My Dearest Enemy (33 page)

The long ride in the horse-laden atmosphere of the carriage, the smoke and hay stubble, the dry, hot air all worked inexorably toward a crisis. He didn't have time for a crisis.

The sound of frantic whinnying rose above the roar of the blaze. Hooves struck stall doors and haunches crashed against box stalls. Lily's horses.

He tore off his shirt, doused it into a bucket of water and tied it around the lower portion of his face. The air staggered into his lungs. He swore viciously, unable to find even enough breath for his curses and, ducking his head against his arm, plunged into the stables.

Around him white smoke swirled, still thin enough that he could make out the bolts latching the doors. He jerked a stall open and stepped aside. The mare within danced, eyes rolling wildly, hooves flashing.

He flapped his arm and the mare shied back, teeth snapping, ear flattened.

"You damn, bloody ass!" Avery gasped, tearing his shirt from his face and flinging it over her eyes. He grabbed the sleeves beneath and twisted tight then jerked hard on the makeshift blinder, half dragging the mare out into the aisle. He jerked his shirt off her head and smacked her hard on the rump. She bucked once and shot out of the stable.

He leaned over, gasping for breath, his muscles trembling from lack of oxygen, his vision swimming.

"No!" he ground out savagely and hobbled, doubled up for the next stall. Thank God the next horse had the sense to flee. He'd shoved the bolt back and the creature skittered out, slipping and stumbling in its haste to escape.

Another stall, another horse. With each step the white blanket of smoke grew thicker. He began coughing, expelling what precious air he had from his paralyzed lungs. He reached out with a trembling, sweat soaked hand for the bolt. Too weak.

Within he could see the phantom figure of a horse lunging madly within its smoke filled prison.

Lily would kill him if anything happened to her horses. He stumbled to his knees. Two more horses. He couldn't hear them anymore, couldn't hear anything. A dull rushing sound had replaced the pop and hiss of burning wood. The last horses' frantic calls had stilled. He fell forward, caught himself on his hands. The straw pierced his palm and the pain brought a second of lucidity.

Lily wouldn't have to kill him. He was already dead.

She saw him enter the stable. His face, even in the reddish stain of the fire looked ghastly above the dirty, sopping shirt tied around the lower part of his face. Sweat slickered his muscular arms and coated his hard torso and he moved in a half crouch as though doubling up against pain.

A minute later India dashed from the stables, haunches low to the ground, hooves beating a heartbeat staccato, and disappeared into the night. A big gelding followed and then in rapid succession five of the seven remaining horses. The rest were in the pasture.

Lily worked on, her arms aching from pumping well water into buckets. All around her, her dreams burned accompanied by the manic chortling of crackling wood and the sweetish, thick aroma of burning grass. Men shouted, the bells rang incessantly calling for aid, and inside the stable a horse screamed.

One of the seasonal workers, his face blistered from working too near the blaze, came over and commandeered the pump, calling to his mates as he drove the handle with a force she could not match. She stumbled out of his way, her feet carrying her closer to the stable, trying to see within the smoky interior.

It had been minutes since the last horse had exited. The smoke roiled slowly, thicker near the ceiling, somewhat thinner near the ground. She bent over, peering inside.

One of the horses ricocheted in its stall, the sound of its frenzied neighing and splintering wood filling Lily's ears. Where was Avery? She stumbled into the stables and flung open the stall door.

"Gee!" she shouted. The liberated horse, foam flecking its mouth, eyes ringed in white, shot from the barn as sobbing, Lily fumbled her way to the last stall and released its occupant.
Avery
… dear God, he was allergic. Wildly, she looked around.

She saw him then, lying near the far end of the stable. In seconds she'd run down the aisle and fallen on her knees beside him. She grasped his arms and turned him over. His face was dusky and streaked with grime.

"Avery!" She slapped his face hard twice. "Avery!"

He moaned, his head rolling to the side. He wouldn't be able to get out of here under his own power.

She screamed. As loud and as long as she could, she screamed but the roar of the blaze consumed her voice as easily as it consumed the stable roof and her cries for help turned into spasms of choking coughs.

No one could hear her. There was no time to go for help. Her eyes already stung and her throat burned. She had to get him out.

She snatched India's headstall from its peg beside her stall and crouched down, tying first one then the other of Avery's boots together, leaving a few feet of slack leather in between. She stepped between his legs, lifted the leather straps in both hands and pulled. His dead weight inched forward. She readjusted the leather across her hips and, like a mule in harness surged forward, praying the slender leather straps held his weight.

