‘I’m going to help.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘I’m going to help, Mama.’ Elizabeth turned and started over to the rapidly growing crowd centred around Joshua Ashburton. Lots of people had already retrieved whatever containers they had available from nearby buildings and already the first chain of people had been set up, snaking along the street to a nearby public water pump.
‘Elizabeth, don’t you dare defy me. This is no place for a lady. You’re coming home with me.’
Beth hated that she actually hesitated for a moment, hated that she almost nodded her head in agreement.
‘No. You go home, Mother. I’ll ask Mr Ashburton to see me home after the fire is out.’
Without waiting for an answer she pulled her arm out of her mother’s grip and ran forward, inserting herself in the second line that was forming between a woman dressed in a plain woollen dress and a man who kept anxiously looking at the buildings around him.
Beth didn’t know where the water they passed up the line was coming from. Perhaps another public pump. She didn’t think they were near enough to the river to access that ready supply, but she could have been wrong. The next half an hour passed in a blur of aching muscles and repetitive movements as she passed bucket after bucket of water one way and empty buckets back down the line for refilling.
At some point the horse-drawn carts began to arrive, laden with the firefighting equipment: large tanks filled with water and hand pumps to direct the stream of water where it was needed the most. Between buckets Beth caught a glimpse of Joshua Ashburton striding out to meet the man in charge, and before long their line had been redirected and now they were tasked with filling up one of the great reservoirs whilst the men on the carts pumped and directed the stream.
She wasn’t sure how many hours later the cautious cheer began to spread through the crowd as the fire was declared under control. She felt more exhausted than she ever had in her life before, her arms ached, her shoulders screamed in agony every time she tried to move them and her clothes were stuck to her body with sweat. Her once fine dress was without a doubt ruined, covered in soot and dirt, ripped in places and looking as though it were twenty years old, not a mere few weeks.
Beth managed a weary smile, allowing herself to be embraced by the woman who had stood in front of her in the line before staggering over to the edge of the street and sinking down onto a low wall.
‘Careful, you look as though you could fall asleep.’
Beth looked up into Joshua Ashburton’s smiling face and managed a weak smile of her own. She realised he must have kept an eye on her the whole time, even when co-ordinating the efforts of all the volunteers, to know where she had staggered to so quickly.
‘I’ve never been so tired.’ She wanted to lean against him, to allow him to wrap his arms around her and rest her head on his chest.
‘You were incredible. It’s been four hours and you never flagged.’
‘Four hours? Really?’ She wasn’t sure if it felt like forty minutes or four days. Shaking her head in disbelief, she looked up at him again. ‘I was just one small pair of hands in the line. You played a much more important role than me.’
Mr Ashburton looked as if he was going to protest when his brother came up and clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Well done, Josh.’
Leonard Ashburton was as sooty and ruffled as the rest of them, although his upright bearing hadn’t changed. His eyes danced curiously over her and she wondered if she imagined the slight tightening at the corner of his lips.
‘You stayed to help, Lady Elizabeth.’ It was phrased partway between a statement and a question and she wasn’t sure if there was a hint of disapproval in his eyes.
‘I couldn’t leave.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She went home.’ Leonard Ashburton raised an eyebrow but said no more to her, instead turning to his brother. ‘You did well, Josh. I think the fire would still be blazing if it weren’t for your quick actions at the start.’ For the first time Beth saw a softness in Leonard Ashburton’s expression. He might be a serious man, a man who didn’t often let his emotions show, but it would seem he cared for his brother.
‘Go home and get some rest. I’ll see Lady Elizabeth home.’
For a moment she thought Joshua Ashburton might protest, but he just nodded and she realised she was silly to hope he would insist he be the one to escort her home. It was his brother she was soon to be engaged to, despite the undeniable attraction between them.
‘Rest well, Lady Elizabeth,’ Joshua Ashburton said as his brother offered her his arm.
She had to resist the urge to look back over her shoulder and instead focus on putting one foot in front of the other as she tried not to lean too heavily on Leonard Ashburton.
For the first five minutes they barely said a word to one another. Beth was so exhausted it took all her energy to just walk without stumbling and she wondered if, despite his stoical expression, Leonard Ashburton might also be struggling to continue.
‘You didn’t have to stay this evening,’ he said eventually when they were a few streets away from the opera house. There were no carriages for hire in the streets at this hour and Beth was starting to accept they would need to walk all the way back to her rented residence.
‘I couldn’t leave, not when there was a chance I could help, even if only in a very small way.’
She felt his eyes on her and wondered if she had said the
