Page 24 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

She must get out. She must find him, save him.

In the distance she heard screams, horrible sounds of unending agony. That time would come for her as well, she knew. Closer, there were shouts and jeers, the rumble of conversation in the crowd. She could feel their hatred, sense their excitement. They wanted the spectacle of her death.

“Help me. My child. Help me. Please.”

The crackle grew louder, the air so hot it seared her lungs. The kindling was blazing now, the fire catching the larger, heavier logs. She tried to pull away from the flames, but she could not move. Frantically, she twisted and turned to no avail.

Something was lashed around her waist, tying her firmly to the hard post behind her. Sobbing, she tore at the heavy rope, clawing and pulling in desperation. Her wrists were bound as well, making it more difficult to gain any purchase on the thick, rough fiber.

Raising her face to the heavens, she screamed, “Release me...!”

THISBE JOLTED AWAKE. Her heart was racing, her stomach knotted in terror. She was soaked in sweat. The memory of smoke and fire was so vivid, so frightening, that she slipped out of bed and eased open the door into the hallway to look for signs of fire. Nothing glowed anywhere. There was no smell of smoke. It was only a nightmare.

A most peculiar nightmare. There had been none of the running or falling or the frantic sense of being late that occupied most of her nightmares. It had been all fire and fear. Why had she dreamed of fire? There was no fire in the house, no smell of smoke. The room was chilly. Thisbe had a healthy fear of fire, but not an abnormally strong one. And nothing that happened today had anything to do with a fire.

More specifically, why had she dreamed of being burned at the stake, for surely that was what she had envisioned—bound to a post, fire all around her? The danger in her dreams was usually nebulous, even unknown. But this had been vivid and detailed to an unusual extent.

It was easy to see why she had pleaded for help. But why had she said, “My child?” Thisbe didn’t have a child and nor did anyone close to her. Even more disturbing, the voice she’d heard had not been her own.

It was almost as if she’d been dreaming someone else’s nightmare.

That thought sent a little shiver through her. Thisbe realized how cold she was, standing here in only her cotton nightgown. She hurried back to get into bed, rubbing her arms. She flinched at the little dart of pain in her fingertips. Frowning, she lit the candle at her bedside and looked down at her hands. Her nails were ragged, one of them torn, and the ends of her fingers were red and raw.

Just as if she had been clawing at a rough rope.

DESMOND PEERED INTO one of the eyepieces of the contraption in front of him. Well, that idea hadn’t worked. He raised his head and considered the problem, idly making designs on the paper before him. He was amazingly lacking in disappointment, considering that his most recent attempt to build a spectrographic instrument had failed. But it was hard to feel anything but good; he would see Thisbe on Sunday. He smiled to himself.

Meeting her at the reading room was less than ideal. Of course, they could take a stroll together afterward and talk, but he would miss that hour of sitting beside her, keenly aware of her presence. It also felt somehow furtive, as if they were setting up a tryst, which he supposed they were, with the difference that they would be in public view, instead of hiding in private.

He wished like the devil that he could meet her in private. It was wonderful to walk with her and talk and laugh—he thought he’d never laughed, or even smiled, as much in his life as he had with her. But he wanted quite desperately to touch her arm or hold her hand, even if it was encased in her glove. He wanted most of all to hold her. To feel her body in his arms, to drink in the scent of her. To kiss her.

Desmond shifted on his stool. It was foolish to think about that. He knew nothing would come of this romance in the end; he should enjoy the moment, take what he had and not think about what he wanted and the obstacles that lay between him and that future. In truth, it boiled down to one obstacle: he was a man with no prospects.

He sighed and tossed aside the pencil, the thought that had been nagging at him all day returning: Why had Thisbe wanted to meet him at the museum? Why had she not suggested he call on her? Why had she never allowed him to escort her all the way to her home?

Her reasons had been logical—he needed to go to work, it was cold and he wasn’t wearing a coat, and so on. But he couldn’t help but think that she didn’t want him to know where she lived.

Desmond could think of several reasons why that was so, none of them in his favor. The most lowering one was that she was ashamed of him. The most gut piercing was the idea that she was married. In between lay strict fathers who didn’t allow her to have men call on her or embarrassment about where she lived or of someone in her family. Unfortunately, the ones in the middle were the least likely. A strict father would not let his daughter go off to lectures on her own, much less spend the entire afternoon there. She obviously loved her family and talked about them with affection. And she dressed too well to be living in a hovel.

The obvious reason was that she didn’t want her family to see Desmond. Even the laxest of fathers wouldn’t be pleased to have his daughter courted by a man with no prospects, and as a scholar he would be singularly unimpressed by a man who hadn’t attended Oxford, as he and her brothers had. Even worse, Desmond had not managed to stay the course at any university.

There was a polished quality about Thisbe—and presumably her entire family—that Desmond knew he did not have. However good his grammar, however little of his Dorset accent remained, his speech did not have that certain tone that bespoke refinement. His clothes were cheaply made, his hair shaggy. His background was... Well, there was nothing there to be proud about, really, other than that he had managed to leave it behind.

He was the sort of man who lost his gloves, who forgot his coat even though the temperature was freezing, who never noticed the time and was often late, who could talk for hours on a subject that put everyone else to sleep. He would never make enough money to support a family, and what money he had he was apt to spend on his research or a book. In short, he was not a man one wanted to introduce to one’s parents.

Well. He’d certainly managed to punch a hole in the balloon of his happiness. Desmond turned back to his nonfunctioning instrument. He would probably have to take the whole thing apart.

At that moment, the door to the laboratory was flung open, letting in a blast of winter air, and Carson came in, a grin on his face. “I have news. You’ll like this, Professor Gordon.”

“I will?” Gordon stood up from his table, pushing up his spectacles. “Have you discovered something?”

“I have indeed.” Now that he had their attention, Carson sauntered over to his table and set down his hat, a cat-that-ate-the-canary look on his face. “I have learned that the Dowager Duchess of Broughton is in town.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

DESMOND’S JAW DROPPED, and Gordon surged toward the man. Everyone began to throw out questions.

“Are you certain?”