Page 96 of A Stolen Heart

“You call that a good-night kiss?” His arm swooped around Alexandra, and he lifted her into him as his mouth came down to claim hers in a dizzying, lengthy kiss.

When at last he released her, Alexandra stood for a moment dazedly gazing into his face, her lips slightly parted. He let out a groan.

“If you continue to look at me like that, I can guarantee that I won’t leave you.” He bent and pressed his lips against Alexandra’s forehead. “Dream of me tonight.”

He turned and strode briskly down the hall toward his room. Alexandra let out a shuddering sigh and went into her room. One of the upstairs maids was waiting to help her out of her dress and into her nightgown.

Languidly, Alexandra let the girl brush her hair and tie it back with a pink ribbon. Usually she hadn’t the patience for letting someone fuss over her hair like that; she wouldn’t even have used the services of a maid if it had been possible for her to reach all the tiny buttons down the back of her dress. But tonight, she was too tired and lazy to protest. Indeed, her eyes drifted closed as she sat on the bench while the maid brushed her hair.

“Miss!”

Alexandra opened her eyes and blinked at the maid standing over her, her hands on Alexandra’s shoulders.

“You drifted right off there,” the maid told her. “You’d best get up and into bed.”

Alexandra tried to smile. “Yes. Thank you. I can’t imagine why I’m so tired. It must all be catching up with me. Good night, Rose.”

She stood, and the maid bobbed a curtsey and lit a candle from the oil lamp on the dressing table. “Good night, miss.”

Alexandra picked up the lamp and crossed to her bed, which the maid had already turned down for her. Yawning, she set the lamp on the narrow table beside the bed and bent to blow out the flame. She crawled between the sheets and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

SHE WAS DREAMING THAT SHE WAS sitting before the fire. It was too warm, and she tried to move away from the heat but could not. The damper must have been closed, too, for smoke was billowing into the room, making her cough. Then the Countess was in the room with her, shaking her roughly and telling her that she had to get out of her chair.

She shook her head, saying, “No, I’m too tired.”

But the Countess would not stop. She kept shaking her and saying her name. Then Alexandra realized that it was not the Countess at all, but her mother.

She opened her eyes. And there was her mother’s face, looming over her in the darkness. But it wasn’t dark, exactly. Rather, the air was thick with smoke, and above, the smoke flames danced, racing along the tester above her bed and down the long fall of the open curtains at the four corners of the bed.

“Mother?” Alexandra began to cough as she sucked the smoke into her lungs.

Her mother was tugging at her, and Alexandra saw in dazed astonishment that tears were running down the woman’s cheeks. Everything seemed so strange and unreal. Her lungs felt on fire, and the air was thick with smoke. She was surrounded by fire, yet she could not seem to make herself move.

Suddenly several large sparks fell on the bed beside Alexandra, and the sheets began to burn. Alexandra gasped, and Rhea batted them out.

“Alexandra! Get up! What is the matter with you?” Rhea grabbed Alexandra’s shoulders, wincing with pain as her burned palms touched Alexandra.

She jerked again, and this time Alexandra managed to push herself out of bed. Rhea staggered back under her weight, and the two of them fell heavily to the floor. The fall stunned Alexandra for a moment. But the air was clearer here, and she was able to breathe in air that was not smoky. She coughed, clearing her lungs. Shakily, she rose to her feet, reaching to help Rhea. They started groggily toward the door. The smoke was so thick, she could barely see, and she fell into another paroxysm of coughing. Rhea stumbled and went down on her knees, and Alexandra leaned over her, trying to help her up.

It was hard to breathe, and the room started spinning around her. Coughing, she fell forward onto the floor beside Rhea.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SEBASTIAN LAY STARING AT THE TESTER ABOVE his bed. He was having no luck going to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was Alexandra. All he could think about was kissing her, holding her, making love to her again. They were not images that were conducive to sleep.

Sighing, he sat and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He might as well get up and dress and go to the library to see if he could find something to read. With any luck, he thought, there would be something dull enough to make him nod off.

He had pulled on his trousers and was in the process of buttoning his shirt when he stopped and lifted his head. There was the oddest smell, he realized—a smell of smoke, as if a chimney weren’t drawing properly. He glanced instinctively at the fireplace in his room, but even as he did so, his brain registered that it was a warm summer night and the fire had not even been lit.

Fear gripped his chest, and he hurried to his door and flung it open. He could see nothing unusual in the hall, but the smell of smoke was stronger. He started down the hall, not pausing to light a candle or lamp, navigating by the moonlight drifting in through the long windows at either end of the hallway. As he drew closer to Alexandra’s room, he could see wispy tendrils of smoke curling from beneath her door.

“Alexandra!” he cried, and ran the rest of the way to her room.

He flung open the door, and a thick pall of smoke rushed into the hallway. He saw at a glance that Alexandra’s bed was on fire, the tester above the bed and the heavy bedcurtains blazing merrily, and flames were already starting across her sheets and bedcovers.

But Alexandra was not in the bed; he could see that much. He glanced frantically around the room, and his gaze fell on the two bodies lying on the floor a few feet from the foot of the bed. He ran to Alexandra and picked her up, carrying her from the smoky room. He bellowed for help as he laid her gently on the floor, then went into the room for the other woman.

Coughing and fanning away the smoke, he bent over her, surprised to find that it was not a maid or Aunt Hortense, as he had assumed, but Alexandra’s mother. He picked her up and ran into the hall, where Aunt Hortense and Willa were crouched beside Alexandra. Several servants came pounding up the stairs and stopped, gaping at the scene before them.