It might have been all of ten minutes, an hour, or perhaps an eternity before they’d sifted through the carnage of the manse to make certain everyone was out.
Cecelia wiped dirt and sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, panting with exertion as she went back in once again after depositing a dazed and only partially dressed girl from upstairs on the front terrace. A cigarette girl, Melisandre, had fallen into her own wardrobe, cracking her head on a corner when the blast had occurred. But it seemed her confusion had as much to do with shock and a general personality trait than a head wound.
Though one could never be certain.
Cecelia thought she heard Ramsay say her name on the lawn, but her spectacles were too smudged with dirt and ash and possibly blood to see much in the bright afternoon.
Despite her growing sense of panic, she couldn’t leave anyone behind. So each time she deposited someone to the safety of the yard, she dove back into the manse with an increasing sense of doom.
She had to find Jean-Yves and Phoebe. Every time she searched, someone else reached for her, needed her, distracted her from her aim.
The aftermath wasn’t as dire as she’d initially feared.
And yet it was worse than she’d ever imagined.
Four dead. Four poor souls lost. Because of her, because of enemies she didn’t even know she had and had done nothing to cultivate.
The old woman Alexandra had found, then a French instructor named Veronique, her student, Jane, and a young footman who’d been in the residence.
They’d only found bits of him.
Nine others were wounded enough to need ambulances, which had been sent for and were, even now, racing up the drive in a thunder of hooves and masculine voices along with the police and the fire brigade.
Beyond that, minor cuts, abrasions, and burns seemed to be less cause for complaint than the emotional devastation of having undergone such an ordeal.
Cecelia paid no heed to the arriving armies of men and the gathering gawkers as she raced through the hall toward the rear of the main level, careening for the secret door that separated the residence from the business.
A familiar form limped out from the dust-clogged hallway amalgamating slowly through the filth on her spectacles.
“Winston!” she cried, running to him and letting him lean heavily upon her. He was caked with dust, dirt, and soot, and his wig was nowhere to be found.
He’d taken her family back to the residence. And if he’d survived, then … perhaps there was hope. “Winston, are you all right? Where are Jean-Yves and Phoebe?”
“The littl’un wanted to dig up a treasure in the gardens, madame!” The butler hollered as though the blast had taken away his ability to hear. “I don’t think they came back inside yet!”
Cecelia frantically called for help, handing the poor butler over to the first faceless person who could take him before picking up her skirts and dashing down a side hall toward the courtyard.
Her heart gave an electrified lurch as she found Phoebe hunched over a prone Jean-Yves in the gardens, shaking his limp shoulder.
Cecelia let out a raw sound of denial, unable to even form a word so simple as no as she rushed forward and sank to his side in a tuft of filthy skirts.
“He won’t wake up.” Phoebe half climbed into her lap. “He threw me across the hedge when the wall fell, and now he won’t wake up! Is he dead?” Her tiny body trembled in time with Cecelia’s as she struggled to speak through hysterical hiccups. “He can’t. Be dead. I’ve only. Just. Lost. Henrietta!” She gulped, her ability for speech dissolving completely.
Cecelia held Phoebe’s stricken face against her, clutching her close and crooning to her so the child couldn’t watch the tears stream down her own cheeks. All she wanted to do was collapse over him and dissolve into the mess of terrified sobs that had been threatening to overwhelm her since the day began.
But she simply couldn’t. Not now. Not yet. Jean-Yves needed her, for once, and she’d die before she failed him.
His shoulder and upper torso were covered in debris, and a small trail of blood leaked from one ear. He was so disturbingly still. His body, built wiry and strong with years of labor, seemed small against the pile of rubble and stone and a film of white chalk.
But his chest rose and fell with steady breaths.
Rejoicing, Cecelia pulled young Phoebe away from her bosom to look her in her watery eyes. “Darling, look, he’s breathing. He’s alive.”
“He is?” Phoebe sniffed.
“Yes, pet. But someone needs to go fetch an ambulance medic for Jean-Yves from the front lawn. Do you think you can do that whilst I try to lift these stones from his shoulder?”
Phoebe surged to her feet. “Don’t let him die before I get back!”
A lump in Cecelia’s throat obstructed a reply as Phoebe scampered away in her little black shoes and soiled pinafore.
It wasn’t a promise she was equipped to make on his behalf.
“Jean-Yves,” she whispered through a fall of tears as she reached over him, gingerly pulling bricks from his arm and shoulder. She spoke as she worked, trying to school the despair from her voice, careful not to start a fall of more stone and debris that could crush them both.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if you are tired of doing your best to look after us Rogues. You’ve spent ten years wiping our tears, suffering our absurd hilarities, and enduring our schemes.… I promise we won’t cause you any more trouble.… Just … don’t…” Her throat closed. She couldn’t say it. “I’m not ready to be without you.” Her voice broke, and she smoothed a mat of silver hair to his head.
“I know your sweet wife and lovely daughter might be calling you from the beyond, and I won’t hold it against you if you go to them.” She heaved and trembled beneath a particularly heavy stone before swiping at her tears with her sleeve. “Perhaps I’ve kept you too long,” she fretted. “Longer than I deserve. But … Phoebe needs a fatherly figure, and I can’t think of anyone better to—”
“You must not weep, mon bijou.” Jean-Yves’s hoarse, breathless voice washed over her like a miracle. “I cannot lift my hand to wipe your tears.”
Relief drove Cecelia to her knees, and she lifted his uninjured hand for him, holding it against her wet cheek. “I won’t!” she promised, even as her sobs increased.
“You ridiculous rapscallion,” he drawled, a grimace overtaking him as he coughed weakly. “I cannot open my eyes. The light, it is too bright, and I am so fatigued.”
“Don’t fall asleep,” she admonished, frightened that if he did, he truly would never wake again. How she wished she could dim the sun or call the eternal gray back over the London skies, if only to comfort him. “Phoebe will want to make certain you are all right. Promise me you won’t sleep before she returns.”
The girl in question arrived dragging a burly ambulance medic in her wake like a tiny blond tugboat. Another medic was followed by Francesca and Alexandra, each of them pale, filthy, and alarmed.
The medics freed Jean-Yves from the rest of the rubble, wrapped his head wound, and secured his arm to his chest with no small amount of foul language on Jean-Yves’s part.
“Do not fret, mon Rogues,” he grunted when they could finally load him onto a stretcher. “You are not ready to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world unchaperoned.”