“Here’s another possible reason,” Slade said, hurrying me up the stairs. “What if Lord Eastbourne realized that the weapon was too dangerous to use? He wouldn’t want to be associated with it.”
“If he knew that he’d managed to trap two witnesses in the fire, he would be delighted.”
“This is what you get for refusing to leave when you had the chance!”
Smoke pervaded the house; we coughed and choked. We reached an attic, and Slade threw open a window. The air that poured in was hot and smoky, and I could hear the flames roaring louder. Slade climbed out the window and dropped some ten feet to the roof of a cupola. “Jump!” he shouted, arms raised.
I offered up a silent prayer and jumped. For a brief, terrifying moment I fell, my skirts ballooning, my heart in my mouth. Then Slade’s arms were tight around me. He set me on the roof. We looked down, in dismay. The ground was more than thirty feet beneath us, and there were no trees near enough to climb down. The entire main story of the house was ablaze. I heard bells ringing in the distance, calling out the fire brigades, but they surely wouldn’t arrive soon enough. We were doomed.
“Miss Bronte!” a voice called from below.
I had heard that voice too often for my liking. Astonished, I peered down. “Mr. Heald?”
“Yes, it’s me!”
“Who?” Slade said.
“Oliver Heald,” I said. “An acquaintance of mine.”
Accompanied by scraping, bumping sounds, Mr. Heald appeared amid the trees and smoke. “At your service, Miss Bronte.” He looked up at me with his usual, cheery smile. He was dragging a ladder.
“What’s he doing here?” Slade asked.
“He must have followed me. Again.” Once again I hadn’t spotted him, even though he must have trailed me all the way from Haworth to the Lake District to London to Tonbridge, as unlikely as it sounds. And Slade had been too distracted to notice Mr. Heald lurking in our vicinity. I laughed, because once I could have smacked Mr. Heald for his nerve, but now I could have kissed him.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Slade said.
Mr. Heald positioned the ladder against the cupola. Slade made me go first. Mr. Heald held the ladder steady while I descended. Its base was so close to the flaming wall of the house that my skirts were singed. But I landed safely, and so did Slade, a moment later.
“Thank you,” I said to Mr. Heald.
“Anything for my favorite author,” he said with a little bow.
“Run!” shouted Slade.
He hurried us away from the house. As we ran across the weedy grass, the gas ignited and the house exploded. The boom was louder than the loudest thunder. A great wave of force rose up under me, lifted me off my feet, and slammed against my back. We crashed flat on the ground. I looked over my shoulder. The house was a mass of flames. They roared and spewed; they stained the night sky orange. Black smoke writhed around the chimneys, which toppled as the roof caved in. Windows shattered. Glass fragments blew out. Flying debris pelted us.
Slade was on his feet, pulling Mr. Heald and me to ours. “Come on!”
We hastened toward the edge of the property. My right knee had hit the ground hard when I fell. Supported by Slade and Mr. Heald, I limped. Trees loomed between us and the wall that enclosed the workhouse. I heard a series of smaller booms. At first I thought they were more explosions inside the house. Then something hit the ground in front of me. Dirt flew up.
“Gunfire!” Slade said. “Take cover!”
“Who’s shooting?” Mr. Heald said as we raced toward the trees. He looked terrified. I felt sorry for him because all he’d wanted was to be near me, and he hadn’t bargained on this.
“It’s Lord Eastbourne and his men,” I said. “They must have stayed to make sure the house was destroyed. They saw us. They can’t allow us to live.”
“Who is Lord Eastbourne?” Mr. Heald said.
“I’ll explain later.”
The trees seemed miles away. I hobbled as fast as I could. More shots boomed, kicking up more dirt around us. They came from our left. I looked that way, and so did Slade. He said, “It’s not Lord Eastbourne.”
A man was running toward us, a pistol raised in his hand. His blond hair gleamed in the firelight. He was Wilhelm Stieber’s minion, the athletic one. Just before we reached the trees, he fired again. Slade knocked me down on the ground. The bullet hissed over us. Another shot blared from our right. Mr. Heald shrieked, spun in a circle, and stumbled.
“He’s been shot!” I cried.
“Get inside the woods!” Slade ordered. He caught Mr. Heald before he could fall. “Go!”
As I crawled beneath the trees, I glimpsed a man near the barn. He stood in darkness, the barn screening him from the fire. The moonlight silvered the barrel of his gun, reflected in his pale eyes. It was Wilhelm Stieber.
That glimpse lasted only a second, but I knew Stieber had seen me and recognized me. I burrowed into the woods like a rabbit hiding from a hawk. Slade followed, dragging Mr. Heald. We stopped by the wall. Slade laid Mr. Heald on the ground.
I bent over Mr. Heald. I called his name. “Where were you shot?”
He groaned. Moonlight sifted through the foliage, and I saw that his face was deathly gray, his eyes and mouth wide open as he gasped for air. The front of his shirt was drenched with blood.
“Stay calm,” I urged. “We’re going to help you.”
Slade ripped open Mr. Heald’s shirt. His chest was awash in blood that flowed from a hole at his right breast. The hole made a sucking, gurgling sound every time he breathed.
“The bullet went in his lung,” Slade said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“Then we must take him to a physician!”
Mr. Heald’s gasps weakened. I seized his hand. It gripped mine in a convulsive spasm. He stared pleadingly up at me. His lips formed my name. Then his breaths ceased; his hand went limp, his gaze vacant.
“He’s dead,” Slade said.
“No!” I cried. Sorrow magnified all the gratitude and guilt I felt toward Mr. Heald. He’d saved my life, and I’d never even signed his beloved copy of Jane Eyre.
In the distance, the fire still roared; crashes came from the house as it collapsed. Footsteps crunched through the woods toward us. Slade dragged me away from Mr. Heald. “Stieber and his men are coming. We have to go.”
31
We made our way into town along a circuitous route. When we reached the high street, it must have been near nine o’clock; no other people were about. The buildings were dark, although the sky glowed orange from the burning workhouse. Slade stopped short of the Rose and Crown. “We’ll say goodbye here.”
I felt a panic as strong as when we’d been trapped in the fire. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the laboratory,” Slade said, “to find Stieber. He wants me more than he wants you. I’ll lure him and his men away from Tonbridge and deliver him to justice. You’ll be safe.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Stay here,” Slade said. “I’ll deal with Stieber. I’ll exonerate us. You needn’t worry about anything.”
It was so like him to try to take on the world single-handedly. I loved him for his valor. But he’d placed me on a pedestal because he thought I was too good for him, and I was finding it most uncomfortable. I chafed at sitting idle while he fought on my behalf, and the past had shown that we could accomplish more together than separately.
I sought an excuse to prevent Slade from leaving. “There’s blood on your shirt. “You’re injured.”
Slade glanced down at his shoulder. “It’s only a scratch.”
I walked around him, inspected him, and gasped. “Your back is covered with blood!”
Indeed, his shirt looked as if it had been dyed crimson and ripped to shreds. He twisted around to see. “I must have been hit by debris from the explosion. I didn’t even notice.”
“You had better see a physician,” I said.