Daring In a Blue Dress (22 page)

The paramedics said nothing, just pushed past me and knelt next to where Alden was crumpled up on the now somewhat torn and dirty duvet. A zigzagging line of little white feathers led across the hall to the stairs, ending at the spot where a hitherto unknown carpet tack had snagged the duvet and torn it, releasing its guts in a snowy trail.

“You'd think it was easy pulling a man on a blanket, but it's not,” I said while the women worked on Alden, slapping an oxygen mask over his mouth, and listening to his heart. One of them peered closely at a lump over his left eye. “Oh, yeah, that. It has nothing to do with the gas thing, I'm afraid. He rolled off the blanket and hit the banister when I was dragging him downstairs. You can see that the bump isn't bleeding, so I figured he'll just have a black eye. It's his brain I'm worried about. Gas poisoning can mess with that, can't it? Is he going to be OK?”

Alden started coming to while I was speaking, his arms and legs doing an odd swimming motion for a few
seconds before he reached up and tried to take the oxygen mask off. “Sir, please do not move,” one of the women told him, while the other leaned over him and asked, “Do you remember your name?”

“Of course I remember my name,” Alden said, his voice muffled by the oxygen mask. He winced as he spoke, reaching up to touch his bruised brow. “What happened to me?”

“It's OK, Alden,” I said, peering over the shoulder of one of the paramedics, who was taking his blood pressure. “You're all right now. Sorry about your head, but I didn't want to leave you where Lisa could get you. These are paramedics. They're here to help you.”

“Why are you . . . ow . . . talking to me like I'm an imbecile?” he asked, touching his nose.

“Sorry about that, too. You and the duvet slid down part of the stairs, and your nose kind of
kerthump
ed on each step. Oh, good, you're going to take him to the hospital?” This last was in response to one of the medics, who had fetched a wheeled gurney.

“The patient appears to be somewhat disoriented,” one of the medics said. The two of them lifted the blanket, and hauled Alden onto the gurney. “He needs to be checked over thoroughly.”

“I like that—yes, he should be checked over thoroughly,” I said, following as they wheeled him out to the aid unit. “I'll come with you.”

“I'm sorry, family only,” one of the medics said, locking the wheels of the gurney inside the truck.

“Oh. Crap. OK, I'll take his car. Alden! They're going to take you to the hospital! To see a doctor! But you're OK. Don't worry about anything—just breathe nice clear oxygen.”

“I don't know why she's speaking to me as if I'm three years old,” Alden complained to one of the medics. “I seem to have a second lump on the back of my head now.”

“Sorry! That was the big heavy chair just at the bottom of the stairs. I lost control of the duvet and you, so you kind of swung into it,” I yelled just as the second medic closed the door.

I stood wringing my hands for a few seconds, watching as the truck zoomed off, then realized I needed to get to the hospital to make sure he was all right.

Once back in his room, I grabbed his laptop case, and stuffed into it a change of clothes (since he had been clad in nothing but his underwear when I dragged him downstairs), a pair of shoes, his phone, car keys, and wallet, and, after a moment's thought, crammed in his laptop, so that I'd have something to do while I waited for the doctors to run their tests. I wanted to document the event, and since I knew Alden was keeping a journal of all the various repairs he was having to make—along with the parts of the house that fell off, crumbled away, or, in the case of the gallery floor, were sabotaged—I decided to add my own notes about Lisa's attempt on Alden's life to his house document.

The night crawled into morning, an ugly, gray morning that accurately reflected my state of mind while I sat in the hospital waiting room, typing away everything that had happened since I'd come back from dinner with Fenice and Vandal. I made a particular point to list every possible opportunity that Lisa had to facilitate the “accidents,” and even went so far as to pose a few speculations as to what reasons I thought she would have to want Alden dead.

An hour before dawn, I was allowed to visit him.

