by Ava Devlin
She wondered what was left of the little Collins cottage. Would they ever be able to dispel the smell of smoke after last night? She thought perhaps not. It seemed impossible that the township would ever smell of anything but fire again.
“Heloise, darling,” her mother’s voice sang in that tone that always preceded a request of some sort.
Hel turned, gritting her teeth tightly to avoid visibly startling at the sight of Callum Laughlin on her mother’s arm. He looked an absolute fright, as though he’d spent the last hour rolling about in a pile of coal dust. His fine shirt and trousers were absolutely ruined, with several small holes burnt into the shirt and streaks of filth along his trousers. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing the fine musculature of his forearms, one of which looked rather red and blistered.
“The young lieutenant has sustained a burn injury.” Ruthie Somers pouted, patting his uninjured arm. “Might you see to his wounds and assist him in washing up? I’m sure he’ll wish to return to the manor as soon as possible and get some sleep.”
“Of course, Mother,” Heloise demurred, turning her eyes cooly to Callum, who shuffled forward awkwardly and stood on the riser next to her, where her medical kit was still spread out with an assortment of creams and potions that the doctor had provided. She held her mother’s eye with an expressionless stare until Ruthie finally gave a sigh of defeat and turned on her heel, returning to her business with the reverend.
Dr. Garber was with Rose, compiling a list of things to be retrieved from York at the soonest possibility. It was dumb luck that he’d had his medical bag in the carriage at Somerton last night, rather than having left it in the clinic as usual. If he had, they would have lost absolutely everything to the blaze.
She did not often wish for Richard to hover near her the way he was prone to doing, but just now it would have been a welcome intervention.
“Your mother looks just the same,” Callum said politely, his hands clasped awkwardly in front of him. “I can’t remember when I saw her last, but I recognized her immediately.”
“She has always been lovely,” Heloise agreed, keeping a neutrality to her tone as she held her hand out for his arm. "Though she certainly is not identical to the woman who departed Yorkshire some fifteen years ago. Please sit."
He cleared his throat, easing down onto the riser with the type of uncertain awkwardness she hadn't seen him display since before she'd been sent to boarding school. She noted, with some amusement, that the arm he had injured was the same one he'd been wearing in a sling the day she'd been shipped off. He'd broken it assisting her with a silly prank to terrorize one of her governesses, and instead had spooked her horse, which had in turn given him a swift and brutal kick in said arm.
"Come on, then," she tutted, holding out her hands for his arm. "Let's have a look."
"Oh, of course. Apologies." He stuck out his wrist, averting his eyes from her inspection.
She forced herself to reach out and grip his wrist, his bare skin touching hers by her own volition for the first time in a very long time. She kept a mask of placidity on as she pulled his heavy, muscled arm into her lap and turned his wrist upward to make inspecting the burns easier.
If she could see beneath the grime on his face, she rather suspected that he would be blushing, which was of course ridiculous for a man who was saving people from burning buildings not two hours prior.
She waited, allowing the warmth of connected skin to settle into normalcy, and took the opportunity to study his face while his eyes were directed elsewhere. He was still beautiful, she thought, even at his most weary, and still so strong, as evidenced by the weight of muscle in her hands.
She followed the path of his gaze to her mother, who was giggling at something the reverend had said, while he blushed and chuckled along with her.
"She started flirting with the reverend during the party we threw this autumn," Heloise said, her voice cutting through the moment with an effective clap of reality. She dropped her attention back onto his injured arm, finding it easier to talk of family gossip than to confront the fact that the two of them were in such close quarters. "We can't make sense of it."
"What do you mean?" Callum turned to face her, his tone steady but his movements those of a man desperate for any sort of conversation.
"Mother has always been two things, very beautiful and very calculating. What she could possibly think to achieve by encouraging the flirtations of a country vicar with a paunch and white hair is beyond us."
"I see," he replied, in a voice that made it apparent he did not.
She gave a little smile, reaching down for a burn salve to apply to his arm. The sensation of her fingers plunging into the icy paste was strangely grounding opposite everything else she was feeling.
There was almost a sort of charm in his innocence, she thought. He sincerely believed that a woman born to fortune like Ruthie Cunningham Somers could truly entertain the flirtations of such a man. Even without her mother's shrewd approach to her life's choices, the scenario was obviously untenable to anyone with any sense of the harsh rules of the world they lived in.
Gideon had said some weeks ago, during a game of hazard after dinner, that perhaps their mother simply enjoyed the reverend's company and desired the innocent connection of friendship. This had resulted in such an exchange of skeptical expressions between Alex and Hel that Gideon had actually been cowed into silence for once.
She sucked in a little breath as she applied the salve to the raw and blistered path of his burns. Heloise was not a squeamish woman, and had seen far worse by way of injury and gore, but for some reason, seeing him marred so made her stomach roil. It made tears want to well up in her eyes. It was even worse than the electric warmth of holding his undamaged wrist just moments before.
