The Temptation of Your Touch (28 page)

He was still unsettled by her peculiar behavior in the dining room. Angelica might not be real, but the panicked guilt in Anne’s eyes most definitely was.

Perhaps the time had come for him to admit he didn’t belong in this place. There was nothing to hold him here, nothing to stop him from packing his
valise and slipping away before daybreak. Wouldn’t it be better to let the villagers mock him as a coward driven from his own house by a ghost than to waste another minute of his life being haunted by not one, but
two
women, neither of whom he could ever have? Somehow Anne and Angelica had become inextricably bound in his imagination.

And his heart.

He could send for the rest of his things in the morning, then return to London and his position with the Company. He could allow his parents to choose a suitable bride for him and settle down to produce an heir and the requisite spare. He could sleep soundly through the night, never again troubled by mysterious laughter or dreams that left him aching for a passion he would never know.

How would Anne feel when she found his bed empty and his things gone? he wondered. Would she rejoice? Would she gather the other servants around her to celebrate vanquishing another unwanted master? Or would she miss him just the tiniest bit? Would she lie in her narrow bed with the cold winter winds moaning around the eaves of her attic and remember the man who had wanted only to warm her?

A sullen rumble rattled the house. Max slowly lifted his head. It wasn’t the ghostly echo of a pistol being fired that had robbed him of his dream lover
after all, but a sharp crack of thunder heralding the arrival of the storm that had been brooding over the manor all day. Fat drops of rain began to pelt the French windows. A flash of lightning illuminated the room.

Max’s breath froze in his throat. Angelica hadn’t abandoned him after all.

Although the French windows remained closed and latched, a sinuous ribbon of mist was twining its way through the room. Max watched in open-mouthed fascination as it drifted this way and that before rising to coalesce beside the bed.

As he waited for the lithe female curves to gain shape and substance, he drew in an uneven breath, expecting it to be perfumed with the sultry aroma of jasmine. Instead, a choking cloud filled his lungs with the acrid stench of gunpowder and brimstone.

A wracking cough doubled him over. He blinked away a stinging rush of tears, realizing it wasn’t mist seeping steadily beneath his bedchamber door, but deadly ribbons of smoke.

Chapter Twenty-five

M
AX SPRANG OUT OF
the bed and rushed across the room to snatch a shirt and a pair of trousers out of the armoire. There was no time to seek out the source of the fire and try to extinguish it. As ancient and as full of rotting wood as the manor was, it could go up like a tinderbox in minutes. He grabbed a monogrammed handkerchief from his dressing table. He dipped it into his washbasin to soak up as much water as it could hold, then pressed it over his mouth and nose before yanking open the door.

Billowing clouds of smoke crowded the corridor. A flickering glow emanated from the direction of the entrance hall. Ignoring his instinctive urge to sprint down the two flights of stairs and straight out the front door, Max took off in the opposite direction, heading for the back staircase leading up to the servants’ quarters. The smoke made the
darkness even more impenetrable, but the fitful flashes of lightning striking the windows guided his steps. Perhaps a bolt of it had struck the house and ignited the fire.

He shot up the steps, his father’s smug voice echoing in his ears:
Servants should always be quartered on the highest floor. Should the house catch fire, they won’t be underfoot while you’re trying to collect your valuables and escape.

In his mind’s eye, all could see was Anne nestled beneath her cozy down comforter, enjoying a blissful slumber with no idea her attic room was about to be engulfed by a raging inferno from which there would be no escape.

By the time Max reached the fourth floor, the smoke had thinned out a little. He shoved the damp handkerchief in the pocket of his trousers. The steady drumming of the rain on the slate shingles could easily drown out the sound of crackling flames from below.

He made a beeline for Dickon’s room. He snatched the boy up by his shoulders, yanking him out of the bed and clear off his feet. “Listen to me, lad! There’s a fire downstairs. I need you to get the girls up and out of the house. I’ll meet you by the back gate to help you with Nana. And Tinkles. And Mr. Furryboots,” he added, thinking how displeased Anne would be with him if he let her precious pets perish.

Dickon’s head bobbed up and down like a rag doll’s, his eyes as wide as saucers. “Yes, s-s-sir . . . I mean, His Graciousness . . . I mean . . .”

“Go!” Max shouted, lowering Dickon to his feet and shoving him in the direction of the door.

Dickon took off for Pippa’s room while Max strode toward the steep stairs at the far end of the corridor. As he passed the other rooms, he noted that the Elizabeths had already began to stir, but Hodges’s rumpled bed was empty.

Max took the attic stairs two at a time. He gave the door at the top of the stairs an impatient push, expecting it to swing open at his touch as it had before.

The door was locked.

Swearing out loud, he lifted one bare foot and kicked the door clean off its bottom hinge. As it listed crazily, Anne bolted upright in the bed.

Max crossed the room in two long strides and scooped her into his arms, comforter and all.

Still half-asleep, she blinked up at him, her tousled braids making her look even younger than Pippa. “Forgive me, my lord. I didn’t hear you ring.”

He gave her a brief, but fierce, squeeze, cherishing the solid feel of her weight in his arms. “The manor is on fire. I need to get you downstairs.”

“Fire?” Panic flared in her eyes as she came fully awake. “What about Dickon? Pippa? Hodges? Put
me down this instant! I have to warn the others!” She began to struggle against his embrace, fighting to get to her feet.

“They’re all safe,” he promised, feeling a twinge of conscience as he remembered Hodges’s empty bed. “Just hang on to me, damn it all, and you will be, too! Please . . .” When she continued to struggle, he added fiercely, “Anne.”

She stilled, blinking up at him in obvious surprise. He expected her to argue, as was her nature, but after a brief hesitation, she looped her arms around his neck, holding on for dear life. Her trust in him gave his heart a curious little wrench.

