Page 39 of A Bride for the Devilish Duke
She closed her eyes, putting a palm to her forehead. When she opened them again, she was glaring at Damien.
“You were a nurse. Emma was unwell? A patient during her sabbatical?”
“I will not speak to that. I was a nurse. I met Lady Emma and we became friends. I chose to accompany her when she was ready to return home.”
“And you will tell me nothing of why she was a patient?”
Elsie stared at him flatly and with lips firmly sealed. Damien returned her stare, sipping his tea.
“Lady Emma has been through a helluva’ lot,” Elsie said, fiercely. “And she goes through even more. Foreveryonebut herself. She deserves to be happy with a man she loves and who loves her. I can't speak plainer than that.”
“Indeed not. I cannot promise love. But she and her family will be content and free of their troubles. That I promise,” Damien nodded.
“To replace them with troubles of your own making,” Elsie murmured, almost beyond Damien's hearing.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The smell of the smoke awoke Damien. Acrid and heavy, stinging his nostrils and lodging in his throat.
He coughed, then again.
Harder, throat rasping. He could barely breathe.
Flinging aside the bedclothes, he tumbled from his bed to the floor. He could barely open his eyes for the smoke which hung as a haze in the air. The rug was beginning to smolder and when his hands touched the bare wood of the floor, he recoiled in shock.
The varnished wooden boards were hot to the touch. Animal instinct drove him towards the door. He couldn't see it through the smoke but he knew where it was. His chest heaved and wheezed. An iron vice gripped him, refusing to let him gather enough air to satisfy his lungs. His head spun.
The door was close but just out of reach. Damien summoned the last of his strength to raise himself up high enough to reach the doorknob. He screamed at the touch of red hot metal but managed, somehow, to turn it and fling open the door.
Beyond was a vision of hell.
Flames wreathed the floor, walls, and ceiling of the hallway. It reached for Damien, forcing him to fall back, hands raised. His vision narrowed and strength fled his limbs, stolen by the black, roiling smoke.
Then he heard his brother's cries.
The last thing he saw was Harry's staggering form, dragging their unconscious father behind him. Fire swirled around him but somehow he continued to move. Its tendrils snaked around his legs, up his back. It consumed his hair, leaving his head a crisped, black skull. And still he fought, dragging their father who seemed untouched by the fire that was eating Damien's brother.
Then their father's eyes opened.
He looked into the eyes of his youngest son and smiled.
Damien came awake with a yell and a start. An ink bottle was upended by an involuntary twitch of his arms. Black liquid spread across the blotter and, where it reached the edge of the desk, began to drip to the carpet below.
Damien stared across his study, still feeling the heat of the fires. The smell was strong in his nostrils and he even reached for his hair, checking if it had been burned away by voracious flames. The sound that had wakened him from his nightmare, returned. A deferential knocking at the door.
Outside, the sounds of London intruded. Carriages rattling and horses whickering. Bird song and the sound of workmen. Tapping hammers, grinding saws. A new row of houses was being built across Portman Square from the Fitzgerald townhouse that had belonged to the Dukes of Redmane for twenty years.
“Yes?” Damien called.
The door opened to admit Wilkins, a young man with hair the color of coal and a pinched, serious face with a pointed nose and thin lips.
“Forgive the intrusion, Your Grace. Their Lordships have arrived and request an audience,” he said, voice clinging to the vestiges of his Welsh accent.
“Are they indeed? Come in, Wilkins, and close the door,” Damien said wearily.
Wilkins obeyed, and having closed the door, strode the room to stand before Damien's desk. He took in the spilled ink and went neatly to a cupboard across the room, producing a sheet of blotting paper which he used to skillfully and efficiently mop up the spillage.
“The dream again, Your Grace?” he asked distractedly.
