by Merry Farmer
The raw intensity of making love quickly gave way to an entirely unexpected feeling of relief and contentment. If the throes of passion made her feel as though she and Danny were in the storm together, the aftermath was as gentle as a summer breeze, but twice as intimate. Danny collapsed to his back, gathering her into his arms, even though they were both too hot and sweaty for such an intimate embrace.
“That was lovely,” he panted, stroking her hair and her arm as she snuggled into an embrace at his side.
“It was,” she agreed drowsily.
That was all the thought she was capable of. The toll of the ball and making love was too much, and she drifted into sleep before she could stop herself. A tickle of a thought in the back of her mind whispered that she must love Danny to be able to fall asleep in his arms after doing something so scandalous. She couldn’t bring herself to feel a lick of guilt, though. She couldn’t recall a moment in her life when she’d ever been happier.
Her happiness followed her into sleep, but it was disturbed some time later—she had no idea how long—by a furious knocking at the door to Danny’s flat. They’d neglected to shut his bedroom door, so the sound was as loud as if someone were mere yards away.
“Danny! Danny! Wake up!” someone shouted from the hall.
Danny stirred by Phoebe’s side, grumbling and stretching. “Go away,” he said, though not loud enough for whoever it was in the hall to hear.
“Danny!” Whoever it was continued banging. “Get up!”
“Go away,” Danny called louder.
Phoebe grinned at his surly shouting in spite of herself, charmed by his rough ways, even though she shouldn’t have been. She giggled, hiding her face against his shoulder.
Her good humor vanished in a flash a moment later as the banging continued and the voice in the hall shouted, “Danny! The pub is on fire!”
Chapter 12
If Danny hadn’t fallen asleep so quickly and thoroughly after what was absolutely the best experience of love-making he’d ever had in his life, he would have seen the ominous orange glow through the uncurtained windows of his bedroom.
“Fire?” He dragged himself into full wakefulness, in spite of his body urging him to stay nestled under his covers with Phoebe, and leapt out of bed. Instead of rushing to answer Umbridge’s banging on his door, he flew to the window and peered out, craning his neck toward the front of the building and his beloved pub across the street. “Dear God.”
Not much was visible from his bedroom window, which looked out on a side street, but even without a clear view, he could see the flickering orange and red, and when he threw open the window, he could smell the acrid stench of smoke.
“I’m coming!” he shouted to Umbridge. “Stay here,” he ordered Phoebe, whirling back into his room and lunging for his wardrobe. The fancy ball things that were scattered across the floor of his room would never do for the mission he was about to embark on, so he wrenched open his wardrobe and put on whatever clothes came to hand, regardless of whether they went together or not. He cursed every long second it took to put his shoes and socks on, but as soon as the laces were tied, he leapt away from his bed and Phoebe—who had a look of determination in her eyes that he wasn’t sure he liked as she got up and gathered her ball things—and dashed into the main room.
Umbridge was pacing the hallway anxiously when Danny threw open the door. “It happened suddenly,” the man said as Danny charged down the stairs with him. “Bob had closed up less than an hour before. The place was empty, thank God, but the way it all went up so swiftly.”
“The flats above the pub,” Danny said, voicing his deepest concern. “Did the people get out in time.”
“As far as we know, they did,” Umbridge said. “Which is all on Bob. He hadn’t gone to bed yet and smelled the first of the smoke. Says he saw four men running away from the place too.”
Dread clenched Danny’s gut as he and Umbridge shot out of the building of flats and into the street. Men running away from the scene of a fire meant arson. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind.
His stomach lurched at the sight that met him. The street was bright as day as flames engulfed the entire building housing The Watchman. More than one fire brigade had already arrived—although it looked as though they had only just arrived and were still in the process of unfurling their equipment to pump water from the tanks on their carts—and lines of people with buckets had already formed in an attempt to douse the conflagration and protect the buildings to either side. Already, the fire looked as though it would catch on those buildings, potentially destroying the entire side of the street.
“More water!” Danny bellowed, making a quick survey of the situation and taking charge. “Anything to stop those flames.”
He was fighting a losing battle from the beginning and he knew it. The fire had already advanced far beyond what even the combined efforts of the entire street and several of the surrounding neighborhoods could manage. The fire brigades exhausted their supply of water in what felt like the blink of an eye and left to get more. Those wielding buckets kept up the fight valiantly, and before long, Danny had a glimmer of hope that they might be able to save some of the rest of the buildings on the street.
“Tell me what I can do to help.” Phoebe’s voice startled him out of his single-minded focus as he dashed between the men with buckets, a few stalwart women helping the occupants of the adjacent houses to safety, lest their homes catch fire as well, and the general mayhem of onlookers who were too startled to help.
Danny turned to her, eyes wide with energy. Phoebe was dressed in simple clothes, far different from how she’d looked at the ball mere hours before. Every instinct within him wanted to wrap her up and move her to complete safety, but the determination in her eyes wouldn’t stand for it.
“There are women and children fleeing the flats all around the pub. Make sure they get to safety,” he said, then turned back to the fire, trusting Phoebe to know how to carry out his order.
