Emma could smell fire. She slowly lifted her head, ignoring the pain, and looked around her in the darkness. She was in a room, not one she recognized, and she’d been secured to a chair, upright. There were windows—the patch of dark sky was still marginally lighter than the walls, and she tried to jerk her chair forward. The house was silent, but the scrape of the wood against the floor was too soft to rouse anyone. She squirmed, trying to see if she still retained possession of the small surgical saw, and a gratifying tear at her skin reassured her. She would end up covered with scars like a pirate, assuming she managed to survive this night, and she didn’t care.

She must be in the Dower House, presumably in one of the attics. The house was still and silent—everyone would be asleep, and there was no terrifying crackle of flames licking at ancient timber.

But she could smell fire.

She jerked again in the chair, trying to make noise, making it thump against someone’s ceiling, but she couldn’t lever herself up enough for a satisfying sound. She tried it again, when a soft, eerie voice came to her out of the darkness.

“It’s useless to fight it, Mrs. Cadbury. This is payment for your sins.”

She froze, squinting through the shadows, and finally focused on Mr. Fenrush sitting placidly by the window, watching her out of glittering eyes. For a moment she was disoriented—what was he doing there? The fires had been set—she could smell the slow burning start of them—and he was still in the house.

She worked with her tongue, trying to dislodge the gag, but the piece of fabric was huge, and she was getting nowhere. She rocked in the chair again, hoping the repeated thumps might rouse someone, but she didn’t hold out any great hope. She knew from experience that these women slept like the dead—too many nights of working had trained them to sleep well and deeply when afforded the chance, and it had always been absurdly difficult to rouse them for morning classes in London. No one would waken to a muffled thump.

She would have to be more creative. Fenrush hadn’t moved, seeming relaxed and comfortable, and she tried to move her hand around to loosen the saw from sleeve.

She couldn’t move. The new ropes that bound her to the chair had simply been added to the old ones, and all the squirming and twisting and fidgeting got her nowhere. She couldn’t move her hand enough to reach the knife.

“You’re wondering why I’m here, Mrs. Cadbury?” Fenrush said in that still eerily polite voice. “I wanted to see you burn. Collins thought it an excellent idea, though I expect I shall have to reprimand him when we return to London. He’s become much too impertinent. I can’t abide impertinent servants.”

He might have been discussing the dismally crowded condition in the women’s ward, as he often did. His solution was usually to set the women out on the streets to fend for themselves while he made room for male patients with such debilitating conditions as a mild case of gout, just as Emma had fought him tooth and nail. His current logic made no sense—he could hardly watch her burn without succumbing to the conflagration himself.

She jerked the chair again, but he didn’t move, placidly watching her as he might observe a patient. “It’s too late,” he murmured. “The fires are set.”

His voice was softly cheerful, but she ignored him, concentrating on reaching the saw. The smell was stronger now, and She knew it wouldn’t be long before she heard the sounds of crackling flames, and by then it would be too late.

With sudden determination she flung her body onto the floor, making as much noise as she could, loud enough to wake the dead, she hoped, and the saw slid out of her sleeve, close enough to grasp. She rolled, banging the chair while she did so, kicking at the floor, and ended up with the saw clutched her fist.

Fenrush hadn’t moved from his spot near the window. She’d seen dementia in late-stage syphilis cases, and he had clearly slid into that foggy world, but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking him harmless. When madness hit, patients could be extremely violent.

She twisted her wrists, managing to reach the first layer of ropes imprisoning her, and she sawed through it with surprising ease. No wonder she seemed to be bleeding everywhere—the tool was razor sharp, and as it severed the second course of ropes it tore into her dress as well.

Once her arms were free, the pain of blood returning to her muscles almost made her pass out. It ripped through her, and she wanted to scream, needed to scream. She yanked the gag out of dry mouth and shrieked at the top of her lungs.

“Fire! Get out of the house. Get out, get out!” she shouted, reaching down to free her legs and ankles. At last she could hear movement down below—voices and cries, as the women awoke.

Fenrush was still watching her. “It won’t do them any good,” he said in a sweet, practical voice. “There are fires at each of the doors. There’s no way out for them—I made sure of it. The whores must be destroyed by flame, so sayeth the Lord.”

She tried to push herself up from the floor, using the overturned chair, but she fell back as blood came screaming into her muscles. “No, he doesn’t,” she snapped. “I had most of the Bible memorized by the time I was twelve, and nowhere does it say whores must be destroyed. Almost every time they’re mentioned someone is saving them, and it’s only the Great Whore of Babylon who gets eaten and burned, and she’s not even a woman, she’s a city.”

Why in heaven’s name was she arguing about church doctrine when she could hear the increasing noise of the flames, the cries of the women? There was now an orange glow in the window above Fenrush’s body. She had to move, and now.

“Fornicator,” Fenrush said, his voice rising. “You are the Whore of Babylon, filth and degradation and everything that is evil. . .”

“Like murdering men for profit?” She needed to shut her mouth, concentrate of getting out of there, helping the occasionally feather-headed women to get to safety, not enflame a madman.

It was too late. Fenrush stood up, a fluid movement for someone of such wasted corpulence, and moved toward her, madness in his eyes. She tried to rise one more time, only to collapse again as he fell on top of her. He was clawing at her, screaming at her, tearing at her skin, and she managed to pull her knees up, just enough, to lever him off her, as she shoved up with the saw and sliced open his throat.

