Chapter Seven
“Oh no, you don’t!” With the fear of losing her already pounding away inside him, Max caught up with Belinda just as she reached the line of carriages waiting in front of the palace. “You are not leaving.”
She hurried to her carriage. “I’ll claim illness. His Majesty will understand.”
“I don’t give a damn about His Majesty.” That drew a wide-eyed reaction from the tiger who opened the door for her that bore the Winchester insignia. The same door that Max wanted to drive his fist through. With an angry grimace, he waved the man away and took her arm to help her into the carriage himself. “I care about you, Belinda.”
“You can stop with the empty flattery.” She yanked her arm away and stepped up into the compartment unassisted. “There’s no point in it now.”
“More than you realize.” Without invitation, he swung inside and shut the door, calling out to the driver, “Go!”
The carriage jerked to a start as it moved away from the palace, fast enough to keep her from jumping out to flee. Although, based on her furious expression in the light of the carriage lamps, not fast enough to keep her from shoving him out.
“You are wrong.” He leaned across the compartment toward her, elbows on knees and hands clasped to keep from reaching for her. “About everything.”
“Then deny it,” she challenged. “Deny that you approached the War Office with the idea of turning the hospital into an academy.”
“I can’t,” he snapped out, matching her rising anger. “Because I did go to Palmerston with the proposal.”
“Because you wanted a promotion.”
“Because I grew tired of watching good men die! Of hearing the cries of boys barely old enough to grow beards calling out for their mothers and sweethearts as they lay dying in the mud, coughing up blood with each gasping breath, missing arms and legs, faces blown off—” He let loose a curse he never should have uttered in front of a woman. “All of them terrified and in pain, frightened even more by the cries of others who were dying around them, the screams of horses, the artillery still firing in the distance.” He looked down at his hands as they shook. In his mind, he could still see the face of every man whose hand he’d held while they died. “And you can do nothing but pray they die quickly, to put you out of the misery of their pain.”
Even in the dim light, he saw her face pale. Yet her eyes remained just as disbelieving. “But you also did it for yourself, so you could be promoted. Which was why you picked this hospital, wasn’t it? Because you told them that you had connections on the board that would make it easier to garner support.”
“I do. Colonel Woodhouse, for one. We served together in Nassau. And the other men on the board who served in the military, who have connections to the War Office.” His eyes fixed hard on hers. “But I did not mean you.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “You knew I was still involved with the hospital. You had to know that I would be here.”
“I didn’t know for certain.” Then he admitted, “But I’d hoped.”
“So you could seduce me if your plans went awry?” She tore off her gloves and slapped them onto the bench beside her. “You used me, Maxwell. For the second time, you let me believe that you loved me only to advance your career.”
That accusation was brutal, but not nearly as shattering as watching the tear slip down her cheek. His breath caught like fire in his chest at the sight of her pain.
“I came here so I could see with my own eyes that you’ve had a good life,” he said quietly, in agony that he couldn’t reach for her without making everything worse. “That the choice I made to let Collins have you wasn’t for nothing.”
“Let Collins have me?” she repeated, as if she’d misheard. As if begging to be told that she’d misunderstood.
But he didn’t deny it, letting the true meaning behind that soft confession reveal itself.
She stammered in confusion, “But I—I never told you about George… You couldn’t have known—not until after we—” Wretchedness marred her beautiful face, and she breathed out, “You knew. You knew when you wrote to break off that he’d offered marriage… How?”
Wordlessly, he reached into his breast pocket and removed the old letter. The one he’d carried with him every day for the past ten years, so he could read it whenever he doubted that he’d made the right decision to sacrifice his happiness for hers.
As he held it out to her, his hand shook. He’d sworn to himself to never show this letter to her. But now fate had given them the opportunity to rewrite their future, and everything needed to be revealed. If they had any chance at all of finding love again, there could be no more secrets.
She hesitated to take it, as if it were a snake ready to strike.
Then she snatched it from him. Her shaking hands held it up to the light of the carriage lamp. As she read, another tear slipped free. When she finished, she crushed it in her fist and pressed it against her breast. Her slender shoulders rose and fell with each gasping breath she took to steady herself.