The work was exhausting. In no time at all, Danny was covered with soot and sweat, singed in places where he had run too close to the fire in an attempt to beat back the flames. With impossibly hard work and the efforts of nearly a hundred people from the neighborhood, they were able to extinguish the main fire in the pub and stop it from spreading beyond the two buildings abutting The Watchman.
By the time dawn began to break over the blackened, weary street, the fires were out, but The Watchman and two other buildings were a complete loss. Danny’s body ached from exertion and his heart was shattered by the loss. After Tuttle—who had come halfway across London to help when someone made the journey to fetch him—ordered Danny to rest, Danny sat heavily on the steps of the building with his and Phoebe’s flats and stared at the blackened hull of his pub. His soul felt hollow and splintered. The pub had been in the family for three generations. While it wasn’t the original property his great-great grandfather had won in his fateful poker game, it was one of the first his grandfather had purchased with the profits of that transaction. The Watchman wasn’t just a place of meeting and drinking to him, it was his family, his legacy. And now it was gone.
He buried his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees, consumed by grief. He would have stayed that way for who knew how long, if Phoebe hadn’t quietly slipped onto the steps with him and sat beside him. She silently rested her hand on his shoulder. The simple gesture was as sweet and intimate as anything they’d done during the night. Driven by instinct and affection, he turned into her, resting his sooty forehead against her shoulder and letting out a shaky breath that he didn’t want to admit was a sob. And bless her, Phoebe wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him close.
He wasn’t sure how long they sat there like that before Tuttle approached and cleared his throat. Danny glanced up, then straightened at the serious look in Tuttle’s eyes.
“One of the men say this note was left for you by the men who did this,” Tuttle said, presenting Danny with a s
lip of paper.
Without a word, but with anger flaring in his gut, Danny took the note, opened it, and read it.
“For every thing you take from me, I will take something precious from you.”
The note was unsigned, but there wasn’t a doubt in Danny’s mind who had sent it, or who had burned his pub to the ground.
“Cosgrove,” he growled, shooting to his feet.
Phoebe had taken the note from him and read it herself before rising and standing next to him. “I agree,” she said in a quiet voice. “This is very fine stationary, not something available to many but the upper class.”
Her confirmation energized him. He glanced around, looking for any of the numerous police officers who had arrived on the scene to assess the situation. Several of them had joined the bucket brigades or offered help in other ways, but a few had done nothing but stand back and observe. They had to be supervisors of one sort or another.
“You!” he bellowed as he spotted the stodgiest of them all. He started toward the man, Phoebe trailing him.
The officer blanched when he saw Danny striding toward him, but that wasn’t enough to convince Danny to soften his demeanor.
“I want you to go after the man who did this and bring him to justice,” Danny continued to shout all the same as he reached the officer.
“I—I…th-the man who did this?” The officer stammered and backed away from Danny.
“Yes,” Danny said. “Lord Cosgrove.”
In an instant, the officer’s whole countenance changed. He stood straighter, lowering the arms he’d put up to defend himself, and made a scoffing noise. “And what makes you think a gentleman like Lord Cosgrove would have anything to do with a pub burning down?”
Dread gripped Danny at the man’s suddenly dismissive tone. “Because we’re rivals in business,” he said, adjusting his accent to the loftiest tone he could manage, knowing he would need it. “Because I bested him yesterday evening in a personal matter as well.”
He glanced to Phoebe. She stood confidently by his side, looking as outraged by the officer’s sudden switch in manner as he felt. There was so much she still didn’t know—about him and about her own situation and why Cosgrove would see the way he had won her over as a mortal blow.
The officer scoffed at Danny’s statement, drawing his attention back to the matter at hand. “Look, you. I know you’re upset about your pub burning down, but you can’t just go and accuse a lord of that sort of criminal act.”
“Even though I know he did it?” Danny demanded, his temper rising as fast and hard as the flames that had engulfed his pub.
The officer’s look turned condescending. “What would a nobleman possibly want to do with a chappie like you?”
“Mr. Long is a businessman,” Phoebe jumped to his defense. “He is in competition with Lord Cosgrove for a land development deal before a parliamentary committee.”
The officer glanced to Phoebe with as dismissive a sneer as he was now using with Danny. “And what would you know about parliamentary committees, little missy.”
Danny bristled. “This is Lady Phoebe Darlington, daughter of a marquess. You will treat her with the respect she is due.”
“And I’m the bloody Duke of Clarence,” the officer laughed.
Danny clenched his fists at his sides to keep from pounding the man across the face. “I tell you, this fire was arson, and Lord Cosgrove is responsible.”
The officer rolled his eyes. “Pubs burn down all the time, what with all the alcohol lying around.”
“We have proof,” Phoebe said, holding up the note.
The officer took it and looked at it. “This is nothing.” He shrugged and tore the note into pieces.
Phoebe yelped in indignation. Danny teetered on the brink of violence.
“I demand to speak to your supervisor,” he said in a deadly voice. “No, I demand to speak to Lord Clerkenwell.”