It was quick and simple—she’d cut into flesh a hundred times with a blade such as this, and there was no squeamishness in her nature. He struggled, falling back to clutch at his slashed neck, but it was too late. He was still kicking the floor when she finally managed to stumble to her feet and find the door.

She heard the hysterical cries from down below. The fire had reached the Gaggle, and nothing mattered, not pain or weakness, as she threw herself down the narrow stairs, into the blazing heat, to get to them.

.

The Dower House was on fire, flames soaring up into the night sky, and Brandon’s last bit of calm deserted him. Flinging himself from the horse, he started running toward the conflagration. Flames had engulfed the front entrance, and he could see women at the windows, trapped, desperate, and he knew Emma had to be among them, fighting for her life. He had to get to her, he had to get all of them out, he had to. . .

The cudgel smashed down out of nowhere, but he managed to jerk out of the way at the last minute, the blow that would have crushed his skull numbing his shoulder instead. It was the huge man he’d faced in the muddy field a few short days ago—he’d know those button-black eyes anywhere.

“Now, we can’t have you interfering with our nice bonfire,” the oaf said in a cajoling voice. “After all the trouble we’ve gone to. You messed with my work once—I can’t have that again, can I, Beedle?”

The man with him, smaller, compact and hard looking, grinned. “That’s right. He won’t be no problem, though—the gentry don’t know how to fight. I’ll take him—you go ahead.”

Brandon didn’t move, a dangerous stillness that wiser men would have recognized. “Where is Mrs. Cadbury?” he said softly.

“Oh, she be dead by now,” Beedle said. “We put her up in the attics with Mr. Fenrush, and if he hasn’t killed her the smoke has. Unless he decided to take ‘is pleasure with her, which is unfair, if you ask me, as he wouldn’t let us touch the whore, and. . .”

He killed them both, without thinking, so fast neither could react, breaking Beedle’s neck with one swift move, yanking the cocked pistol from the already dead man’s hand and shooting the giant in the eye. He didn’t even wait to see him fall. He knew how to kill like a savage – the horror of the Afghan war had taught him that much, and no one was a match for him in his desperation.

The flames had already begun to eat through the front of the house, blocking the entrance when he reached it, but the fires were smaller by the garden. He didn’t hesitate, yanking the flaming brush away from the side, ignoring the fire that was scorching his hands, ignoring the heat that blistered his face. He had to get to Emma. If she was up in the attics then that was where he would go, and if they were trapped, so be it. He wouldn’t live without her—it was that simple.

The door was on fire, with the women on the other side, screaming for help, and he had no choice. Reaching out, he caught the glowing door handle and yanked it open, and the women tumbled out, the gaggle of them, beating at flames as their skirts caught fire, helping each other, crying and howling and making such a racket that there was no way Emma could have heard his shouts.

He didn’t hear that help had arrived, carriages racing down the drive, wagons and horses as well as the entire Starlings household. He caught one of the women, the big one from the kitchen, and stopped her. “Have you seen Emma?” he shouted over the noise.

The woman was dazed, uncomprehending for a moment, and then her eyes narrowed in her soot-covered face. “She’s with Polly.”

A shaft of relief speared through him—she wasn’t dead. But he had to make sure she was safe, touch her, hold her.

“Where?”

To his horror, the woman jerked her head over her shoulder toward the burning doorway. “In there.”

He didn’t draw breath, but flung himself into the conflagration, smoke blinding him, fire licking at his heels. He screamed Emma’s name, but his desperate voice was swallowed up in the roar of the fire.

He could still hear better than anyone, and the sound of the cough reached his ears as he was about to head up the stairs. He whirled around, peering through the smoke, searching through the rooms until he saw a huddled pile of skirts near a window. Emma.

And then he was on his knees beside her, trying to pull her into his arms, but she was holding the still body of a woman, so tightly, and he knew the girl was dead.

“Let her go, love,” he said softly. “You can’t help her anymore.”

Emma looked up at him, and she was beautiful. Her face was scratched, bruised, and she was covered with blood, as if she’d taken a bath in the stuff, and he wanted so badly to snatch her to him, carry her out of there.

“I can’t leave her.” Her voice was so raw he knew she must have breathed in dangerous amounts of smoke. “She was afraid of fires.”

The woman in her arms had the pale color of death, but she didn’t appear to have suffered an injury. The flames were closing in on them, but he knew panic wouldn’t move Emma.

“What happened?”

“She broke her neck,” Emma said simply. “She was so terrified she fell on the stairs. I can’t leave her here, Brandon.”

“All right then, love, we’ll take her with us.” He rose, caught the nearest piece of furniture, and crashed it through the window. The flames burst into the room, fed by the air, but he’d had no other choice. “Let me have her.”

For a moment Emma wouldn’t release her, but there was no way he could carry them both. Finally she let go, and Brandon scooped the dead woman up into his arms.

He’d carried dead weight before, always a fellow soldier, and this woman seemed light as a feather. He moved toward the window, planning to drop her onto the surrounding grass as gently as he could, but people were already there, arms reaching out, and he placed the body into them, then turned to Emma.

She was still sitting on the floor, a bloody, smoky, stunned mess, and she’d never been more beautiful. “Shall we go?” he said gently.

She looked up at him, and then nodded, trying to rise to her feet. Her legs wouldn’t hold her, but it didn’t matter, he simply scooped her up, and there was no way he was ever letting go of her again. The men outside had brought a pump machine, and they were working on the front of the building, dowsing the flames, so he simply climbed through the empty window frame, dropping down, Emma still in his arms. He had her, and she was safe, and nothing else mattered.