“It will not work.” She pushed at his chest. “You cannot break it.”
He stumbled back to his feet. His legs gave out. The room spun, but he stood again and rammed into the beam with his shoulder.Thwack. Thwack.He heard his shoulder crack. Maybe another broken bone. He barreled into it anyway.
“Simon, please.” She wept and pulled him back down to her. “You can get out. You can break the window. Or the stairs—”
“I will not leave you.”
“You have to.”
“I won’t.”
“The children—”
“No.” He coughed against the smoke swelling his throat. Fire blurred in the corners of his vision—red, orange, gray, and engulfing smoke. Sparks sputtered and burned his skin. He pressed her into the floor, against the beam, and hovered his body over hers.
She would not die alone.
Leave.Her body throbbed beneath his weight. His hands were in her hair and she choked in the wretched odor of charred flesh.Make him leave, God, I beg of You.
Because Simon could not sacrifice himself for her.
She would not let him.
But even when she strained, he would not move. When she screamed, when she wept, he would not listen. He remained, tucking her closer, his chest burrowing her face. She felt the warmth of him. She heard his heartbeat.
No, no.
She could not bear this.
All her life, the ones she cared about had abandoned her. The nannies. Her fondest governesses. Then Simon, then Papa, then Agnes, and in too many ways, even Mamma. Georgina had wanted to hold on to them so badly. She would have done anything to keep them. To know they would not leave.
But this was madness. She was weak and aching, and she could not breathe. Her lungs heaved. The blazing roared in her ears—boards cracking overhead, crates tumbling, the muffled sound of Simon’s racking coughs.
Nothing made sense.
No one could love her this much.
No one ever had.
“Simon.” The word rasped. She struggled against him for the hundredth time, but his body paralyzed her. “You can run for help.” She knew there would not be enough time. The room was too small, the flames too engulfing.
She would be dead by the time he returned.
“Please. Please do not do this.”
“Lie still.”
“I cannot allow both of us to die when—”
“Hush.” Deep, soft, calm somehow. “One of the paintings is you.”
“What?”
“In the turret room. When we were young. I painted you.”
A sensation—one of white-hot torture and other part pleasure—quaked through her. “I loved your paintings.” Loved because it was over now. She would never get to see them again. She hoped someone dusted them and fixed the moldy frames and hung them back downstairs. She hoped someone looked at them and understood.
“I am sorry.” He flung away a burning slat of wood that had fallen next to them. His voice quieted, dipping closer to her ear. “I am sorry for leaving and forgetting—” Something crashed. He cried out, his back arched, and she knew he fought the urge to roll away from her and douse whatever had landed on him.