He moved. She took another step and another, choking and coughing, her eyes streaming tears, her parched lungs gasping for air. Foot by foot she dragged him down the aisle and finally out into the night. She collapsed beside him, wringing wet, her dress in ruins.

She had no time to fall apart. On shaking limbs she crawled to his side and laid her ear against his naked chest. Deep within she could hear his heartbeat, rapid but timely. A whistling like wind in a plugged chimney flue filled her ears.

Still gasping, she crept behind him and hoisted him up into her lap. His head rolled limply against her shoulder.

"Come on, Avery." Fresh tears stained her cheeks. Her voice shook. "Wake up, damn it!" She sobbed, rocking forward and back, her arms wrapping tightly around his big body. "Don't you want to shout at me for disobeying you, you overbearing, domineering male?"

She squeezed her eyes shut and bit hard on her lip. He couldn't die. He was too stubborn, too alive, too vigorous. And she couldn't lose him. She loved him too much.

"I… am a… gentleman," she heard him gasp. "I never shout at women."

Two days after the fire the acrid taint of wet charcoal still lingered in the air. Lily, wandering along the hushed second floor gallery, looked out at the charred stable, smoldering in the last of the afternoon light.

Thank God, Avery was going to be all right. The thought of looking for his body amongst that ruin of timber and ash set her trembling. She forced the image from her thoughts.

Avery would be fine. He was already well on the mend. His breathing was easier and the awful grayish cast had disappeared from his skin. The only visible scars he bore were long angry abrasions on his back and shoulders from where she'd dragged him across the ground.

Somehow they'd managed to keep him abed all yesterday. True, he'd shouted invectives at anyone who braved his room, but he'd stayed abed, nonetheless.

But this morning, long before her, he'd risen, ap-propriated the carriage, and driven off. She didn't know where he went or when he'd return.

Ah, well, she thought, he'd much to do, much to see to, not least of which was finding someone to rebuild his stables.

His stables.

Lily's gaze drifted to the south meadow. In the failing light, the hay rucks gleamed like piles of gold on a green baize gaming table. Thankfully, two nights ago the wind had been light. The fire had never made it to the barn or spread to the other hay rucks. It could have been worse. The new owner of Mill House might have inherited a ruin.

But for the former owner of Mill House that fire had proved disastrous. There was no possible way she could afford to rebuild the stable or recover the money represented by the loss of that one hay ruck. Under her direction, the estate had gone into debt.

She'd lost Mill House.

She felt disconnected from the knowledge as if she'd read about an unhappy episode in a stranger's life.
Why had it happened
? The question recurred with dulling regularity.
How, so soon after a soaking rainstorm, had a fire begun in the hay
?

It hadn't been warm enough and the hay hadn't stood long enough to spontaneously combust as tightly compacted roughage occasionally did. There hadn't been any lightning that night. There was no reason fire should have been anywhere near that hay ruck, lest someone had purposely set it ablaze. And that notion she simply would not entertain.

A lover's tryst by lantern light perhaps? Or maybe one of the seasonal worker's children sneaking a cigarette where his parents wouldn't find him. An ember falls, catches fire, the frightened child runs, and Lily's dreams—her life—go up in smoke. She'd lost Mill House.

And she'd lost Avery Thorne.

She thought nothing could hurt more acutely than the loss of Mill House, but she'd been wrong. When she left here she would leave behind not only her home, but every reason she had for seeing Avery Thorne. There'd be no pretext for them ever to meet again, no excuse to trade words, either written or spoken. The tenuous bond that had held them together for five years was gone, broken—no, burnt.

A shivering began in the very core of her, spreading, gaining force until she stood shuddering before the window, staring blindly out, tears spilling helplessly down her face as she recognized the desolation enveloping her.

She'd never see him again. Not unless she stood like a beggar on the drive, staring down the shell drive at midnight, watching for his silhouette against the brightly lit window. She would never do that because then she might see her, the woman he would have married, who'd bear his children, be his lover and companion, and that was an anguish she could not even imagine.

She'd lost Avery Thorne. Not that she ever had anything of him except his wit, his eager opposition— and those all too brief moments when she'd held him. And, of course, she had the knowledge that she loved him, a knowledge come by as she'd willed him to breathe.