Regency High Society Vol 1: A Hasty Betrothal / A Scandalous Marriage / The Count's Charade / The Rake and the Rebel. Mary Brendan

      Sandford stood at the window of the drawing room, watching intently for the first faint streaks of dawn to break across the dark sky. Never in his whole experience could he recall having lived through a longer night. With his brain in a whirl from Lady Butler’s revelations, he had been unable to rest without recalling the disasters that had occurred during his earlier torpidity and, like a demented wraith, he had paced the crowded and bedimmed rooms, inwardly cursing his stupidity, weakness and every other fault or failing he could attach to his own ineptitude. Tiptree, dozing in a corner, had continually roused himself to point out in his usual blunt manner that Sandford would be as much use as a tinker’s reject by the morning and that he would do better to harness his thoughts for an hour or two, but the viscount found it impossible to attend to this excellent advice.

      His eyes were ragged from staring out into the darkness for any perceptible lightening of the black landscape before him until, all of a sudden, his senses quickened as he realised that he could, indeed, separate sky from land. As the pale dawn began at last to spread its pearly pink glow across the low horizon, he turned in relief to give instructions for the first searchers to be wakened.

      Very soon a crowd had gathered both inside and outside the yellow drawing-room and Davy Rothman stepped forward in some urgency.

      ‘It’s light enough, sir,’ he said to Sandford. ‘Can we go out now?’

      The viscount nodded and Tiptree began issuing new directions and commands to the waiting groups, but his orders were suddenly interrupted by the sounds of a violent altercation issuing from the hallway.

      Sandford frowned impatiently. ‘Now, what the devil …?’

      The crowd in the doorway parted to reveal the sight of Joshua Potter struggling with his son-in-law Seb Watts, who was attempting to prevent the old man from entering the room.

      ‘I will speak to him—I will!’ croaked Potter, who was in a state of near hysterics. ‘Get your hands off me, young Seb. I gotta speak to himself—she said only himself!’

      Sandford ripped through the crowd that divided him from the contentious pair and frantically grabbed at Potter’s arm.

      ‘Who?’ he jerked out roughly. ‘Speak up, man—for

      God’s sake!’

      ‘She’s in the cellar, sir, gasped the old man, collapsing to his knees. ‘Along of Billy Tatler. I come as fast as I could—she said only you, sir!’

      ‘He wouldn’t tell me what it was, your lordship,’ said Watts, screwing up his face. ‘Meggy sent me up the lane with the cart, to see if he’d gone up to the cottage again, and I found him half-dead on the verge. He made me bring him—but I wasn’t sure …’ His voice tailed off as he saw Sandford making for the door, at the same time exhorting every man with a mount to get saddled and ride at once to Bottom Meadow.

      Please, God, let me be in time, he prayed, as he gave Pagan his head along the bridleway that was the short cut to both Westpark and to the lane that led to Bottom Meadow. Tiptree and some of the men followed the viscount whilst the rest of the riders had been instructed to take the longer route along the lane.

      It was almost full dawn by the time Sandford wheeled his stallion across the meadow that separated the two estates. He did not turn towards Westpark, however, but took his mount at a gallop over the stone wall into North Lane and on towards the fork at the top where, to his utter shock and horror, he could clearly see the thin column of smoke that was spiralling viciously from the vicinity of Potter’s cottage.

      From the sound of the shouts behind him, it was obvious that the others had also registered the sight. He spurred his horse on furiously, raising his arm in order to thrash down his crop against Pagan’s sweating rump when, somewhere inside his head, he could hear Harriet’s voice: ‘Horses shouldn’t be whipped—shouldn’t be whipped!’

      ‘Come on, boy,’ he urged, as his arm dropped. ‘Give me everything you’ve got!’

      Ears flattened and tail streaming, Pagan positively flew the final half-mile and at last the derelicts came in sight and every one of the horsemen could see that the end cottage was aflame! Timber and debris had been piled up against the cellar trap-door and it was a raging bonfire! In one swift movement Sandford had leapt from his mount and, with Tiptree at his side, he had rounded the cottage and was tearing at the flaming brands with his gloved hands.

      ‘Harriet! Harriet!’ he called out, ignoring the searing pain in his fingers. ‘Can you hear me?’

      ‘Lord Sandford, sir,’ came an urgent voice from inside the ruined building. ‘We can get in from here—lift the flagstones, lads.’

      Coughing and spluttering as the acrid smoke rose from the cellar, willing hands hoisted the flagstones from the scullery corner as Sandford dropped the smouldering branch he was holding and dashed into the cottage. On to his knees he fell, clutching at the sides of the floor timbers, peering desperately into the gloom of the smoke-filled interior.

      ‘Harriet!’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Are you there?’

      A faint moan from below was the only reply. Without hesitation, Sandford swung himself down into the suffocating smog and, as he landed, he narrowly missed falling on a soft, curled-up bundle. It was Billy Tatler, wrapped in damp sacking! He was conscious and groaning, his breath coming in ragged gasps. In one swift movement Sandford had lifted the bundle and thrust the boy through the opening to the outstretched hands above him before crouching and feeling his way around the immediate vicinity. His eyes were streaming and he could scarcely breathe and the heat from the hatchway was growing intense. Through the smoke he could just make out the eager flames licking through the cracks in the old timber and realised that the trap-door would soon disintegrate and drop its burning embers into the cellar. Suddenly his fingers made contact with a wet, stockinged foot and, with his heart almost at bursting point, he threw himself down to examine the motionless form beneath him. She was still breathing! Quickly he raised her in his arms and called for assistance and many eager hands reached down to help lift Harriet’s limp body out of his grasp. Gasping for air, he took hold of the joist to pull himself out of the choking atmosphere when, with a roaring explosion, the burning trap-door fell into the cellar and immediately set the straw alight. The force of the blast threw the viscount to the ground where, for several interminable moments, he lay completely stunned. It was only when the sound of Tiptree’s voice screaming at him from above finally penetrated his fading senses that he managed to right himself sufficiently to enable the horrified groom to haul him from the inferno. Then, for the first time in his life, he swooned dead away.