“Alden!” I hurried past the other patient in his room, who was half-hidden by a privacy curtain, and threw myself onto Alden where he sat on the edge of the bed, pulling his clothing out of the laptop bag. “Tell me you're all right! The doctor said you were, but I want to hear it from you, too. Holy crapballs, Alden! You look like hell!”

“Thanks,” he said, touching the bump over his eye, which was bright red due to an ice pack that lay discarded next to him. “I feel like hell, although I guess that's good, since it means I'm alive. No, don't stop kissing me. I'm not that bad.”

I continued kissing every spot on his face that wasn't bruised or scratched, ending at his lips. He groaned into my mouth, causing me to jerk back. “Did I hurt you? Is your mouth sore? I checked your teeth and they were all there, so I assumed nothing had been hurt, but if I'm hurting you, tell me.”

“You didn't hurt me,” he said with a rusty chuckle. “I was just enjoying the kiss.”

“Oh, good.” I gave him one more quick peck, then stood back, eyeing him. His color was much better than when I'd rescued him, and although the bump over his eye was red, and he was starting to show a darkish halo that foretold at least a partial black eye, he looked relatively hale and hearty. “I was so worried.”

“So I gather.” He reached for his jeans, carefully putting them on. “I still don't understand exactly what happened. All the doctor would tell me was that there was some sort of incident with the radiator, and that you'd pulled me out and then thrown me down a flight of stairs. He asked if I wanted to talk to the police, in order to file charges against you.”

“Well, I like that!” I handed him his shirt. “Here I go to all the trouble of saving you from certain death by asphyxiation, or gas poisoning, or whatever it is that too much gas does to you, and he asks you if you want to call the cops on me.”

“What
did
happen?” he asked, grimacing when he bent to put on a shoe.

I went over the events, apologizing numerous times when I explained how he came to have the various bumps and bruises. “You're not the easiest person in the world to move when you're unconscious,” I ended, gently brushing back his curls. They didn't need moving, but I liked touching his hair, and it just made me feel better to fuss over him.

“I imagine not.” He stood, wobbled a little, but steadied almost immediately. “I guess I'd better call a plumber about the faulty gas line.”

“Faulty, my ass. That was no accident,” I said, frowning when he pulled his phone out of the bag. “Oh, I turned that off. Your battery was almost dead.”

“Thank you.” He turned on the phone and did an experimental stretch. “I know you think the worst about Lisa, but you have to admit that it's highly unlikely that she would be so spurned by the fact that I have picked you over her that she'd try to gas me. Good lord. I have twelve messages. I wonder what—”

He held the phone up to his ear as he hit his voice mail button.

“I don't think it's because you spurned her,” I told him. I put the laptop back into its bag. “In fact, I have a list of items that I think explain her actions. . . . What's wrong?”

I could hear the faint tinny sound of a voice talking on the voice mail, and as it stopped and another, more
urgent started up, Alden's face changed from one of mild bemusement to outright horror. “Alden?”

“The house,” he said, his eyes huge. “The house is on fire.”

“What? Holy hellballs!” I leaned in to listen to the phone with him, and heard snatches of first Vandal, and then Fenice, yelling into the phone that Alden needed to let them know he was all right, and that the house was fully engulfed.

If there was a record for two people to run out of a third-floor hospital room, down to the parking lot, and into a car, then we broke it, because I swear we didn't even have time to blink before I was struggling to unlock the car.

“I'll drive,” I told him, sliding into the driver's seat.

“Do you have a license?”

“Not for the UK, but I know how to drive.”

“Mercy—,” he started to protest, but I leaned across and opened the passenger door.

“You just got released from the hospital. Now get in the car and let me drive you home!”

“If there's any home left,” he said grimly, but did as I ordered, and got into the passenger seat.

I said nothing, but sent up a prayer to every deity I could think of to preserve Bestwood Hall.

I
t was worse than we could have imagined.

