Harriet twisted her neck and looked up. There was only one more floor before the roof and a thick drainpipe ran up beside the window.
She tore off her crumpled bonnet and hitched her long, still damp skirts up by the tucking folds of the clinging black material into the tapes of her gown. Kicking off her boots, she picked up the duchess again and edged out onto the sill until she was standing there above the roaring crowd with the duchess over her shoulder.
Thanking God that her grace weighed little more than a child, Harriet gripped the drainpipe firmly in both hands and began a lopsided climb, praying that the duchess would not recover consciousness and struggle, since she needed both hands free.
The crackling and roaring of the fire eating at the building lent her the strength of a madwoman. Up she went, inching her way, the limp figure of the old woman hanging like a sack over her shoulder.
A silence fell on the watching crowd below, a silence broken only by the petulant voice of Mr. Bertram Hudson demanding loudly from the edge of the square, “What is going on?”
“Quiet,” said the Marquess of Arden. His great height allowed him to see above the heads of the crowd.
Normally, the square would have been dark, lit only by the flickering, feeble lights of the parish tamps. But the raging blaze from the building threw everything into high relief: the gaping crowd, the jostling hawkers selling gingerbread and hot chestnuts as if at a fair, and the slim, black figure edging up to the roof, the body on her shoulder.
Pray God, she makes it, thought the marquess. Can it possibly be Miss Harriet? Or am I being haunted by slim girls dressed in black silk?
A sudden desperate urge to do something, anything, to help that gallant little figure made him begin to shoulder his way through the crowd with Bertram Hudson following behind, still querulously demanding to be told what it was all about.
Harriet felt herself becoming giddy and faint. The gutter was just above her head, but all at once the madness of fear that had given her strength left her.
A sigh like the wind passed through the watching crowd. It seemed certain she would fall.
The marquess groaned. The downstairs floors were a raging inferno. There seemed no way he could get to her.
“Go on!” he shouted suddenly. “Go on, Harriet. You can make it.” He was still not quite sure whether the slight figure now far above his head as he stood in front of the burning building
was
Harriet. But he called again, desperately, “Go
on
. Climb!”
“Climb!” roared the crowd, taking up her name. “Climb, Harriet.”
Harriet clenched her teeth, taking courage from the noise below. She stretched up one hand to the gutter.
The duchess moaned and stirred.
“Don’t,” pleaded Harriet. “Don’t move.” She needed both hands to climb up onto the roof, and so long as the duchess remained a limp, inert figure, it was possible. She could not manage it if she had to stop to hold on to a frightened woman.
The duchess mercifully swooned again.
Harriet’s toe found a good-sized crack in the side of the building. Above the gutter was a low balustrade, and behind that a small space between the balustrade and the steep slope of the tiled roof.
With a superhuman effort, her muscles cracking, she heaved herself up and over, she and the duchess tumbling over the balustrade to lie facedown on the other side.
The wild cheering of the crowd was suddenly stilled as a great tongue of flame broke through the roof several yards to the left of where Harriet was lying.
Harriet struggled to her feet, picked up the duchess in her arms, and set off in a shambling run along the edge of the roof toward the adjoining building.
At the edge of the roof she stopped in dismay. There was a gap of twelve feet to the next building. She could not possibly jump it with the old woman in her arms.
Behind her came a terrible rumble and crash as part of the roof fell in.
The heat of the roof under her feet was becoming intense. Down below a sea of white faces stared up.
“Help!” cried Harriet piteously. “Help!” But her voice was drowned by the roaring and crackling of the fire.
And then she heard her name.
“Harriet,” said an imperative voice. “Over here. Move quickly.”
The Marquess of Arden was standing on the other roof, untying a stout length of rope from about his waist.
“I will throw you one end,” he called. “Tie it firmly to the parapet.”
The rope snaked over. Harriet laid the duchess gently against the slope of the roof and seized the rope. At first her hands were trembling too much to tie it securely, but at last she managed to knot it firmly.
The marquess, who had secured his end, stripped off his coat, kicked off his boots, and made his way, hand over hand, across the intervening gap.
“Come along, Miss Harriet,” he said. “Your troubles are over.”
