Isabella hesitated.
He whirled. A shot rang past her and shattered the looking glass hanging on the wall, notching her panic higher. Noise meant nothing to him. Alarming the house of his presence meant nothing to him.
Which meant he was not alone.
Or in fear of apprehension.Dear Saviour, what is happening?
Stepping forward, he ripped the pearl and ruby necklace from her neck. Pain pricked. He shoved it into the pocket of his dirty oilskin coat. “Where are th’ rest?”
She motioned toward the dressing table, unable to speak past the pressure damming her throat.
Bridget was already caving. She quivered beneath Isabella’s touch, and her breathing was rapid, rising in volume, close enough to panic that another fright would set her to screaming.
Perhaps both of them.
They had to get out of here.
Isabella glanced to the window as the stranger dumped out the contents of her jewelry box. Two stories down. No balcony. Too far from the door to make it, even if they ran—
“Good.” Shoving the last of the jewels into his pocket, the stranger turned back to them. He grabbed the candlestick from the stand. He crept closer. Shadows played on his face, in his eyes, flaming so much fear she had no courage to release it.
A second explosion erupted from downstairs.
God, please.Father’s words came back to her. The plunders. The manors.Please, no—
He dipped the candlestick to Bridget’s dress and flames burst at her knees as he knocked over the chair. Groaning, Isabella swatted the fire away, but in the periphery of her vision, she watched him spring to the draperies and light them too.
More flames. A thirdboom.Glass shattering and a bloodcurdling scream from another nearby chamber. The stranger’s gun bore down on them. “Git up with ye.”
Bridget scampered to her feet, but Isabella remained on the floor. If he wanted to kill her, he could do it here. Her mouth dried. She focused on the black metal circle of his flintlock.
Until it lifted past her.
Up, up.
To Bridget. Whimpering, screeching, then—
The shot blasted.
Isabella flattened herself to the rug, numbness sweeping over her. Bridget was dead. Murdered. For the pearl and ruby necklace in his pocket. The matching earbobs he’d taken from the box. The coral necklace. The old pendant that had belonged to her mother. The cluster hair comb. Why didn’t he shoot again?
She wanted him to shoot again.
Or the flames to crawl closer and devour her.
Anything so she would not have to bear the sight of Bridget crumpled and bleeding, dead for the worth of a few jewels in a box.
But instead of a bullet ripping through her, a pair of hands dragged her up. At first the face, the chamber, blurred. A terror of blackness and flames and smoke.
Then her mind made sense of the madness. A body lay at her feet. A stranger with an oilskin coat and spilled jewels.
“He is dead. We must hurry.” Lord Livingstone took her by the hand then reached for someone else.
Bridget. Unscathed and without bloodstains, though her eyelids were half rolled into her head, as if she were losing consciousness.
When she swayed, Lord Livingstone swept her into his arms. “Come. There is a servant stairway at the end of the hall. Follow me.” He led them from the chamber, through a hallway dim with smoke, and into a narrow wooden stairway with nary a wall sconce.
The blackness seeped into her. “What is happening?” She tripped, smacked into Lord Livingstone’s solid back, but he didn’t answer. Her own legs threatened to give out beneath her. She clenched her jaw and dragged her hands along the cold stone walls, trying to keep her balance. “My lord … please.”
