Page 32 of These Violet Delights
“Sailor!” cried Violet, running toward the front doors. A swell of explosive heat met her, and she stumbled back, shielding hereyes. Undaunted, she charged toward the front office, where the windows had been broken out. She hitched her skirts and started climbing inside.
“A sailor?” he asked, following. He reached for her, trying to pull her back.
Violet shrugged him off, slippery with sweat from the heat, and threw herself into the burning building. “No! Sailor! Ginny’s cat!”
“Miss Arden, I insist you stay here. It’s simply too dangerous—”
Her black hair had come loose from its pins, tumbling over one shoulder as she spared him a single determined look. “Damn your insistence, and damn you, too. I won’t leave an innocent soul behind.”
Smoke poured out of the broken window around her, and then, swallowed by the gritty haze, she vanished.
Panic and smoke and fear squeezed his throat like a fist, but Alasdair vowed not to lose her to the fire. Something could fall on her, or the heat could overwhelm her…An image of her, helpless and limp, curled up on the stage, came to him, a bleak omen, and he heeded it, reckless of his own safety, hauling himself through the window and into the office. It may as well have been a furnace, for though nothing inside had caught fire yet, he could sense the flames on the floor above, greedy and growing, turning candles to puddles and bubbling the wallpaper around him like blistered skin. He glimpsed the back of Violet’s gown as she tried to leave the room, shrieking and snatching her hand back when the doorknob burned her palm. Alasdair put his head down and lunged toward her, yanking her back before aiming a single hard kick at the door. It swung open awkwardly on broken hinges, a tremendous surge of heat bellowing up the main hall toward them.
“Sailor! Sailor!” Violet called, and coughed, wiping moisture from her eyes as she tumbled into the hall. She turned in a circle, took a few halting steps toward the seats and stage, then thought better of it and returned to the office door. “Perhaps we’re too late…”
“Your compassion is understandable, Miss Arden, but it will get us both killed if—”
Violet’s eyes snapped open. A tiny, soft sound threaded its way through the numbing roar of the fire spreading across the floor above them. “There! Did you hear it?”
She hurled herself toward the sound, stopping outside another closed door. Carefully, she pressed her ear to the wood. “I hear her!”
“Then step aside, please.” Alasdair didn’t allow himself to consider they were endangering themselves for some mangy stray. Absurd or otherwise, Miss Arden seemed resolved to throw her life away for the creature, and he wouldn’t allow that. This door was fussier than the last, and he at last had to tear his own coat off, wrap it around his gloved hands, and use the whole bulk of it to pull the door until the knob nearly came off in his grasp. He wedged himself into the gap his effort had created, then shouldered it open the rest of the way until the wood creaked and splintered. Miss Arden pushed herself into the coatroom beyond and exclaimed with triumph, then reappeared with a small orange cat clinging desperately to her gown, claws extended.
“Through the front doors,” he called to her, breathing hard. “Run as fast as you can.”
For once, Miss Arden offered no argument and did as he instructed. Men called to one another outside. Above the terrible din could be heard the ineffectual splashing of water against the exterior of the building. The floor shook, and abovehim, Alasdair felt the weight of the conflagration threatening to spill down upon them like a cauterizing flood. He trained his eyes on Miss Arden, threw his jacket over his mouth against the rising smoke, and raced outside to safety.
As the cool night air surrounded them, he felt the building yield and the fire win out, and heard the commotion as the beams holding the upper floors began to give. It was like a dragon of legend inhaling before the great burning outcry. Miss Arden was too close to it all for his liking, and he herded her down the steps and away from the flame and smoke. A young woman trailed along, sobbing, reaching for the cat in Violet’s arms. The yowling thing took a chunk of the lace on her gown with its claws as it was returned to the actress.
Alasdair shook his head, gazing down at Violet in total disbelief. “That was a mad thing to do.”
“That little cat has been my steadfast companion for many days,” said Violet, wiping at the black marks on her face and neck. “I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. And look how happy it has made Ginny!” She beamed. “We will need that. So much is lost…we all worked so hard…”
“We?”
“Mr. Lavin and the actors, of course, but Miss Bilbury and I had taken over painting the scenery. Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, but we did what we could with limited time. I was…proud of it.” Miss Arden’s shoulders caved inward as her spirit diminished and another thought dawned. “My easel and paints were in Mr. Lavin’s office.” She lifted her head, gazing off toward the theater as it was consumed.
“Don’t even consider it,” Alasdair warned, easing himself in front of her view.
A fleeting smile. A shrug. “It is nothing to some, I’m sure. I’ve no money to replace it all.”
“You were not paid for your work on the scenery?”
Her brows lifted. “Oh, no, Mr. Kerr. As my aunt would say: a lady of good breeding does not seek employment. It was all to better my painting, and it did, but now it will be enjoyed by no one but the fire.” She frowned and seemed to wilt again. He quashed a sudden urge to wipe the soot from below the soft pout of her lips, but she looked so sad, and it felt unbearable. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve gone and made myself seem very lacking in front of a gentleman.”
“You don’t need to correct yourself in that manner,” Alasdair told her, shaking out his ruined coat. “It doesn’t bother me, you know…”
Violet blinked up at him in astonishment. “It doesn’t? Why not?”
“Our understanding,” he reminded her, though gently. “Our families?”
“Oh, of course.”
“And…” It was his turn to frown and lose himself somewhat. “And I find most people incomprehensible. They speak in polite riddles, but you—”
“Ha!” Miss Arden covered her mouth, then graced him with one more coy smile. “And I’m no great mystery.”
The actress had rallied and approached to draw Miss Arden into an embrace and thank her repeatedly, which was why Alasdair’s words were lost to the night and the wind as he said quietly, “I don’t know if I would go that far…”
