Julian turned and looked up, ready to send the hook back up, but he couldn’t see Felix.
He could see flames leaping and flickering farther back in the loft.
Then Felix reappeared and flung down one bale, then another, then he leapt from the ledge and fell—and landed on the bales.
Julian and Melissa rushed over, but Felix was already struggling up.
He grinned through the soot streaking his face. “That was even more fun than I remembered.”
Julian bit back his response. He held out a hand and, when Felix grasped it, hauled his brother off the bales. “Let’s see if our attacker has hung around to admire his handiwork.”
He grasped Melissa’s hand, and with Felix following, they headed around the barn.
Even before they reached the front, over the escalating roar of the flames, the sounds of a crowd—of shouted orders, responses, and exclamations—reached them. Julian sighed and glanced at Melissa and Felix. “Sadly, I fear we’re too late.”
They were. The area before the barn was teeming with people. If the man who had locked them inside and lit the fire was there, he would be indistinguishable from the many others rushing about, ferrying water from the river to douse the area around the barn.
The barn itself was past saving.
“My lord!” Several of those helping spotted them. “My lady! Mr. Felix!”
Hockey and Edgerton, both in full flight directing the response, turned and, shocked at seeing them, lumbered their way.
Julian waved the pair back and, with Melissa, strode across to them. He met their wide eyes. “Someone locked us in and torched the place. We escaped through the hay doors.” He turned to survey the old barn.
Edgerton and Hockey did the same.
Grim-faced, Edgerton shook his head. “We can’t save it, my lord.”
“No”—Julian tugged and undid the knot securing the sash about his chest—“but we need to stop the flames from spreading any farther.” He handed the sash, then Ulysses to Melissa, exchanged a swift look with Felix, then said, “Come on. We’ll help.”
Julian and Felix rapidly liaised with Hockey and Edgerton, then the four men separated, each going to direct the men battling the fire along one of the barn’s walls. Determined to do her part, Melissa tucked Ulysses under one arm and strode to where a line of staff were ferrying buckets of water from the river.
She quickly reorganized the system so that the empty buckets were run back along the line by the youngest stable boys, leaving their elders to pass the full buckets along the line of willing hands. That nearly doubled the rate of water being delivered to those working around the burning barn.
When more staff came running from the house, she brushed aside their exclamations and set up a second line, passing buckets to the crew at the rear of the barn, where the breeze was making beating back the flames extra difficult.
Together, led by Julian, Melissa, Felix, and the senior staff, the assembled company worked tirelessly as the sun slowly sank.
It was dusk before the fire had been sufficiently doused for everyone to stand down.
By then, too many people had realized why she, Julian, and Felix had been so immediately on the scene, why they’d suddenly come running from the back of the barn, and word quickly spread that they’d been locked in the barn by the person who had subsequently lit the fire. Dark mutters rose, and there was little they could do about that.
When, with Ulysses gamboling at her heels, Melissa finally returned to the area before the blackened husk of the barn, she found Julian—his clothes soot streaked and his dark hair liberally ash bedecked—standing with Hockey, Edgerton, and Felix and surveying the smoldering ruin.
Ulysses pranced around Julian’s feet, then plonked his rear on Julian’s boot, as was his wont. Thus alerted to her approach, Julian turned his head, then held out his arm.
She walked within it and all but slumped against him. He curled his arm about her and held her close, then uncaring of who saw, pressed a kiss to her temple. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, then raised her head and met his gray eyes. “You?”
He sighed. “Tired. Of all of this.”
She looked past him at Felix, who looked as darkly angry as the majority of the staff.
His hands on his hips, Hockey turned and pinned Julian with a direct look. “Tell us straight—was this another attempt to kill you?”
Julian looked at the destruction before them. “Me, the countess, and Felix as well. And before you ask, we didn’t get so much as a glimpse. There’s no saying who they were.”