The officer snorted. “And who do you think you are that a man like Lord Clerkenwell would speak to the likes of you?”
“He is a personal friend,” Danny seethed.
“Oh, yeah?” The officer clearly didn’t believe him or believe that a man of his social status had any right to help from the law at all. “I think we’re done here,” he said, stepping away from Danny as though he were nothing at all and gesturing toward his men. “That’s it, lads. We’re leaving.”
“Without performing an investigation?” Phoebe demanded, as gobsmacked as Danny was.
“No investigation needed, miss,” the officer said with a sniff. “A pub caught fire, probably do to sloppy handling of alcohol and lack of cleanliness.”
“Danny’s pub was meticulously cared for,” Phoebe argued.
The officer ignored her. “Tragedies happen. There’s nothing that can be done about it. Brush off your losses and go find another hole to hock your wares out of.”
“Now, you see here,” Phoebe started to rail against the man as he walked away without giving her or Danny a second look.
Danny caught her shoulder and held her back as she tried to follow him. “Don’t,” he growled. “He’s not going to help us.”
“But why not?” Phoebe whirled toward him. “Your pub was burned down in an act of arson. Homes were lost, and lives could have been lost with them.”
“He doesn’t care,” Danny said, eyes boring holes in the back of the officer’s back as he walked away. “We’re nothing to him.”
“But we’re people,” Phoebe insisted.
“Not to him.” Danny shook himself and glanced away from the retreating officer, whose men had stepped away from their efforts to help in order to follow him, and looked at Phoebe’s distressed but still beautiful face instead. He rested a dirty hand on her soot and sweat-streaked cheek, affection and fury warring within him. “Men like him don’t care about the working-classes. We’re no better than animals to decent, middle-class people,” he infused his words with sarcasm, “or to stuck up nobs either.”
“But you’re not working-class,” Phoebe said. “You’re something else. And so am I.” Her expression turned confused, as though she didn’t know what she was.
“It doesn’t matter, love,” he said. “This is England. It’s about nothing if not class and rules and lines that cannot be crossed. A place for everyone and everyone in their place. And the likes of him, and of Cosgrove, have decided where our places are. God help anyone who dares to rise above their birth, or sink below it.” He leaned in and kissed her lips lightly.
“I won’t accept it,” Phoebe said, glowering. “I won’t accept anything this unfair. Lord Cosgrove is responsible for burning your pub as surely as my father was for burning down any hope that I might be a part of high society, and he won’t stand for it.” She turned to march toward the building with their flats.
“Phoebe, where are you going?” he called after her, then followed when she didn’t stop.
“I’m going to wash up and change my clothes,” she said over her shoulder as she entered the building. “And then I’m going to demand justice from Lord Cosgrove myself.”
In the very back of her mind, Phoebe wondered if her mission to demand justice from Lord Cosgrove at his club—where she was certain he would be on the morning after a ball that had seen him defeated in more ways than one—was a wise one. She didn’t think any sort of show of determination on her part would actually bear fruit or make Lord Cosgrove confess to his crimes. But after witnessing the way Danny was dismissed so summarily by a police officer who wasn’t worthy of shining his boots, and all because of some perceived sense of class, she was too livid not to proceed.
“Wait up, love,” Danny called after her before she could reach the end of the street. He’d bathed and changed into clean clothes as well, but the distress of everything that had happened in the night and the losses he had incurred were visible in the dullness of his expression. “I’m not letting you go alone.”
“Good,” she said, taking his arm as though he were a g
entleman escorting her on a promenade through Hyde Park. “Because I’m going to need you to rail at Lord Cosgrove right along with me.”
His only answer was an exhausted, lop-sided grin. And though that was only a tiny expression, it meant the world to Phoebe. He wasn’t going to stop her. He would march right by her side up to the gates of Hell, if she’s asked him to, to demand justice. Even though their chances of getting that justice were virtually non-existent. She could feel his need to stand up and be heard as surely as she could feel her own.
He was perfect in so many ways. If the last dozen or so hours had shown her nothing, it had shown her that. Danny made her heart sing in ways she didn’t fully comprehend. He’d been magnificent at the ball, cutting a dashing figure and looking far more handsome than any of the rigid gentleman of her former acquaintance, even though his hair was unfashionably curly and unkempt and his suit had been better suited to the theater than Hopewell House. He’s been lively and endearing as they danced far more than a respectable couple should have, and to dances that most of the nobles of her acquaintance would never admit to knowing, let alone dancing in public.
And when he’d taken her home and made love to her, he had shown her a whole new world that she never would have known existed without him. He was brilliant in every way. Her body longed for him, even now, and her heart was his as surely as if he had coaxed it from her body and attached it to his own in the middle of their passion. She didn’t think it would ever be fully hers again, but she also felt as though part of his heart was hers now.
The tenderness of those thoughts was clipped short as they finished their journey through busy, London streets to arrive at the front door of Lord Cosgrove’s club.
“Do you intend to storm the place like the revolutionaries stormed the Bastille?” Danny asked as Phoebe let go of his arm and marched up the steps to try the front door.
