Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(254)

“Ruark!” With a strangled scream she was at the door, clawing at it, her shaking fingers fumbling at the key. “Oh, no! Please, no! Ruark!”

Heedless of her bare feet and nightgown, Shanna flung the door wide and ran into the hall, nearly colliding with Nathanial, who had barely managed to don a pair of breeches. Charlotte was behind him, carrying a lantern and hugging a quilt about her shoulders for a wrap. Beyond them in the wide hall, doors had already begun to fly open.

“Ruark!” Shanna sobbed almost in hysteria. “He’s in the stable!”

“Oh, my God!” Charlotte clapped a hand over her mouth, her dark eyes wide with fear.

Nathanial had no time to comment, but now fully awake he tore down the stairs as if a demon were at his heels. Shanna flew after him and barely recognized that Charlotte threw a blanket about her. They ran through the house to the back, flinging doors wide as they went, and did not pause as they crossed the lawn.

Flames were licking like hungry tongues up the walls of the stable, and they found the doors closed, the broad ones barred and the small one with a heavy post braced against it. The snorts and screams of the animals within rent the night, and the crackle of flames grew into a roar.

Shanna caught Nathanial’s bare arm, her long nails digging into his flesh. “Ruark!” she screamed above the din. “He came to see about the horses!”

They drew near the small door, and Nathanial snatched buckets of water from the trough to splash onto the flames that threatened the sills as Shanna struggled against the dead weight of the heavy post. He brushed her aside, and with a single heave sent the post tumbling. Sobbing, Shanna snatched at the latch. The hot metal burned her fingers, and she wrapped her hand in the end of the quilt and managed to lift the post.

Heavy billows of smoke rolled out as the door swung free, choking Shanna and forcing her back, gasping for air. Nathanial snatched the quilt from her back and doused it in the trough then, flinging it over his head and shoulders, crouched beneath the roiling, strangling black clouds, and entered the inferno.

Attila’s scream of terror shredded the air, and Shanna pressed shaking hands over her ears, sobbing against her own fear. Men were running all over now. Lines were formed to pass buckets of water and throw them on the towering mass of flames. A shower of sparks fell within, and Shanna’s breath froze in her throat. Sickening horror congealed in her chest as her imagination did its worst with her, flashing before her mind’s eye a vision of Ruark writhing in flaming agony. Panic would have brought her screaming into the barn like a frenzied banshee, but then she saw a form struggling toward her through the smoke. Drawing a deep breath, Shanna plunged forward into the eye-searing smoke. Nathanial staggered against her with Ruark flung across his shoulders, the blanket draped over them both. Snatching his arm, Shanna led him out, her own lungs near to bursting.

They cleared the stables as other men ran past to free the horses, Orlan Trahern in a wine velvet dressing robe stepping lightly for his girth and Pitney charging across the lawn, the tails of his long nightshirt flapping loose over his britches. Nathanial fell to his knees, choking, gasping for breath, and Ruark sprawled limply from his shoulders, tangled in the wet quilt. Charlotte was at her husband’s side, bending over him, while Shanna frantically tore the sodden cover from Ruark. He groaned as she lifted his head to her breast.

“Oh, my darling. My darling.” She wept in relief as his eyes blinked open. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“My head.” He winced as her fingers touched his scalp. Shanna stared in amazement—the sleeve of her nightgown was smeared with blood.

“You’re bleeding!” she gasped.

Charlotte came around to kneel on the other side of him, bending over his head. Her slim fingers carefully parted his hair away from a small gash and gently probed at the swelling knot, drawing a grimace from Ruark.

“There’s a cut here,” Charlotte announced. “Did you hit your head?”

“Some damn bastard hit me from behind,” Ruark growled low. He sat up beside Shanna, gingerly touching the back of his head.

“He was on the floor by the stalls, and the stable doors were barred from the outside,” Nathanial panted. “Whoever set the fire intended him to roast in it.”

Pitney ran by, leading the mare, Jezebel, and other men hurried out of the burning stable, bringing more horses to safety. Amelia had come to stand above Ruark, her tall, slender frame hidden in the folds of her husband’s robe. In the bright firelight her face appeared pinched and drawn as she questioned in a strained voice:

“Are you all right?”