They were halfway down the stairs when she cried, “Wait! My locket!” When he glared at her in disbelief, she gave him a beseeching look. “Please . . . Maximillian.”

“Where is it?” he growled, infuriated to discover he had no defenses against that look or the sound of his name on her lips.

“Back of the door.”

Max snatched the locket from the peg on the back of the dangling door, dropped its chain over her head, then carried her swiftly down the attic stairs. His confidence in Dickon had not been misplaced. The servants’ quarters were deserted, the doors standing open to reveal scattered bedclothes abandoned in desperate haste.

They descended the back stairs to the third floor to find the smoke much thicker and blacker than when Max had climbed them. A fit of coughing wracked Anne’s slender body.

Bracing her weight against the wall with one arm, Max tugged the handkerchief from his pocket and shoved it into her hand. “Press it over your mouth and nose.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine,” he promised her grimly, hoping he was right.

Since he didn’t care for the idea of hauling her blindly down that narrow back staircase into a potential inferno, he started across the third floor, heading for the main stairs. If he could get a clear look at the entrance hall, at least he would know what they were up against.

Thunder cracked and lightning flashed as Max sprinted across the length of the house. The smoke seemed to pursue them, snaking through the corridors and down the stairs to the second-floor gallery like a dragon’s tail looking for an ankle to seize. Time seemed to swell until it felt as if it had been hours instead of only minutes since Max had bolted up the stairs to rescue Anne.

The view from the gallery brought Max up short. There could be no mistaking the hellish glow or the hungry crackle of flames coming from the
drawing room. Smoke was billowing through the arched doorway and into the entrance hall, but a clear path from the foot of the main staircase to the front door still remained. When Anne lowered the handkerchief and tried to peer over the banister, Max cradled the back of her head in his hand, gently urging her face into his chest, and took off at a dead run.

The second-floor gallery seemed to grow longer with each jarring step, but they finally reached the landing. From her gilt frame Angelica watched them fly past her and down the steps, her gaze as coolly amused as ever. Max felt a sharp stab of regret at the thought of leaving her to perish in the flames. But all that truly mattered to him now was the woman clinging to his neck.

They were almost across the entrance hall when a tremendous crash of glass sounded from the drawing room, followed by a rousing cheer.

“What the hell?” Max muttered.

He swept open the front door just in time to see a heap of flaming draperies go sailing through the drawing-room window to land in the overgrown courtyard. They lay there, hissing and steaming as the pouring rain quickly squelched the worst of the flames.

Max and Anne exchanged a baffled glance. Since the smoke had ceased its billowing with no sign of any fresh flames leaping through the window, Max
slowly retraced his steps until they stood in the doorway of the drawing room.

Dickon and Pippa were hanging half out the window, admiring the results of their handiwork, while the maids hugged one another in the corner behind the settee, their faces wreathed in smiles of relief.

Max cleared his throat.

Dickon and Pippa swung around to face him, the soot blacking their faces making their triumphant grins seem that much more dazzling. Stray embers had scorched holes in their nightclothes. They looked like a pair of cheeky chimney sweeps.

Max glared at Dickon. “What in the bloody hell did you do, boy? I thought I told you to get the women out of the house.”

Dickon’s grin lost none of its cockiness. “We were running past the drawing room when I saw it was the drapes all ablaze. We thought if we could get them out the window, the rain would douse the flames. So Pippa hurled a coal bucket through the glass, then I used a poker to drag down the drapes and stuff them through the hole.”

Max surveyed the carnage through the lingering haze of smoke hanging over the room. The window frame had already began to buckle from the heat. The flames had shot up the wall above the drapery rod, blistering the paint and blackening the crown molding and a large section of ceiling. Another few
minutes and the entire room would have gone up in flames, taking the rest of the manor with it.

Anne began to wriggle in earnest. This time there was no stopping her and she slid out of his arms and went rushing across the room to Dickon and Pippa, leaving Max holding the empty comforter. “You fools! You silly, brave little fools! Why, I ought to box both your ears and send you to bed without supper!”

Dickon and Pippa exchanged a glance before saying in unison, “We’ve already had supper.”

“Then I ought to send you to bed without breakfast!”

Max watched in fascination as Anne burst into tears, threw her arms around them both, and took turns smothering their ash-flaked hair with kisses. He’d never seen a housekeeper quite so devoted to her staff.

When Anne finally lifted her face, it was streaked with both tears and ashes. She gazed up at the charred ceiling, shaking her head in disbelief. “I don’t understand. How could such a thing have happened?”

Dickon crouched down, using the poker to sift through the still-smoking debris beneath the window. With a dull clang the poker struck something heavy. A blackened silver candlestick came rolling slowly across the floor toward Max’s feet.

The bewilderment in Anne’s expression deepened, mingled with burgeoning horror. “But I snuffed all the candles before going up to bed. I swear I did! Checking the lamps and candles is the last duty I do each night before I retire.”

“I left it burning for her.” They all turned as Hodges came drifting through the door that led to the shadowy dining room, looking like a ghost himself with his unfocused eyes and long, white nightshirt. His snowy hair was standing straight up around his head in a disheveled halo. “I told her not to go walking along the cliffs on such a night, but she wouldn’t listen. She was always so headstrong. I thought if I left a candle burning in the window, she’d be able to find her way back. I’ve been waiting so long for her to return. So very long . . .” His voice trailed off in a mournful sigh and he began to hum.

Max’s nape prickled as he recognized the off-key notes of the melody from the music box in the tower.

“Oh, darling,” Anne whispered, her face crumpling into a mask of pity and pain. She went to the old man, gently folding him into her arms. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his slumped shoulders beginning to heave with silent sobs. “There, there,” she murmured, patting him on the back. “It was just an oversight. I know you didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”