Duchess of Sin (38 page)

“Take your hands off her!” he roared. Before Caroline could scream, run, or even think, he grabbed Grant by the front of his
coat and hurled him across the room. Caroline leaped to her feet, her throat paralyzed.

“For God’s sake, girl, run!” Adair shouted at her, and she ran. She couldn’t help Grant as he and Adair crashed around the
room in a brutal bare-knuckle fight. She had to find her sister.

“Where is Anna?” Adair demanded. “What have you done with her,
diolain
?”

“She’s downstairs!” Caroline cried as Grant’s face turned white under Adair’s hold on his neck. “In a—a closet, I think.”
She whirled around and ran down the stairs, but her path was blocked by a sudden cloud of white smoke in the corridor.

In a day of terrifying moments, she was sure this was the worst. The smoke wrapped around her throat, thick and acrid, choking
her. Blocking her way to Anna.

She heard the crackle of flames, licking through greasy wool and old wood. Beyond the smoke, she could see its first incandescent
flicker.

“Fire!” Caroline shouted. “Fire!”

O
’er the bridge that sad day…” Anna couldn’t sing anymore. Her throat was tight and her chest ached as if it was caving inward.
How long had she been singing? Hours? Days? In the darkness it was all the same.

“I’ll come back to you, Conlan,” she whispered. “I swear it.”

She choked on the words, something sharp and pungent seeping into her nostrils. Her eyes flew open, and she saw smoke curling
under the door and around her feet.

“
Fuilleach,
” she whispered. She reached out until she could feel the door. It was warm.

“Let me out!” she screamed, pounding on the wood. The smoke was thicker now, and she pressed her sleeve to her face as she
coughed. “Let me out!”

Was this the end then? Had she survived the Uprising only to die in this tiny cupboard? She thought of her mother and sisters,
of Eliza’s baby to come, of Conlan and how much she loved him. She thought of the green, cool meadows of Killinan. Would she
never see them again?

“No!” she cried. No, her life would not end here. She
had too much to do, too much to live for. She threw her whole body against the door. Pain shot through her shoulder, but she
pushed it away and threw herself forward again and again.

The door was suddenly flung open, and she stumbled forward. She would have fallen if a pair of strong arms hadn’t closed around
her and lifted her high.

“Anna,” Conlan shouted. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, sobbing. It
was
him! Her warrior, her Celtic god. He had never looked more a lord of the Underworld than he did now, with his face blackened
with smoke and his hair standing on end. She had never seen anyone so beautiful.

“I’m not hurt,” she managed to say. The smoke was a miasma out here, great billowing clouds, and she could hear the snap of
flames. Somewhere in the building, timbers crashed down.

“We have to get out of here,” Grant Dunmore shouted. Anna glimpsed him over Conlan’s shoulder, half-hidden in the poisonous
clouds. His coat was gone, his shirt torn and face bloodied.

“Where is Caroline?” she screamed at him. She twisted in Conlan’s arms but he wouldn’t let her go. “What have you done with
her?”

“She ran outside to sound the alarm,” said Conlan. “She’s safe, which is more than I can say for us.”

“Go!” Grant called. He pushed them ahead of him, and Conlan hoisted Anna higher as he ran. The heat and smoke were almost
unbearable, and Anna’s head swam as if she would faint. Conlan kept running, though, his strength never flagging.

Through a doorway, Anna glimpsed George’s crumpled
body next to the broken glass of a lamp. But he soon vanished, consumed by flames, and Anna could feel Conlan’s lungs heaving
in his chest. She buried her face against his shoulder.

At last, they fell out into the night, the icy wind a blessing on her singed skin. Just as Conlan stumbled through the gate
to the river, lowering her to the ground, part of the roof collapsed with an explosive roar.

Anna slumped over, retching. The fresh, icy air blew away the smoke from her throat, but she still felt sick. She couldn’t
stop shaking with the memory of how close they had all come to death.

“But we didn’t die,” she whispered. “We’re still alive.” And that thought made even the cold, hard stone beneath her and the
ice pelting her skin feel glorious.

“Anna, my love, are you hurt?” Conlan said roughly. He knelt beside her, his hands gentle and careful as he touched her shoulders.
His face was illuminated in the garish light of the flames, and his clothes were torn and stained.

She threw herself against him, wrapping her arms hard around him. “I’m not hurt,” she sobbed. “I just—I thought I might never
see you again.”

He held her close and kissed the top of her head, her cheek, her nose. “I’ll always come for you, my witch. Always, no matter
what.”

“Anna!” she heard Caroline cry. She twisted around to see her sister racing along the embankment. She wore Grant’s black coat
over her rumpled dress, but her head and feet were bare. Caroline threw herself at Anna, and Anna held on to both her and
Conlan, laughing and crying all at the same time. Caroline was safe; they were all safe.
It felt like awakening from a nightmare into a clear, bright new morning.

“What happened when they separated us?” Caroline said, her voice tight as if she gasped for breath.

“Nothing happened except I was locked in a smelly cupboard,” Anna said. She carefully examined her sister for any injury,
but Caroline seemed unhurt, blessedly free of blood or new bruises. “George is dead. And Grant…”

Anna had forgotten about Grant in the excitement. She glanced along the embankment. Curious onlookers had begun to gather,
but there was no Grant. The other ruffians were gone, too. “I thought he was right behind us.”

