An Affair So Right (Rebel Hearts #4)(6)

“Mr. Small! Mr. Dennis Small!” her mother cried. “Are you here, sir?”

Theodora stared at the soot-covered crowd anxiously. “Mr. Small! Are you here?”

Her mother continued to call out, in a voice that soon became laced with pain and exhaustion.

“Mr. Dennis Small. Show yourself.” Lord Deacon lent his louder voice to Mother’s, and they moved away. Deacon continued to call out in a huge voice that slowly faded as they disappeared from sight.

“I’m here,” a croaking voice suddenly replied to Theodora’s left.

Theodora searched for the sound, and found the man prone on the ground, soot-covered and almost unrecognizable as Mr. Small. He raised one hand toward her and then let it drop.

Theodora rushed to his side, astonished he’d been so close all along, and that she’d been too wrapped up in her fear for her father to notice his suffering.

Part of Mr. Small’s hair had been scorched. His right cheek, from eyebrow to jaw, was red and blistered down one side, and his coat sleeve was in tatters, too. “Mr. Small! Oh, how terrible that you are hurt. But do you know if my father went to his club tonight?”

“I tried to reach him, but the flames were too thick between us,” Small croaked. “He wouldn’t listen. He could have saved himself if he’d not been so stubborn.”

“It’s all right. You tried.” Theodora slumped onto the ground at his side, all the fight leaving her as she accepted that her father had perished in the blaze. “I’m sure he would have listened to you if he could.”

Theodora wiped away her tears and noted a man kneeling at Mr. Small’s other side. Big and brawny, the fellow wasn’t in their employ, or known to her, either. He too was covered in soot though, so he must have tried to fight the blaze. “Thank you for all you have done tonight, sir. Might I know your name?”

Mr. Small grasped the other man’s coat. “Don’t,” he wheezed.

Theodora glanced between the men. “Do you know each other?”

“No,” Small gasped. He coughed, and kept coughing so violently that the other man had to support him through the worst of the spasms.

Theodora blinked back tears and raised her face to the gathering crowd. Maitland had lingered, his face inscrutable beneath the black soot. “This man needs a physician.”

Maitland shouted out to another man to come running.

Small grasped her arm suddenly, pulling her near until they were eye to eye. “He started the fire, Theodora.”

“What?” Theodora stilled. “No.”

“Your father. Started the blaze. He killed himself.” Small sank back, hissing in pain as a well-dressed man arrived and made an attempt to examine Mr. Small’s wounds, despite his protests. “He would have killed us all!”

The physician darted a glance in her direction, then focused on his patient without looking at her again.

Theodora was tugged to her feet, too stunned to do more than stare down in horror at Mr. Small. The accusation her father had started the fire was ridiculous. He would never endanger his family. He would never shame them by killing himself.

She glanced up and found Maitland looming over her again. She swallowed at his sour expression. “What did you hear?”

“Enough.” He shook his head. “The smoke has confused the man,” he said in a loud voice that carried well beyond their immediate surroundings. “I’ve seen it many times in battle.”

A reasonable explanation, but when Maitland grabbed her elbow, she shook him off and crouched down next to Mr. Small instead. “My father would never have done that. Take it back!”

“I saw him,” Small insisted, and then cried out in pain as his burned sleeve was cut away, exposing seared flesh. He bared his teeth as liquid from a flask was poured over the arm. “I saw him. I saw him! He started it all. I swear,” Small said through clenched teeth, hissing and spitting in pain. “He had a pistol to keep me back,” he said in a voice rising in volume. “I had to leave. He would have killed me, too.”

Theodora sucked in a sharp breath. Death by suicide always brought shame and scandal to those left behind. And endless gossip. Small’s ridiculous claim could ruin them. “You are mistaken. He wouldn’t have done that. He was murdered. Speak the truth!”

The crowd began to mutter and draw closer to hear what was said next.

The physician pushed at Mr. Small’s chest with just his fingertips and then sighed. “There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with him beside the burn, and there are others who need me. I’ll return shortly,” the physician announced before he stood and pushed his way through the crowd.

“He was dead before the flames took him,” Small insisted. But then his eyes rolled back in his head, and his heels drummed on the ground suddenly.

The man sitting beside Small grabbed him, but then Small exhaled and slumped in his grip…and never moved again. The big man fumbled for Mr. Small’s wrist, seeking a pulse, and then exhaled. “He’s gone.”

Theodora had no strength to do more than stare.

Mr. Small was dead—and the accusation her father had killed himself, had tried to kill them all, remained.

Maitland captured her about the waist and carried her away.

“No.” Theodora could not accept anything she’d heard tonight. She clutched at Maitland’s arm as darkness closed around them. “He couldn’t have done it.”