"How did you come by this injury?" she asked, turning to reach for more ointment. She twisted her entire body in an effort to avoid his eye as his head snapped around in surprise. She forced the tone of her voice into a brusqueness of professional necessity, taking a little too much time to collect the cream onto her fingers, and added, "I can better treat a wound if I know how and when it was sustained."
He was quiet for a moment, those black eyes burning into her until she raised her own eyes to meet them, her heart slamming itself insistently against her ribs.
"I don't remember," he said quietly, holding her gaze with a soft, almost peaceful depth to his eyes. "I didn't even know I'd burnt it until my mother pointed it out just a few moments ago. I suppose I likely bumped into a plank of wood or some such that was still very hot."
Heloise frowned, looking down again at the raw and blistered skin, gently swirling the ointment around to encourage it to absorb. "I suppose it might be the way women are said to forget the true pain of childbirth once it is over, so that they are not plagued with the memory of such pain."
"I think it is more likely that I was lost in the task set out for me and nothing else could puncture that frame of mind," he replied, dropping his gaze to watch her fingers on his skin. "It does not hurt, really, and I have been burned before."
Heloise bit her tongue, wishing against hope that she could avoid taking the bait of a statement like that. If she had heeded her finishing school education half so well as her new sister-in-law, she could easily have replied with some cutting witticism that would have prevented him from trying such tactics again.
Alas, she had never been a very good student.
"Hurt in the war, you mean?" she asked, shushing the part of her mind that immediately cursed her weakness of spirit.
"A few times," he agreed, a strange little smile playing on his lips. "But I was more referring to the time this particular arm was snapped in two by a particularly well-placed kick from Boudicea."
Heloise flushed, a begrudging amusement sending a curve into the corners of her lips. "And you shall heal just as completely this time, I should think."
"Last time, I was rewarded for my efforts with a kiss," he reminded
her, his tone of voice still even and quiet, as though he were simply recounting an innocent story from the past. "It hastened my recovery."
Heloise froze, her fingers lying on his arm, stopped from performing a task that had already been complete for some time. She lifted her head to meet his eye again, though every time she did it, she knew it was a mistake.
"I was fifteen," she said softly. "It was a very long time ago."
"It was," he agreed. He drew his arm slightly back, far enough that when he flipped his hand over, Heloise's palm landed in his own, dwarfed by the large, calloused presence of the proof that he had been born to a far different lot in life than she.
She knew she ought to snatch her hand back, gather her skirts, and march away. It would be grievous error to encourage him in any small way, no matter how weary they were nor how out of character one might behave in such an unusual moment. She knew what she ought to do, and did nothing anyway, allowing him to hold her hand in his for a stolen moment of silence, while he gazed down upon their connecting flesh with an expression like a man observing the finest art.
"Heloise," Gideon's voice rang out, causing both of them to snap their hands back into their own laps.
She stood, brushing imaginary debris from her skirt as her brother approached. "Yes?"
Gideon drew up to a level with her and gave a nod of acknowledgement down to where Callum still sat on the riser. "Rose and I are headed into York in a few hours, while Gloriana and Alex have opted to cancel their tour of the Continent to stay on and assist. The Blakelys have offered to remain as well, so I am sending them to Leeds. Supplies must be collected quickly and from places most like to have them. I need you to take charge of the estate in my absence and direct Alex and Gloriana to whatever tasks need to be undertaken."
"Me?" she repeated, blinking at him in astonishment. "In charge of the estate?"
"Well, of course," he replied easily. "Can you imagine Alex in charge of the place?"
"No," she admitted with a little frown. "What about Mother?"
Gideon did not answer, instead leveling her with a flat stare that made his feelings on the matter clear enough. Once she'd nodded in understanding, he continued, "You will need to find a way to keep everyone housed, warm, and fed while we seek out aid and materials to rebuild. Sheldon is going to make a run to Moorvale when there is time to see about temporary accommodations and perhaps loaned supplies. Reverend Halliwell has said that people may make camp here in the church for as long as necessary, but we all know that is not a solution that will hold out until the spring."
"It won't," she agreed, her mind beginning to whir with the routes she might take to a solution.
"Lieutenant Laughlin," Gideon continued, stopping Callum before he could slip away. "If you could remain as well and aid my sister in this endeavor, we would be much obliged. I understand that this type of disaster management was something you encountered at war, and as such, you might help us streamline the process."
"Of course," Callum replied, his body going rigid and alert, as though he were responding to a commanding officer. "Anything I can do to help. I am at your disposal."
"Perfect." Gideon sighed, relief evident on his face. "The two of you working together should get this place back on its feet in short order."
Heloise did not respond. It was one of the few moments in her life that she found herself entirely speechless.
She wasn't ready to return to Somerton. She couldn't. Not just yet.
She stood sentry over the inner sanctum of the church as bowls of porridge and steaming cups of tea were circulated to people wrapped in blankets, to be eaten in the pews or on the floor, with no division between the two on account of nobility or status. Heloise found she had no appetite, nor did she feel prepared to return home, bathe, and fall into the reassuring oblivion of dead sleep.