A crashing noise echoed from the warehouse as another section of roof collapsed. Windows shattered. Anna spun around to the
fire just in time to glimpse a tall silhouette in one of the lower windows. He was quickly engulfed in a cloud of smoke.

“There he is!” Anna screamed, pointing at the terrible sight.

“No,” Caroline whispered. She lurched to her feet, her eyes wide and glassy with shock. She took a stumbling step toward the
inferno, but Anna grabbed at her skirt and pulled her back.

“Stay here, both of you,” Conlan commanded. As Anna watched, horrified, he ran back to the warehouse. It happened so swiftly
she couldn’t even cry out in protest before he was gone.

She clung to Caroline, both of them staring numbly as the fire grew and grew in strength, consuming the whole structure. The
crowd around them grew, and a bucket brigade formed to try and save the nearby warehouses,
but Anna hardly noticed any of it. She could only see that doorway to hell where Conlan and Grant disappeared.

She had just got him back. How could he be gone now?

“They’ll come out of there,” she whispered.

“They have to,” said Caroline.

And then at last, she glimpsed a shadow behind the flames. Conlan staggered out with Grant slung over his shoulder. Conlan
fell to his knees just beyond the reach of the smoke, coughing fiercely. Grant slid to the ground and lay there, perfectly
still.

Anna ran to them with Caroline right behind her. Conlan seemed unhurt, just gasping for a breath of fresh air.

“Is he…” Anna said as she knelt beside Conlan. She saw that Grant still breathed, though the rise of his chest was shallow
under his singed shirt. But his neck and the left half of his famously handsome face were raw with blistering burns. Once
he was conscious, the pain would be terrible. Despite all he had put her through, the terrible things he had done and bad
choices he had made, Anna’s heart ached.

Caroline slowly fell to her knees beside Grant. Her shaking hand touched his hair, easing the smoke-darkened strands back
from those livid red wounds.

“He’s not dead,” Conlan said. “But he needs a doctor and to get in out of this cold. We all do.”

Anna nodded. She felt so numb, so weary. And her feet were freezing. “Why did you go in after him?”

Conlan closed his eyes for a moment, his face creased with pain. “Because—he is my cousin.”

“Yes,” Anna said. “Family is important in the end, no matter what.”

K
atherine gently tucked the bedclothes around Anna’s sleeping figure. The sunlight streamed through the repaired window, turning
her daughter’s hair to pure spun gold. She had tried to draw the curtains closed, but Anna stopped her before she fell asleep.

“No,” she had murmured hazily, under the effects of the doctor’s laudanum. “I want the light.” So the curtains stayed open.
Katherine would have given her the sun itself if she wanted it.

She didn’t know what exactly happened in that warehouse. Anna and Caroline gave only jumbled accounts of locked rooms, escape
attempts, and fire. Her imaginings were terrible enough, though the doctor assured her they were unhurt. Just cold and tired.

Unlike Grant Dunmore, who was badly burned and had been taken off to the country, not expected to recover. She could pity
him, but she could not find it in her heart to forgive him.

She gently kissed Anna’s cheek. The bruises would fade, yet she feared the memories would take longer to go away.

She tiptoed from the chamber and peered into Caroline’s room next door. Caroline slept, too, her books scattered around her
on the bed as if she had sought forgetfulness in their pages. Katherine closed them and piled them on the floor before tucking
the blankets around Caroline and leaving her to her dreams.

She went down to the drawing room, feeling restless and unfocused. There was nothing more she could do for her daughters now.
They slept as peacefully as they could. The house was quiet, the servants going about their tasks in silent efficiency. No
doubt Smythe had instructed them not to disturb her today.

She wished they
would
disturb her, though! Some minor household crisis would distract her from her restless thoughts. They were too well-trained,
and there was nothing for her to do.

She drifted into the library, which was also perfectly tidy. A fire burned in the grate, and the settee where she had kissed
Nicolas, sat before it. She turned away from those memories and went to the desk.

Caroline’s sketchbook sat there, open to a drawing of Anna. It was a fine, assured work, one that not only showed how Anna
looked but the spirit in her eyes, the mischief in the curve of her smile. In the short time Nicolas had been teaching Caroline
drawing, she had made great progress.

Nicolas was everywhere Katherine turned. She couldn’t escape him. What was worse, she didn’t even want to.

She firmly closed the sketchbook. She shouldn’t want Nicolas, not any longer. He had a life that was hidden from her. He worked
with Adair, and she was sure he had many other secrets as well.

But his kisses had awakened something in her, shown her a part of herself she didn’t even know existed. He brought out a passionate
woman she hardly recognized as herself.

How could she retreat from that, from him? How could she forget she ever knew him, ever kissed him? But how could she be with
him?

She reached absently for the post, sifting through the invitations and tradesmen’s bills in some vague hope that there would
be distraction there. At the bottom of the stack was a rumpled, thick letter, already opened as if Anna or Caroline had read
it. The address was in Eliza’s handwriting.

“At last!” Katherine cried. It had been a while since the last news from Eliza. She sat down behind the desk to read the precious
letter with the news of an expected baby.

Katherine felt tears prickle at her eyes, but now they were tears of happiness and not fear. She had missed Eliza desperately
in her time of exile, worried about her. Now Eliza would be a mother herself. Her girls would all be safe, and soon, God willing,
happy.