“Damn you.” Her eyes burned with a fire that stole his breath away. She cried out, raging at him, “Damn you both!”
“We wanted only the best for you, and the best I could do was let you go.” He deserved every daggerlike accusation that she leveled at him for keeping this secret, but even now, while hating that he’d ever had to make that choice, he still couldn’t regret his decision. “If I had told you about that letter, you would have tried to talk me out of it.”
“Yes!” Frustration pulsed from her, and her fingers gripped the edge of the bench beneath her. As if needing to restrain herself from physically striking him. “Because I loved you! Because I needed you to… to…” Her words choked off, in proof that she realized what she was saying. That her need at the time went far beyond the help that he’d been able to give.
“You needed me to let you go so that you could marry Collins,” he finished soberly, a great grief swirling inside him at all that fate had stolen from them. “I knew you’d have argued with me to reconsider if you’d known the truth. That you’d hate him for writing to me and would refuse to marry the man. So I had to let you think that I was a selfish bastard who had used you for his own gain, when it was the furthest thing from the truth.”
“I deserved to know,” she choked out, fighting back sobs. “You should have told me before now.”
“And ruin your marriage by turning you against your husband? Or destroying your memory of him? Dear God, Belinda, that letter is bringing you pain even now. Think of the damage it could have done had you known before.”
“I deserved to know,” she repeated, and her pain clawed into his heart.
“For that, I am truly sorry. But I will never be sorry for wanting to make you happy, or for stepping out of the way so that Collins could give you the life you deserved. The one I never could.” He reached for her hands then, unable to stop himself. He held tight, refusing to let go even as she attempted to yank her hands from his. “So you can hate me all you want to. God knows I certainly deserve it. But at least now you’ll hate me for the truth.”
She stopped trying to pull away. Instead, she hung her head as her tears came in a rush, no longer able to stop them.
“The truth is that I never used you. Not ten years ago, not tonight.” He reached up to cup her face against his palm. “All I have ever done is love you.”
An incoherent whisper of pure anguish escaped her, and his heart shattered.
Moving to sit beside her, he gently tugged her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. She shuddered and shook against him as she tried to come to terms with the past ten years and everything that had happened between them. But she didn’t shove him away.
“I don’t hate you,” she whispered between sobs, her face buried against his neck. “Although you deserve it.”
Relief swelled inside him, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he placed a kiss at her temple. “I know.”
He prayed to God that she’d give him the chance to be chastised for that every remaining day of his life. Because it meant that every day would be spent with her.
“Deny it,” he challenged gently, throwing her earlier words back at her. “Deny that you love me. Because that’s what it will take to make me leave again.” He reached up to caress his knuckles over her cheek. His voice cracked as he rasped out, “Because I sure as hell still love you.”
She slowly pulled back. Anguish lingered in her watery gaze, along with a hesitancy to put her full faith in him, and that bothered him, enough that regret panged with each beat of his heart. But there were also the beginnings of forgiveness and understanding, and he clung desperately to those. Because he would never survive losing her a second time.
“Fate has given us another chance, and I’m not going to let it slip by without seizing it.” He gently wiped away her last tear with his thumb. “I want a life with you, Belinda. I will do whatever it takes to have that.”
Cupping his face between her hands, she brought her lips to his. In that kiss, he could taste her love. And her forgiveness.
She placed the crumpled letter in his hand. That letter had started all the pain and loss, and he never wanted to see it again. He turned to throw it out the window—
Flames lit the darkness. He could just see through the narrow streets that angled down toward the water the rush of people heading toward the fire and the smoke that billowed into the black sky. A sickening realization flashed through him.
“The hospital’s on fire.” He pounded his fist against the roof of the carriage as he shouted to the driver, “To the Royal Hospital—now!”
* * *
Belinda hurried to keep pace with Maxwell’s long strides as they raced through the park and down Church Street, having left the carriage behind in the road that was jammed by traffic. They squeezed through the crowd gathering in front of the barracks, joined by the soldiers who filed out of the yard at the commotion to crane their necks to see for themselves what was happening. But the flames from one of the hospital’s buildings shot up into the sky farther down the street and lit up this area of Brighton like a lamp.
