Page 97 of A Stolen Heart

“Stop gawking, you idiots!” he roared. “Can’t you see the room’s on fire? Get some water—now!”

They jumped to do his bidding as Sebastian went to Alexandra, moving aside her aunt and the Countess’s companion and pulling Alexandra down the hall, out of the doorway.

The servants pounded into the room with buckets of water, and Aunt Hortense and Willa went to Rhea to minister to her. Sebastian knelt beside Alexandra and lifted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest.

“Oh, God, don’t die on me now, love,” he whispered, feeling for the pulse in her throat. He could not hear her breathing, so he draped her limp form forward over his arm and thwacked his open palm against her back until she began to cough.

“Thank God. That’s it. That’s my girl.” He cuddled her to him again, running his hand down her hair and back and raining kisses over her sooty face and hair. “Stay with me. I couldn’t bear to lose you now.”

Alexandra coughed, and her eyes fluttered open. She saw Sebastian’s face looming over hers, streaked with soot and torn with anxiety. “Sebastian?”

As she said the word, she gave way to a fit of coughing. Sebastian held her as she coughed out the smoke that had overcome her. Finally, with a sigh, she settled in his arms. It felt deliciously warm and safe there.

“Thank God you’re alive,” he murmured against her hair. “I was afraid I had lost you, love. I don’t know what I would have done.”

“What did you say?” Alexandra asked, sitting up and turning to face Sebastian as the import of his words sank in.

He looked at her oddly. “I said I was afraid you were dead.”

“No, the other part—did you call me ‘love’?”

“Yes.” He frowned in puzzlement. “Alexandra…are you all right? You seem a little muddled.”

“Did you—did you mean it? Calling me your love?”

“Yes, of course. Surely you must realize that I love you.”

“No. No, I don’t. You never said a word about it.”

“But, darling…why else would I want you to marry me? Do you think I would marry any woman who came along?”

“But that was because of the scandal. Because everyone knew we had been together that night after the balloon took off.”

“I have weathered scandal before.” He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “If I was willing to run off with a married woman and earn the polite world’s contumely, do you honestly think that a little gossip would frighten me into marrying someone I didn’t want to?”

“Not when you put it that way,” Alexandra admitted. “But I thought, since I might be the Countess’s granddaughter and you are fond of her, that you would feel you had to marry me. Besides,” she argued, “you never spoke a word about love. Only about the scandal and my reputation.”

“I was trying to persuade you,” he retorted. “I didn’t think my love would do so. You don’t seem to reciprocate the feeling, so it seemed better to present the practicalities.”

“Not reciprocate!” Alexandra stared at him in astonishment. “Can you honestly be that obtuse?”

He gazed at her for a long moment. “Are—are you saying that you do? That you—”

“Yes! Of course! I love you!”

“Alexandra…” He pulled her to him, his arms wrapping tightly about her, and kissed her. When at last he raised his head, he looked at her, his hand caressing her soot-smeared cheek. “Then you will marry me?”

Alexandra frowned, a chill coming over her happiness. “But there is still the problem of—oh!” She sat up straight, pulling away from him. “How could I have forgotten? Mother! She was with me in the bedroom. I saw her, leaning over my bed.”

“Yes. I pulled her out, too.” Sebastian nodded toward where Rhea lay on the floor a few feet away, Hortense and Willa beside her.

Alexandra turned, pulling away from him, and crawled to her. “Mother?”

Sebastian followed, crouching beside the others. “How is she?”

Aunt Hortense shook her head. “She is breathing, but she’s unconscious. Her hands are burned. I cannot imagine what she was doing in there.”

“She was awake. She woke me up,” Alexandra said. “She said my name, and she tried to pull me out of bed. She put out the sparks with her hands, that’s why they’re burned.” Tears welled in her eyes.