She was being left the run of the manor, and with it the entire township. It was enough to make her light-headed. Where could she even begin at this time of year, with all of the others spread out to various waypoints throughout the north? She knew she could not herself leave Somerton in search of aid, not with one of her charges so close to giving birth, and in truth there was very little that had ever tempted her away from Yorkshire, and never for very long besides.
It was only that she was being left here with him. And not in some casual capacity in the manor house where she might simply make herself scarce until his eventual departure. No, she was actually going to need Callum in the coming days to assist in managing the consequences of the fire.
She felt an itch to survey exactly what damage the blaze had wrought, even if the embers were still glowing and warm on the ground. More than one person had relayed to her that the clinic was forfeit, but if she could salvage even a few things from the rubble, it could make all the difference.
Slowly and silently, so as to not attract the attention of anyone who might stop her, she lifted her cloak from its hook near the door and slipped out of the church through a crack in the great entry doors. She stepped into the blinding whiteness of mid-morning without so much as a squint of discomfort at the sudden assault of light. The snow was falling in lazy gusts, making slow work of covering up the charred skeleton of the town with a redemption of white frost, but all the same, the ground was frosty enough to throw the meager sunlight directly back into the world with a strength only found in the winter.
She shivered, throwing the hood up over her unkempt braid and tucking the stray red curls that framed her face beneath it. Boudicea was still tethered to the tree outside of the church and appeared to be sleeping, as though the world around her were not a terrifying and unfamiliar thing. Sweet Boudicea was always so constant, so reassuring. Heloise did not know what she would do without her, but did not want to interrupt the one soul who had found peace on this weary morn.
The ground was slick and slippery with brittle layers of ice, formed from the snow that had melted under the heat of the chaos, then rapidly refrozen in the frigid air. It would make walking through the town treacherous for many people, particularly the elderly and the young. She made a mental note to have it broken up or salted at the first opportunity, wondering where Mrs. Laughlin kept an inventory of what they had available in the pantry for such a task.
The smell was not so bad as it had been, she thought. Or perhaps she had simply grown accustomed to it. She only tasted a tinge of smoke on the cold, arid breaths that filled her lungs.
The inn appeared to be minimally impacted. Perhaps she could convince the innkeeper to open up his rooms at no charge for some of the displaced townspeople. If he demanded compensation, surely she could arrange for something reasonable to be paid from the Somerton coffers. After all, part of the duty of a viscount was to oversee the welfare of his county, was it not? And for a short time, she was going to be viscount.
She must ask Gideon for the accounts before he was off to York. The particularities of the running of Somerton had never been much more than a vagary to her, but she did know how to balance a ledger thanks to her hard-fought education at Mrs. Arlington's School for Young Ladies.
Perhaps, despite the difficulties they would have rebuilding, it had been a small blessing that this fire had happened in the winter, when there were no crops nearby to be destroyed. They had far less to manage in replacing housing and supplies than they would have in losing an entire season's harvest and all of the incidental benefits that derived from the agricultural industry around Somerton.
She glanced down at the footprints she was making on the cobbled path. Each step dented in the fresh powder of snow, with a layer of soot in the edges and a glassy reflection of ice at the center. It was like the trunk of a tree, split open with its rings visible to anyone who cared to track the years that had passed from one experience to the next, laying bare all the stages of its life. This had been a very long night.
She drew herself up to a complete, abrupt stop at the sight of the clinic. In truth, she had expected worse. The way it had
been described to her, right at the center of the fire's origin, she had thought nothing would remain but a blackened rectangle where the building once stood, or perhaps, if they were lucky, a few beams to indicate that once there had been the sturdy safety of a fully realized structure.
Instead, it looked rather like a boiled egg that had been scooped out with a spoon. The exterior's geometric shape had softened beyond recognition, collapsing upon itself in a nebulous melding of beams and walls rather than a constructed building. Remains of furniture spilled out onto the snow like a broken yolk, while strips of wallpaper and the skeleton of shelving clung to the two and a half walls that still stood. The staircase was visible, apparently intact, leading up to the loft where dried herbs and compounds were kept, though from the ground, she could not gauge what might have survived at the higher level.
Her heart was racing in her chest, emotion thick in her throat. She felt for a moment completely unable to move. Somehow what remained was so much more than she had expected while also being so much worse than she had prepared herself for. It hurt seeing the place she'd come to think of as her own, the thing she'd watched being built, where she'd learned to practice midwifery on her own in ruins, brought so very, very low. The indignity of it, the desecration of this place, hit her square in the chest, as though a very dear friend had died.
She wondered if perhaps it would have hurt less if there was nothing left, rather than seeing the clinic like this. Mutilated.
She bit down on her tongue to force herself out of her trance, gripping her cloak in her fists. There was nothing to be done now but to see what she could salvage and to work toward rebuilding. She stepped over the doorless threshold, forcing herself to inhale the scent of charred cedar wood, to acknowledge the truth of what was around her. The window frames were all empty, the glass having long since exploded from the pressure of the heat, and much of the debris on the floor appeared to be from the four cots that were arranged on the ground level.
