With a scream of anger, she launched herself at Bleven. Her hands were bound, but her feet were free, and she kicked at him. One foot landed in his soft belly before he wrestled her to the floor, pinning her legs.
With the duke’s considerable weight on her, Maddie struggled to breathe, and her own gasps and the noise from the carriage wheels just below her were so loud at first that she couldn’t hear the duke.
He was laughing.
JACK PULLED SERGEANT Timms out of the library and dropped him on the back steps. Lord Valentine was standing nearby with his wife.
“Don’t let him move,” Jack demanded. “Hold him. I’ll be back for the bastard.”
Without waiting for a response, Jack turned away and gathered his servants. “Grab every pail and container you can find,” he ordered. “Dip them in water from the water butt and make a chain to extinguish the fire.”
When the men and women rushed to do his bidding, he sent other servants to the nearby houses to warn his neighbors of the fire danger and to solicit more aid.
And then he went back inside. The library was now engulfed in flames, and he forced himself to rush by it. Instead he searched the ballroom, the dining room, and the upper floors. He heard Blackjack bellowing behind Maddie’s bedroom door, and he flung the door open, hoping that Maddie was with her bear.
But the beast was alone, panicked by the fire. Jack threw a blanket over the animal’s head and led it downstairs and out the front.
He handed the animal over to a wary Ridgeley and scanned the milling crowd for Maddie again.
She wasn’t there. Damn it.
Rushing to the back of the house again, he saw that the fire in the library was receding, falling victim to the chain of servants and their full water buckets.
Valentine raised a hand and motioned him over. “Did you find Maddie?”
Jack shook his head. “She’s not inside.”
“You’d better talk to him.” Valentine gestured to Sergeant Timms. The man’s face was blackened with soot, making his blue eyes appear brighter. Jack was reminded of another pair of blue eyes, and his anger surged.
He grabbed the sergeant by his collar and hauled him up. The man weighed practically nothing, and Jack easily dragged him over to one of the outer walls. “Where the hell is my wife? If you know anything, speak now, or I swear on all that’s holy that I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“I didn’t want to do it,” the man blubbered, refusing to meet his gaze.
“Didn’t want to do what?”
“Forgive. Forgive. Forgive.”
“He’s been saying that for the past ten minutes,” Valentine said from behind Jack.
“What did you do?” Jack tightened his grip. “Where is Lady Blackthorne?”
The sergeant shook his head. “The Black Duke has her now.”
Jack’s heart stopped and everything around him seemed to lose color and sound. He swayed on his feet for a moment, then let out a howl, slamming the sergeant hard against the brick. Once. Twice.
Valentine grabbed Jack’s shoulder and jerked him back. Jack’s grip on the sergeant’s neck loosened, but he turned on Valentine, rage roiling through him.
But Valentine held his gaze steady. “Kill him now and we’ll never get any more information.”
Jack was breathing hard and murder pulsed in his blood. But he knew Valentine was right. He turned back to the sergeant, now slumped against the wall. “If you want to save yourself, speak now. Where is my wife?”
The sergeant shook his head. “You might as well kill me. I don’t know.”
“Goddamn it, you tell me something!” Jack demanded.
“My job was to lure her into the library. I didn’t want to do it, but he would have killed me otherwise. I don’t know what they were going to do with her afterward. I was supposed to go along, but one of Bleven’s men hit me hard, left me for dead.” His gaze finally met Jack’s. “That’s all I know, I swear.”
Valentine pulled Jack aside. “I think he’s telling the truth. He’d served his purpose. What use would Bleven have for an old man?”
