“But —”
He repeated the French phrase I had heard a few seconds earlier, his low voice both familiar and new, then grabbed me by the arm and I was trotting after him, away from the fountain and across the paving stones, where he thrust me straight into a clump of ornamental trees. I squeezed into the damp, leafy space, the branches snagging at my dress, the ground beneath my feet soft with moisture and uneven roots. Lane pushed in after me.
It was very dark. I sensed rather than saw the motion of his finger going to his lips, stopping my questions. We stood still, listening. I heard the wind, the fountain, my heaving breath, and far away, the howl of a dog. I could make much more sense of those things than my thoughts at that moment. Then I heard a little hiss of pain as the long fingers I loved so well began exploring the side of his face.
“Katharine,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, “why did you just try to kill me?”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you, I … you were sneaking up behind me.”
“I didn’t reckon on it being that dangerous,” he murmured, trying to see the stickiness on his hand in the dark. I bent down, feeling beneath the hem of my dress for the seam of my petticoat.
“Don’t …”
I got my teeth on the edge, and ripped a piece of thin muslin away from the lace.
“Katharine …”
I finished tearing away a vaguely rectangular piece of cloth and reached up to press it on his wounded cheek.
“Katharine,” he said. “I had a handkerchief in my pocket.”
I pressed hard on the wound. Either I was standing in a hole or he was taller than I remembered. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. All I could think was that the blood soaking through the cloth was warm on my fingertips, the skin beneath my hand present and real. Here, solid, not gone, not dead. With me. My breath caught as I held the torn cloth, and I realized it was because I was crying.
I heard him sigh again, and then the space between us went away. My wet cheek was pressed against his chest; there were hands on my back and I was being held tight, tucked beneath his chin, his mouth in my hair. Long fingers steadied my head, kisses working their way from my forehead to my cheeks to my ears and around to my mouth, where I tasted the saltiness of my own tears. I had no knowledge of what had brought him to this courtyard, no understanding of anything, really, except that for the first time in so many days and months that I could not remember, something was as it should be. The ever-aching knot inside me loosened, relaxing its grip.
After too short a time he reached back and unwound my fingers from his hair, put my arms around his waist, and rested his chin back on top of my head. I became aware of the garden again, of the quiet, the branches poking my back, and the heartbeat beneath my ear.
“You have a beard,” I whispered.
“Razors have been scarce.”
“Where have you been?”
“Locked up,” he replied. “Unofficially. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
He leaned back and I tilted my chin, his face a frame of shadow. I felt the tension drawing inside him, like a coiling spring. “But what about Mr. Tully?”
“He’s here, safe. In the attic.”
I felt him flinch. “In Paris?”
“Yes, he’s —”
“What? How did … Is he —”
But then his fingers went to my lips, shutting them, as if it had been my voice rising above a whisper. The darkness became charged, strained with listening, and then I heard what he had. Voices in the garden, male, speaking very quietly in what I thought was French. He pulled me in close as two figures passed not ten feet from our hiding place, avoiding the gravel paths, moving quickly through the foliage toward the street door.
We listened to them go, to the faint footsteps in the stone passage, and the quiet returning. I felt Lane’s body relax, and risked a whisper. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know,” he replied in my ear. “Just watching, maybe, or more likely looking for me. I have to go, Katharine. I only came to get my things.”
“From Mrs. Reynolds’s, you mean? What were you doing there? And where are you going?”
“Shhh.”
“Lane, where do you have to go?”
I could feel him shaking his head. He was pushing me away now. I held on to his arms.
“Listen to me, Katharine. Get Mr. Tully out. I don’t know how you managed it, but he can’t stay here. Ben Aldridge is here, and he needs him. He …”
“I know it. He came to take him from Stranwyne. … I had to …” I searched for a way to explain, to keep him from bolting away from me. “They all think he’s dead now. The village, Aunt Bit … We told them that so we could —”
“You told my aunt Bit that Mr. Tully was dead?” The note of condemnation I heard there made me stiffen.
“And what else could I have done? Let Mr. Wickersham have him?”
“No, but you could have …” He paused.
“Could have what? Did you have a better plan? If so, you really should have written and told me of it. You’ve let Aunt Bit worry that you were dead for months.” I felt hurt creeping into the words. “And why didn’t you? Why didn’t you write? One word to …”
I felt the muscles of Lane’s arms go tense beneath my hands. He stood ramrod straight, looking over my head, gaze fixed on the house. Color blushed faintly on his face, on the leaves and the rosebushes, as if the first rays of dawn had reached over the rooftops. But it was too early for the sun. I spun around. The kitchen window of my grandmother’s house was glowing, as was Mrs. Reynolds’s, and it took a long moment to realize that the rosy flicker was not the light of gas or even candles.
It was fire.
Lane broke from the little clump of trees and ran down the graveled path, while I untangled my skirts from the branches and went after him. His long legs reached my back door far ahead of me, smoke billowing as he threw it open.
“Stay here!” he yelled over his shoulder before rushing inside.
I did not slow my stride, even for the back step, dashing into a thick cloud in the back corridor. I glanced to one side and through the smoke saw Lane throw the bucket of kitchen water onto the fire that was licking the wall behind the stove, and when I turned back to what was in front of me I nearly collided with Mary.
“Out the back,” Mary managed to say, coughing, pushing me backward, “the front room’s on fire!”
“So is the kitchen!”
We paused for a mere second, then ran in opposite directions, Mary presumably for the back door, while I dashed into the dining room and through to the library. The curtains were a flickering pattern of orange and yellow fire. Joseph and a cousin were pulling them down, trying to stop the spread of the flames, while Jean-Baptiste picked himself up from the floor, rubbing his jaw. I hurried into the foyer to fling open the front door, took a few quick breaths of the cleaner air, and then ran into the empty salon to unlatch the windows and draw out the smoke.
I saw the lights being lit in the house across the street, people pouring from Mrs. Reynolds’s onto the sidewalks, nightgowns and bed caps and hair tied in rags, mistresses and servants indistinguishable in their confusion and dishevelment. I caught a quick glimpse of Mrs. Hardcastle in a dressing gown before I pushed the last window open, hiked up my skirts, and ran for the stairs.
Smoke rose through the central stairwell, thinning as I climbed above the cloud.