They stopped in front of the hospital, and Belinda panted to catch her breath. Her chest tightened, both from the white-gray smoke filling the cobblestone street and from the terror that seized her. Her panicked eyes searched the growing crowd for the pensioners, to make certain each man was out of the building and safe. But it was impossible to find them all amid the commotion. Even in the light from the fire, she couldn’t make out faces in the crowd, and the shouts that went up all around from the men and the piercing cries from the women only added to the unfolding confusion.
“Buckets!” someone shouted, and another cursed at every able-bodied man in the street to get in line to be part of the bucket brigade. “Buckets!”
Maxwell released her hand to join the effort.
“The pensioners!” Belinda grabbed his arm. “Some of them might still be inside.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the building as the flames burned high into the night and blew out a determined breath. “Stay here.”
He cupped her face in his hands to place a kiss to her lips, then he was gone, running toward the building. He tore off the sash of his dress uniform and dunked it into the trough to wet it through. Then he wrapped it around his head to cover his nose and mouth and raced into the burning building.
Her heart stopped. Oblivious to the commotion around her, she stared at the doorway where he’d disappeared and helplessly wrung her hands. Dear God! Please… She could see nothing through the windows but flickering red-orange flames. The roar of the fire and the shouts of the men were deafening, but her pounding pulse beat so hard that the rush of blood through her ears drowned out all of it. Each breath came labored, terrified… Please God, save them. Save him … Please!
A movement in the center upstairs window caught her attention. The outline of shoulders and a head silhouetted against the fire, hands grasping at the window casement to throw up the sash—
One of the pensioners was trapped inside.
She let out a fierce cry and pointed at the building, shouting as loudly as she could to get attention. Anyone’s attention who could help. But amid the confusion of fighting the fire and the crowds now jamming the street no one heard her. No one else seemed to see the old man or hear his terrified cries for help.
Without thinking of her own safety, Belinda ran into the building to save him.
Heat engulfed her immediately and prickled at her skin, and she coughed as she breathed in the acrid smoke. Unable to see more than a few feet ahead, she staggered toward the main stairs in the center of the building. She’d been here so many times that she knew the place by heart. Thank God for that, because she needed to make her way up the stairs and down the hallway to the room where she’d seen the man, and in the smoke that stung her eyes and made each breath feel like an inhalation of fire, she was as good as blind.
Her fingers groped along the staircase banister as she tentatively made her way upstairs. She shook with fear, but determination surged through her veins. She didn’t stop to think if what she was doing was foolish or even potentially deadly. Her concentration was on the pensioner and saving his life, the way the pensioners had saved her life all those years ago.
A spasm of coughing seized her lungs as she reached the top of the stairs, forcing her to her knees in an attempt to catch her breath. But she wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. She would not let that man die!
She crawled forward on hands and knees. Her evening gown caught beneath her legs with each crawling stride until she had no choice but to yank it up to her thighs and crawl on. The cinders burned at her hands and her legs, and pain shot through her knees so badly that she cried out, only to be relieved when, a few moments later, the pain grew so intense that her knees turned numb.
“Help me!” the pensioner cried out, still clinging to the window. His voice trembled with terror and was little more than a breathy rasp, his throat raw from inhaling smoke and shouting. “Please—someone help me!”
“I’m here,” she called out, then fell into another fit of coughing. Still making her way forward one determined inch at a time, she lifted her hand toward him, silently begging him to come to her, to let her lead him out of the building—
Until she saw the cane and the twisted leg and foot it supported. Her heart sank as tears of terror and grief blurred her vision.
She could barely move herself through the building. How would she ever be able to get him out, too?
But she would not leave him. Taking as deep a breath as she could without triggering another coughing fit, she held her breath and pushed herself up to her feet to rush across the room to him. Around them, the flames ate at the wooden beams overhead and at the walls, and the heat that had first prickled at her skin now burned. The building groaned and creaked as the fire devoured it.
