s eyes settled on the exposed skin at his throat.

“You had no burns and didn’t inhale too much smoke.” His words soothed her panic. “When the physician left, I had my housekeeper make you more…comfortable. Your nightgown was soiled from ash and soot and smelled of burnt things. I’ve sent it to the laundress for cleaning.”