“Take her first,” said Harriet, gasping, pointing to the duchess.
“Very well. I will be as quick as I can. Pray God you do not lose your life in this rescue of one of London’s most parsimonious, selfish old hags.” He unwound a thinner length of rope from his waist. “Tie her on my back. Hurry!”
The duchess was lashed to his back. He crossed quickly to the other roof, slashed at the rope that bound the duchess to him with a knife, and tumbled her unceremoniously onto the tiles.
He swung himself back over again and seized Harriet. “Put your arms about my neck,” he said urgently.
“I can’t,” said Harriet, trembling. Her legs seemed to have turned to water and her arms to have lost their strength.
He bent his head suddenly and kissed her full on the lips, a hard, intense kiss.
Then he looked down at her, his eyes glinting in the red light from the fire. “Please do not be missish, Harriet,” he said severely.
“Missish!” Harriet gasped, and then she began to giggle.
“That’s better. Hold on to me.”
Harriet put her arms tightly about his neck. She could feel his muscles rippling under his shirt as he swung down onto the rope, with her tightly pressed against his back.
With a shattering roar the roof behind them gave way, a huge pillar of flame shot up, scorching loose the end of the rope that Harriet had tied to the parapet, and they plunged down into the space between the houses. The marquess braced his feet to take the impact as they struck the opposite building.
Then he began to climb up. White-faced, Harriet clung to him.
He climbed quickly and nimbly up onto the other roof and set Harriet on her feet.
Down below, the crowd cheered themselves hoarse. The marquess looked down at Harriet. Her gown had dried but was ripped and torn. There was a smudge of soot on her left cheekbone and a scratch on her right. Her hair was a wild and tangled mess. Her eyes, looking up into his face, seemed enormous.
He gathered her into his arms and kissed her very gently this time. Harriet closed her eyes. She could hear the roar of the crowd and the greedy crackling of the fire, she could feel her breast being crushed against his chest, and then suddenly all she could feel were his lips moving against her own. The world became dark and silent, an odd mixture of passion and peace.
“Disgraceful!” cackled a malicious old voice from somewhere at their feet. “Kissing and cuddling while I’m at death’s door.”
The marquess gently set Harriet away from him and looked down into the bright evil eyes of the Dowager Duchess of Macham.
“Oh, it’s you. Arden.” The duchess sniffed. “Might have known. Never could leave women alone. S’pose you rescued me.”
“No,” said the marquess. “You owe your life to Miss Clifton here.”
“Her? S’pose she’ll want money.”
“No, she does not want money, you reprehensible old harridan. I wish you had not recovered your horrible senses so quickly,” snapped the marquess. “If your old carcase has as much energy as your tongue, we can make our way out of this building before it catches fire as well.”
“I am going to faint,” said the little duchess, struggling to her feet.
“I do not care what you do,” said the marquess nastily. “I am going to take Miss Clifton to safety.”
“Ha! Take her to your bed, more like.”
“If you, madam, take it upon yourself to broadcast to the world that I gave Miss Clifton a chaste embrace I will personally set you on fire.”
“It ain’t that I ain’t grateful to her,” whined the duchess. “You should take better care o’me, Arden, ‘stead o’ preachin’ and moralizin’. The night air is cold.”
“Then I suggest you warm yourself at your fire,” said the marquess, jerking his thumb in the direction of the blazing building.
The duchess began to moan about the loss of her valuables. Harriet tried to reassure her by saying she had seen a great amount of furniture and paintings piled up outside on the street, but the marquess led her firmly away.
The building they descended into through a skylight had been evacuated, and with the little duchess grumbling behind them, they made their way down through the deserted rooms and passages.
The marquess put an arm around Harriet’s shoulders as he led her out into the square. The noise and cheering of the crowd were deafening. They surged forward, threatening to crush her to death in their enthusiasm.
Mr. Hudson was there, plucking at Harriet’s sleeve and babbling, “The bravest thing I ever saw. You should have told me what you meant to do, Arden. I would have rescued her. I …”
The marquess swung Harriet up into his arms and began to shoulder his way through the cheering crowd.
Cordelia was late for the opera. She was not much troubled by that fact, since she had no interest in the music, only in the effect caused by her appearance.
