“My word, sir, you do like to overcomplicate things.”
John smiled. “Do I?”
“In this instance, yes. You see, the answer is quite simple. This past summer—July or thereabouts—when the boys arrived here, we did have the mists. Come to think of it, that may have been when they first began to appear.”
John’s fork froze halfway to his mouth. “In July?”
Mr. Fairfax nodded as he chewed a bite of mutton. “Faint-like, it was. The barest vapor in the beginning. But it did get stronger. We thought we were in for a rare summer storm, but it never did rain.”
John slowly lowered his fork back to his plate. Mrs. Rochester had said the Millcote mists were something new. He hadn’t realized just how new she’d meant. “Strange, that.”
“It is, sir. But one gets used to it. Thornfield always was prone to fog and mist and the like. I’ve told Mrs. Rochester’s guests to take care as they journey home. It’s stronger after dark, and bound to cause a collision on the road one of these days if people don’t take care.”
Later, as John climbed into his box bed for the night, the mist was still very much on his mind. He knew little about weather patterns, and what he did know he had a devil of a time recalling.
Not that it made much difference.
Whatever knowledge he possessed was based on conditions in other parts of the country. Hertfordshire, London, and Surrey. Each place he’d lived had been different, just as Yorkshire must be.
Across the room the fire crackled low in the hearth. Lying on his side, a pillow bunched under his head, John stared at the dancing flames as he drifted into sleep. Since the night he’d become trapped in his box bed, he’d taken to sleeping with the panel open. He never again wanted to experience that level of panic.
Odd to think of it now—the fear he’d felt, then. Thornfield wasn’t a frightening place. Not really. Only an old one. And yet…
That day on the grounds, Mrs. Rochester had looked at the house with such an expression on her face. It spoke of loathing—of hatred and regret. And something else. Something that was very like the look of someone staring down an impossible adversary. As if she was terrified down to her marrow, but resolved to not only face that terror but to prevail over it. To conquer and destroy.
A foolish thought.
He turned his head into his pillow. The fire slowly flickered and died. He hardly knew whether he slept, but he must have done, for some time later, he started wide awake at a peculiar murmuring coming from somewhere above him.
His pulse gave an anxious jump.
By this time it was pitch dark. He sat up in his bed, listening.
And there it was again—a vague rustling.
Rats, probably. Or the sounds of the wind.
More irritated with himself than afraid, he lay back down in his bed and tried to sleep. But his peace of mind was too disturbed. The clock down the hall chimed the hour. Two o’clock.
In that very instant a queer sort of noise sounded outside his bedroom. As if someone had brushed their fingers along his door as they passed down the hall. The exact sound he’d heard when he’d been trapped inside of his box bed.
He sat up again, heart racing. “Who is it? Who’s there?”
There was no answer. Only silence. And then…
An inhuman laugh—muffled, low, and deep. Almost demonic.
It froze John to the heart.
He thought at first that the unnatural sound had come from outside of his door. But then it sounded again, this time as amorphous and disconnected as a phantom. It could have come from anywhere—the floors below or the floors above.
Good God, was it Mr. Poole? And was he possessed of some devil?
John’s fear rapidly gave way to anger. Rising from his bed, he lit a candle and swiftly pulled on a pair of trousers and a linen shirt. If he was to confront the man, he’d rather not be in his nightclothes. Opening his bedroom door, he ducked his head out and looked up and down the hall.
His candle cast a dim halo in the darkness. There was no sign of Mr. Poole, but what John saw in the hazy light was far worse. The door at the end of the long hall was cracked open, and smoke billowed out from within.
It was Mrs. Rochester’s room.
John thought no more of Mr. Poole and his demonic laugh. He flew down the hall with a single-minded intention. In an instant he was inside of Mrs. Rochester’s chamber. She was asleep in her four-poster bed, the air all around her thick with smoke. One of the windows was open a fraction, and it seemed that the smoke was emanating from thereabouts. Had the curtains caught flame? It was difficult to see.
His sense of smell was equally obstructed. There was no acrid scent of burning wood or fabric. Nothing to sting at his eyes and nose. Indeed, the smoke seemed to have no fragrance at all. All John knew was that it had sucked all the oxygen from the room. It was impossible to breathe.
Gasping and sputtering, he went to Mrs. Rochester’s side, only vaguely registering her state of undress. “Wake up! There’s a fire!” He shook her by the shoulder, but she didn’t move. For one horrified moment, he feared that she’d already succumbed to the smoke. That she’d suffocated there in her bed.
But no.
Her eyes opened in a state of bleary confusion. A cough racked her body. She brought her hand to cover her mouth. “What’s going on?”
There was no time to explain. No time to ask her permission—or to beg her forgiveness. John gathered her up in his arms and carried her from the room. It was only a few strides down the hall, the danger of the fire spurring him on. But the urgency of the moment didn’t numb him to the feel of her against him. Her unpinned hair falling about her shoulders, and her body free from the rigid constraints of a corset. She was warm and soft and inescapably feminine.