I watched Alden as he stumbled away from speaking with the fire chief, his face gilded red and gold by the light of the fire as it consumed his house. The fire trucks had given up trying to stop the blaze in the house—it was fully engulfed, thick oily black clouds rolling upward into what otherwise appeared to be a flawless morning sky. Instead, they sprayed the nearby trees, the garden, and the outbuildings, soaking them so that stray embers wouldn't spread the fire.

“I didn't think a stone building could burn like that,” I said in an undertone to Fenice, who stood huddled with Lisa, Vandal, and Alec (the last of whom had arrived once he heard about the fire).

“The stone was only on the outside, I guess,” Fenice said, casting a worried look at the outbuildings near
the garden. “I feel terrible for Alden. What's he going to do?”

“I have no idea.” I rubbed my arms against the chill of the early morning air. What should have been a crisp, clean morning had turned into one filled with the scent of smoke, small bits of ash drifting to the ground, and a profound sense of sadness at watching such a historic building be destroyed.

“I'd better go check on the gear to make sure none of the water the firemen are using is getting inside our buildings.” Fenice patted me on the arm. “Give Alden our sympathy, will you? I can't imagine how devastated he's feeling right now.”

“He is, but he's also grateful that no one was hurt.” I shook my head, marveling at how things had turned out. “At the time, I thought he was way off base kicking everyone out of the house, but now I'm intensely thankful he did.”

“Likewise,” she said, giving me another pat before hurrying off to remind the firemen that the buildings nearest the garden were being used.

While Fenice and I had been talking, Lisa had moved over to where Alden stood, leaning in close to him while she spoke. He didn't react to her, or what she was saying, so I gathered he was so stunned by the fire that he simply could not cope with her.

One look at his face as I approached told me I was correct.

“—know it's hard to find the good in something bad, but really, there is
some
good to this. You're insured, naturally, which means you'll get just
oodles
of money. Enough to let you buy a house somewhere else. Maybe even another historic house, one you could do little fixes
to, you know? Just so you have the satisfaction of making it your
own
.”

I ignored Lisa and wrapped my arms around Alden, kissing the side of his neck before saying into his ear, “It's going to be all right, my dumpling.”

His arms tightened around me, his gaze never leaving the shifting pattern of light and smoke as the fire consumed the guts of the house, leaving only a broken, blackened shell. We were far enough back that we had escaped the heat of the flames, but the roar of the fire as it consumed the house was soul-shattering.

“I was just telling Alden that things are not as black as they seem. There are so many things he can do with the insurance money—” Lisa would have continued, but I cut her off with one venomous glance.

“This isn't about the insurance money,” I told her. “It's about a lovely old house being destroyed, something that you don't seem to care about.”

“Of course I care,” she said, exasperation evident in her voice. “I care a great deal. This was Lady Sybilla's home, if nothing else, and she is devastated, absolutely devastated! But as my mama always told me, there's no use in crying over spilt kitty litter. You just have to clean it up and move on.”

“Oh . . . go away,” I said, too tired to worry that I was being rude. I tightened my arms around Alden, and breathed in his scent, but it was barely discernible over the smoke.

“There's no need to be rude, Mercedes Starling,” she said with an exaggerated sniff. “I'm sure Alden understands what I'm saying. Oh dear, there's Lady Sybilla. I thought Adams was going to keep her in the lodge.”

Alden said nothing during the conversation, just
rested his chin on my shoulder, his arms warm and solid around me, and continued to watch the fire.

“Alden?” I whispered near his ear. “Did you have insurance on the house?”

“No.” His voice was flat and emotionless. “I was waiting for the last of my trust money to be released.”

I sighed, and wanted badly to be anywhere but at that spot at that moment. “I kind of figured that must be the case. What do you want me to do?”

At last he glanced away from the fire, a question in his eyes, but one that was tinged with pain. “About what?”

“Your house.”