“Did you tell them?” she asked Agnes over her shoulder.
“Miss Harriet is gone from home and has not returned,” said Agnes. “As for old Miss Clifton, she is not well, and I prefer to order her out when her niece is with her to sustain her. I will be able to accompany you after all.”
Cordelia narrowed her eyes. “Be sure you have told them, one way or t’other by the time I return. You need not accompany me, Agnes,” she added maliciously, knowing how much Agnes loved the opera.
“Don’t like going in halfway through the opera anyway.” Agnes shrugged, though her intense gaze bored into Cordelia’s back as her young mistress turned back to the mirror. “Listen to that noise. It’s coming closer. If the mob’s out, you may not be able to go yourself.”
“War riots.” Cordelia sniffed contemptuously. “One never knows what to do … whether to be for or against.”
The Tories were
for
the British war against Napoleon’s armies in the Spanish Peninsula, the Whigs against.
Both political parties rented mobs. There was the antiwar mob and the prowar mob. A British victory could mean your windows were smashed in for not displaying candles all over the house and drawing back the curtains in celebration, and the antiwar mob would wreak havoc with equal enthusiasm on any house that seemed to support the campaign.
“Tell the servants to light all the candles,” said Cordelia, “and listen hard. If they’re antiwar, draw the curtains.”
“They are cheering. It must be a victory,” said Agnes,
“Look out of the window and make sure.” Agnes raised the window and leaned out. After a few moments, she drew her head in and gazed at Cordelia in a dazed way.
“It’s Arden,” she said. “At the head of a cheering mob with Miss Harriet in his arms.” Cordelia elbowed her aside and thrust her head out. “The deuce,” she muttered.
She turned from the window and ran from the room and down the stairs.
The noise of cheering grew nearer and nearer.
Pinning a smile on her face, Cordelia opened the door.
The marquess was just setting Harriet down on her feet on the step.
“Dear me,” said Cordelia. “Did little Harriet faint?”
“Little
Harriet is a heroine,” said Mr. Hudson. “She rushed into a burning building and saved the life of the Dowager Duchess of Macham.”
“Poor Harriet,” murmured Cordelia sweetly. “Always
so
impetuous.”
The marquess gave her a cold look. Cordelia rallied and rushed forward and gathered Harriet in her arms.
“Come inside, dear,” she cooed, “and we will put you to bed immediately. You must be
exhausted.”
“I confess I am a trifle tired,” said Harriet with a watery smile.
“Agnes!” Cordelia called over her shoulder. “See Miss Harriet to her room.”
“I will take my leave,” said the marquess, looking down at Cordelia with an odd expression on his face.
Harriet was glad to escape out of range of Cordelia’s gimlet eye. Harriet knew Cordelia was furious because she had once more brought herself to the Marquess of Arden’s attention.
Aunt Rebecca was waiting at the top of the stairs, her large, moonlike face swimming in the gloom. She had heard the news of Harriet’s bravery, as she, too, had leaned out of the window to watch her niece’s triumphant arrival home. All the excitement had caused Aunt Rebecca to make one of her mercurial recoveries from nervous depression. Agnes led Harriet into the schoolroom and seated her by the fire, and then left Harriet to tell Aunt Rebecca about her adventures while Agnes went in search of brandy.
When she returned, she poured them all a strong measure.
“It seems you are the talk of London, Miss Harriet,” said Agnes. “If you are not too exhausted, please tell me all about it. I have told the servants to carry a bath up to your bedchamber.”
Harriet recited her tale of the fire and the rescue once more.
“But you are a heroine!” exclaimed Agnes. Then she fell silent, her intense gaze roaming around the shabby schoolroom while her mind worked busily.
Agnes was beginning to detest Cordelia. It was difficult, she thought, watching the candlelight flicker on Harriet’s sensitive little face, to believe that two such sisters came out of the same stable.
Underneath her beauty, Cordelia was vulgar and coarse. Harriet, despite her shabby clothes and soot-stained face, still managed to look like the lady she was.
Agnes made up her mind. “I am going out for a little, Miss Harriet,” she said. “I will return in time to see you before you go to sleep.”