He’d have carried her a mile if he had to. Anything to secure her safety.
She came fully awake then. “John? What in the—?” She struggled against him. “Put me down!”
Stopping outside of his bedroom door, he set her on her feet. Only then did he register that she was clad in nothing but a sheer nightgown—a scrap of fine linen trimmed in lace. His already pounding heart thumped even harder. “Your room is on fire,” he said. “The smoke—can’t you see it?”
She stared down the hall at the smoke billowing from her chamber. Her face paled in the candlelight. “How?”
“I don’t know how it started,” John said. “I heard Mr. Poole laughing outside of my door and—”
“Mr. Poole?”
John nodded grimly. But there was no time to sort out the particulars of who was to blame. For all he knew, the fire was still blazing. “Have you any water in your room? I suspect the bottom of the window curtains may have caught fire. I’m not certain, but if you’ll wait, I’ll try to put the fire out.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort. Give me your candle. I’ll investigate. You remain here.” She flicked a glance at the closed door. “Is this your bedchamber?”
“It is.”
“Go inside, light another candle, and shut the door. I shall be back directly.” With that, she disappeared down the hall, her bare feet padding quickly along the carpet.
John hesitated only briefly before striding after her.
Mrs. Rochester may be his employer, but he was still a man. It went against his every impulse to remain behind while she faced the danger alone.
He arrived at her room bare seconds after she’d entered it. Covering his nose with his arm, he followed after her. Some of the smoke had cleared. He could just make her out on the opposite side of the bed. She was heading for the window.
He seized the silver water pitcher from her washstand. “Is it the curtains?”
She turned on him with a start. Her eyes blazed. “I told you to wait!”
“And let you walk into a raging fire? Not bloody l
ikely.”
“Infuriating man. This is the moment you choose to be a hero?” Coughing, she reached up to close the window. It slammed shut with an audible crunch of splintered wood. “Blast it. The latch is broken.”
“Never mind the latch. What about the fire?”
She crossed the room to him through the rapidly receding smoke. “There is no fire.”
“You managed to put it out?” He looked behind her. “The curtains—”
“I’ve taken care of it.” Relieving him of the water pitcher, she pushed him toward the door. “Your assistance is no longer required.”
He backed out of her room. “Mrs. Rochester—”
“Wait for me in your chamber. I’ll be with you as soon as I make myself decent.”
Heat rose in his face at the reminder of her scantily clad state. As if he could forget! Was it any wonder she wanted him out of her presence? “Yes, of course. If you’re certain the danger has passed.”
“I am,” she said.
He reluctantly returned to his room. Finding the tinderbox in the dark, he struck a spark to a light a tallow candle.
Within minutes, there was a soft knock at his door. He opened it to find Mrs. Rochester on the threshold. She’d put on a flannel wrapper and slippers as a nod to propriety, but with her black hair curling loose down her back, she managed to look as tempting to him as she had in her nightgown.
“What happened?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, saying only, “There’s nothing more to worry over. But I need you to do something for me, John. I need you to wait here while I attend to something on the third floor.”
He stilled. “You believe Mr. Poole was involved?”
“I mean to find out.”
“Shall I wake Mr. Fairfax?”
“Why on earth would you want to do that? No, no. Let the man sleep. I’ll sort this matter out myself. In the meanwhile, you must remain here. Bolt the door and don’t open it for anyone until I return.”
He opened his mouth to object, but she forestalled him.
“You don’t have to understand the why of it, so long as you do as I say.” With that, she abruptly took her leave.
John was no more capable of obeying her than he’d been before. And this time, it wasn’t because he was afraid for her. It was because he was worried about someone else.
Two someones.
A pit of anxiety forming in his stomach, he slipped out of his chamber and made his way next door to the boys’ room.
It might have been Mr. Poole whose laugh John had heard, but it was Stephen and Peter who enjoyed lighting fires. Stephen and Peter who gazed on the flames they’d kindled with twin expressions of rapture. It stood to reason that, if the fire in Mrs. Rochester’s room had been started deliberately, it was one of them who must be to blame.
John’s heart hated to admit to the possibility, even as his head recognized that the boys were obviously the most likely culprits. Indeed, John fully expected to find them awake, giddy from the aftereffects of their mischief.
Instead, on entering their room, his candle held aloft to illuminate his way, John found both Stephen and Peter tucked fast in their beds, looking as innocent as two sleeping angels.
He stared down at them, frowning.
Was Mr. Poole truly to blame for the fire?
Was anyone?
Perhaps it had been nothing more than a stray spark from the hearth or from an unattended candle?
The prospect did nothing to quell John’s sense of uneasiness. He lingered in the boys’ room only long enough to adjust their blankets and smooth the hair from their brows before returning to his own room. There, he sank down in a chair by his box bed and waited.
In short order, another soft tap sounded at his door.
“Let me in, John,” Mrs. Rochester whispered.
He sprang up from his seat and unbolted the door.
She entered, her face even paler than when she’d left.