“I don't have a house anymore.” His gaze slipped back to the fire. “I have nothing but a bunch of land that is mostly leased out, and the broken remains of my dreams.”

“You have me,” I said softly, stroking my hands up his back. “It turns out you were right, you know.”

“About what?” He looked back to me, and I took the opportunity to move him slightly, so he couldn't see the fire over my shoulder.

“I am in love with you. I don't how or why or when that happened, but it did, and now you're stuck with me, you great big boob, because if you try to dump me, I'm going to be miserable and heartbroken. And you don't want that on your conscience. You're too sensitive for that, and I can assure you that the idea that you'd destroyed my one chance at happiness would make you a neurotic mess. More of a neurotic mess than you were when I first met you.”

One side of his mouth twitched. “Are you trying to distract me from the hellish nightmare that is now my life?”

“Yes. Is it working?”

“Yes,” he said, sighing heavily before kissing me. “I'm glad you admit that you love me. Would it make you think less of me if I sat down and cried?”

“Not in the least. Men have just as many emotions as women do—you simply process them a bit differently. Let's go find somewhere private where you can cry to your heart's content, and I will hold you and tell you it'll be all right and that we'll get through this, and then afterward I will tie your hands to a bed frame and have my way with you in such a manner that you'll forget about this horrible day for at least a little bit.”

“I accept your offer,” he said gravely, and made no protest when I took his hand and started to lead him down the drive to the gatehouse, our temporary new home.

Lady Sybilla was being assisted into a camping chair by the redoubtable Adams. Both women were dressed, their matching white hair tidy as ever, their faces equally dour.

Alden stopped in front of Lady Sybilla, his fingers tightening on mine as he obviously tried to think of something to say.

Lady Sybilla wasn't about to wait around for that, however. “Young man,” she said dispassionately, her gaze running over first him, then me, before turning back to the house. “Bestwood Hall has been destroyed.”

“Yes,” Alden said, his shoulders slumping. “I'm sorry. I was in the hospital when it started.”

She was silent for a moment, then made a
tch
ing noise. “It always was an abomination. That gatehouse is much more desirable.”

Both Alden and I gawked at her, outright, full-fledged, gob-stopped gawked.

“The hell?” I asked, finally able to speak. “What on earth are you saying? You loved Bestwood Hall!”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” she asked with a sniff.

“You did! In the many times that you refused to leave because you told Alden that it was your late husband's beloved home.”

She gave a ladylike shrug. “It never was very comfortable to live in. Drafty, very drafty, and inconvenient in the layout. Many is the time I told Adams the whole thing should be pulled down and rebuilt, is that not so, Adams?”

“It is, your ladyship.” Adams's pinched face grew even more pinchy, a thing I didn't think was possible. “I've always told her ladyship that whoever laid out the house should be hung by his toes, and so I say now. It was a sprawling confusion of a house, and we are much happier at the gatehouse.”

“No,” I told them both, pointing a finger at Lady Sybilla, who opened her eyes wide at both my words and action. “No, you cannot simply do an about-face now. I refuse to let you. You made Alden's life a nightmare for the last two weeks, and now you're trying to pretend you wanted to leave all along, and I'm not going to let that pass. Here's Alden all torn up—his house is destroyed, along with the last few bits of your furniture that were too heavy for us to move—and I know he's the sort of man who feels responsible for that, despite the fact that he tried for weeks to get you out of there, and had to resort to threats of physically removing you before you finally did.”

“You make no point with that statement,” Lady Sybilla said, dismissing me altogether. “Young man, I will
wish to speak to you at your earliest convenience about the rent due to me for the people you have housed in my domicile.”

I did a little more gawking at the apparent balls she had in charging rent for Fenice and Lisa. “The nerve—,” I started to say, but shut up when Alden answered her.

“There is no rent owed to you,” he said firmly. I wanted to applaud him. “The gatehouse is still mine—you only have tenancy in it for your life. If I wish to house guests in it, I will naturally consult you, but in this instance, I consider the situation an emergency, and as such, I will proceed without consulting you.”