She grabbed his arm and put it over her shoulder, then leaned him against her side. Slipping her arm around his waist, she held tightly to him as she began to walk toward the doorway, one agonizingly slow step after another. By the time they reached the hall, her lungs burned from holding her breath, and she fell to her knees to gasp at the air closer to the floor. The man stumbled and fell into her, but thankfully he didn’t crash to the floor.
“Almost…there…” she assured him, but the distance between where they were now and the door leading out into the cool night seemed as far away as London.
Taking another deep breath, she held it as she rose to her feet and dragged the man along with her. So heavy! She staggered forward with such effort that her muscles screamed for mercy.
They reached the top of the stairs just as his damaged foot gave out, tumbling them both forward onto the floor. Exhausted and terrified, she cried out as tears streamed down her face. The helplessness overwhelmed her, and for the first time since she’d run into the building, she lost all hope of getting the man out alive.
“Belinda!” A shout broke through the roar of the fire.
“Maxwell,” she choked out, unable to speak any louder. On her hands and knees, she reached a hand toward the dark form charging toward them through the black smoke.
“Here!” He shouted over his shoulder as he knelt beside her. The flames were closing in upon them, the thick layer of smoke lowering rapidly and threatening to poison what little good air hovered just above the floor. “Over here!”
His arms went around her, and she clung to him as he lifted her. With a cry, she reached back toward the old man, who lay on the floor, sobbing and coughing. But another dark form emerged from the fiery shadows. Oliver Graham grabbed up the pensioner and followed quickly after them as Maxwell ran down the stairs with her in his arms, then outside into the night.
The rush of coolness and the fresh air shocked her, and a shudder sped through her so intensely that a soft scream left her lips. The heat that had danced across her skin and burned at her lungs quenched instantly, leaving in its wake a coldness that was just as painful. Each gasping breath of cool night air that filled her lungs shivered into her, and she spasmed as she lost her breath, choking on the fresh air like a fish out of water.
She clung desperately to Maxwell as she struggled to catch back her breath, even as he carried her away from the building and eased her down onto the dew-dampened ground.
“I told you to stay put,” he snapped out, but his anger was lost beneath the trembling of his hands as they smoothed over her face, then over her body… down one arm and up the other, then down her legs, checking for burns and wounds. “What the hell did you think you were doing? You could have been killed.”
He pulled her to him, rocking her in his arms. He buried his face in her hair and crushed her against him so tightly that she was afraid she’d lose her breath again.
“Never again,” he threatened, his voice rough with emotion. “Don’t ever do anything like that again, do you hear me?”
Despite the fierce pounding of her heart at how close she’d come to being seriously hurt, or worse, she gave a soft laugh as she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. Always the commanding officer, even now.
“I lost you once, Belinda. I never want to lose you again.”
In that embrace, she felt all the love he carried for her, and she knew then that they could survive anything that fate threw at them. The fire had reminded her of what she’d known all along… that she needed Maxwell as much as she needed air to breathe.
She held tightly to him, her arms around his shoulders and her cheek pressed tightly against his. She watched over his shoulder as the building gave a loud groan, and the roof fell in, sending a shower of sparks and flames shooting into the black sky.
Yet the men who fought the fire didn’t give up. She watched as the old pensioners organized the soldiers from the barracks into long lines of bucket brigades and showed them how to use shovels, pitchforks, and pickaxes to toss dirt onto the fire to keep the flames from spreading. Another group of soldiers had followed the lead of the more able-bodied pensioners and were beating at the flames with wet burlap sacks. They were working together, with the younger soldiers taking orders and learning from the pensioners.
“Maxwell,” she breathed out as her heart began to pound hard and fast again, but this time with hope.
“What’s wrong?” Concern thickened his voice as he turned her on his lap to cradle her in his arms. “Do you need a doctor?”
“I’m fine—better than fine. I think…” A tentative smile tugged at her lips, and she reached up to place her hand against his cheek. “I think I’ve found a way to save the hospital.”
He grimaced. “There might not be a hospital left after this fire.”
“Oh, there will be! And your academy, too.” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him with glee. “It will be perfect!”
Then she kissed him with all the love she held for him in her heart, all of her hopes and dreams for a future finally having its chance to be made real. Together.
Absolutely perfect.