He shut the door after her, deeply conscious of the impropriety of their being alone together in his bedchamber at this time of night. On any other occasion he wouldn’t have allowed it. At the moment, however, it seemed the least of their concerns. “Well?” he asked.
She stood in front of the cold hearth, arms folded at her waist. “It’s just as I thought.”
John was incredulous. “It was Mr. Poole?”
“He bears some responsibility, yes. But what happened tonight…it was in the way of an accident. I’m glad you’re the only person besides myself acquainted with the details of the incident. You’re no gossip, and know better than to breathe a word of it to anyone. As for the state of my room, you must leave me to explain that away to Mr. Fairfax.”
“If you insist.”
“I’ll speak to him in the morning,” she said. “In the meanwhile, we would do well to retire.”
His brows lowered. “You’re not thinking of returning to your bedroom?”
“What?” She frowned. “No, I don’t suppose I should, should I? I daresay I must find somewhere else to lay my head tonight.”
“Where?”
“The drawing room sofa, probably. There are other bedchambers, of course, but none that can be made ready without troubling Mr. Fairfax.”
“Forgive me, but the drawing room sofa? It won’t do, ma’am.”
“Do you have a better suggestion?”
He did, though it was slightly indecorous. “Take my room.”
She looked at him, the faintest hint of color rising in her cheeks. “Your room? And where will you sleep, pray?”
“In the nursery, with the boys. I can easily make a pallet on the floor.”
She shook her head. “John—”
“It will be more than sufficient to my needs. Truly. And as for you…” He went to his bed and hastily straightened the pillows and coverlet. Heat crept up his neck. “I trust it won’t be too unseemly for you to sleep here.”
“Not unseemly, no.”
“In that case…” He withdrew to the door. “I will bid you goodnight.”
She seemed surprised. “Are you leaving me already?”
“I thought you said we should both retire?”
“Yes, but don’t part from me yet, not in this formal fashion. Heaven’s sake, John. You saved my life tonight. We can nevermore be strangers.” She crossed the room to stand in front of him. “Come. Shake my hand.” She extended it to him.
John took it without hesitation. He was keenly aware that they had never before touched without gloves.
“I owe you a tremendous debt,” she said.
“You owe me nothing.”
Her slim fingers curved around his hand, clasping it warmly, bare skin to bare skin. It was one of the most intimate experiences of John’s recent memory. It made his mouth go dry. Made his heart somersault and his pulse thrum.
She gazed at him, her eyes bright. “I knew the day I met you that you would be of service to me. I saw it in your face.” Her voice trembled. “But I didn’t dare hope. Not until this moment.”
John sensed she was becoming distraught. It was, no doubt, a delayed response to the harrowing events of the night. Perhaps she was only now fully appreciating the horror of a death by fire. “I was glad to be of assistance.”
With that, he gently released her hand. Were she fully in her right mind, she wouldn’t permit such intimacy, and he had no intention of taking advantage of her.
“Are you going, then?” she asked.
“It’s late. And you must be cold.” Indeed, it was a miracle she hadn’t yet caught a chill. The window of her bedroom had been open, and there was a frost outside. “You’ll want to get into bed.”
His bed, he might have said.
And he may as well have.
The color in her cheeks heightened. It was alm
ost a blush. “Yes. Quite.” She inclined her head. “Good night, John.”
“Good night, Mrs. Rochester.”
He left quietly, making his way next door to the boys’ nursery. They were still fast asleep, seemingly untroubled by the night’s events. John gathered a blanket and pillow and lay down on the carpeted floor between their little beds.
Sleep was elusive. He tossed and turned until morning dawned, plagued by the thought that he’d missed something important about the fire. It was only as the sun rose, shining coldly through the nursery window, that he realized what it was that troubled him. It was that open window in Mrs. Rochester’s room—the place from where the smoke had emanated.
And it was the smoke itself.
Had it not been for the way it robbed him of breath—making him gasp and cough—he might have thought it wasn’t smoke at all.
He might have mistaken it, quite easily, for the Millcote mists.
On rising later that morning, John felt a keen longing to see Mrs. Rochester. The intimacy of the previous night seemed so much a dream to him. He needed to hear her voice, to see her face. Only then would he know if such emotion as she’d expressed—such a connection as they had shared—was strong enough to survive in the sunlight, and not merely the byproduct of a single dark and frightened moment.
He exited the nursery while the boys were still asleep. Sophie slept in a small bedroom adjacent to theirs and hadn’t yet risen to wake them. John hoped the woman wouldn’t feel too put upon that he’d stayed the night in what was, essentially, her domain.
Advancing into the darkened hall, he was surprised to find that the door to his own chamber stood open. He nevertheless rapped lightly on the doorframe before entering. When he received no answer, he entered and lit a lamp. It illuminated an empty room, the bed unoccupied, and the coverlet folded neatly at the foot of the mattress.
Mrs. Rochester must have risen even earlier than he had. Either that, or not slept at all.
But no.
On approaching the box bed, John caught the faintest scent of her exotic perfume. His stomach tightened. She had been here, in his bed. Though she must not have remained long.
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