Lady Sybilla didn't like that, but didn't get a chance to say more, because Alden started forward, taking me with him.

“I still can't believe this place is called a lodge,” I said five minutes later when we arrived at the gatehouse. It was a red stone building, sitting back off the drive, but near enough that in centuries past, a gatekeeper would dash out and open the gates whenever a carriage (or, later, motorcar) wished to arrive or depart. “This has a tower! A square tower, stuck right there on one end. And gables! Lots of gables. Not to mention the fact that I personally saw four bedrooms when we were moving Lady Sybilla's stuff in.”

“There are six bedrooms, actually.”

“Six bedrooms is not a lodge. Not even remotely.” I stared up at the pointed gables, and counted the windows. “Lodges are supposed to be small, primitive buildings that men go to in order to get away from their women, drink a lot of booze, and go out and shoot innocent animals.
This
is a freaking mansion.”

“Not quite, although I was told it was used as a dower
house for many decades.” Alden's shoulders were definitely slumped as he escorted me into the house and up a lovely oak staircase that split into two arches midway up. We took the right arch, and proceeded down a hallway, with Alden opening doors as he came to them. At last he found a room that wasn't occupied. He lay down on top of the naked mattress, and covered his eyes with his forearm. “Christ, what a day. And it's only just started.”

I sat next to him on the bed, one hand on his chest. “It's been awful, hasn't it? I meant what I said, you know.”

He moved his arm to look at me. “That you love me? I should hope so.”

“Not that, you toad.” I pinched his side. “I meant that I would do whatever you needed done. To help. Is there someone I can call for you? Insurance agent? Banker?”

“No, but I appreciate the offer.” He rubbed his face, and I thought seriously about molesting him, but decided he might not be in the mood.

“I'll go find us some sheets and blankets,” I said, getting slowly to my feet. Now that the adrenaline rush of the hospital and the fire was wearing off, I felt like I was a hundred years old and my feet were made of cement. It took me only five minutes to find the linen closet and gather up the necessary items, but when I returned, Alden was sound asleep on the bare mattress.

I stood next to him with my arms full of pillows and sheets, and looked down on his face, at that lovely square chin, and the cheek indents that weren't quite dimples, and the long, long eyelashes.

“You're mine,” I told Alden, and covered him up with a soft blanket. “Whether you want it or not. But I'd
prefer you want it, which means you need to get down to the business of falling madly in love with me, so we can live together happily, and I won't have to go back to the U.S. a sad and morbidly depressed person.”

“All right,” Alden mumbled, and rolled over onto his stomach.

I laid a blanket down next to him, and curled myself into it, deciding that although I had about two hours before I was due to start my teaching duties, I couldn't face the public—assuming the firemen let them into the garden—without a little sleep.

It turned out I was able to sleep five hours before Fenice came to find me.

“Are you awake—oh, lord, you're at it again?”

“Hrn?” I woke up at the sound of a voice to find that Alden had rolled over until he was halfway on top of me, one leg thrown over mine.

Alden jerked back at the same time, blinking wildly and trying to focus his gaze on the door.

“Oh, it's you, Fenice. We weren't doing anything but sleeping,” I told her, stretching and yawning. “What time is it?”

“It's gone half after eleven. We're finally being allowed to hold classes, although obviously the remains of the house are off-limits.” She peered at us. “You look like hell, both of you. When did Alden get a black eye?”

“When I dragged him away from certain death.” I yawned again, and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “How many people do I have today, do you know?”

“Just three, but if you are too tired to cope—”

“No, I'll be fine.” I stretched again. “I just need a little coffee and some food, and I'll be good to go.”

“I'm glad to hear that, because I was worried you
weren't going to be up to it, and since the Fight Knight is only six days away, we need every man and woman on board. So to speak.”