Page 8 of The Duke's Only Desire

His head spun.Christ.There was no way to stop it! It had been coming for six years—no, for longer than that. From the day ten years ago when his mother left. But unlike her, thanks tothe contract hammered out between Lady Kelsey and Malvern, Sophie couldn’t flee. Doing so would bankrupt her entire family.

And Shay had just made life infinitely worse for her. For Sophie’s sake, he now had to make amends. After all, he could return to the death and carnage of battle, but she had to remain here with Malvern and Colsworth. In Hell.

Sucking in a deep breath, he turned back toward the stables to tend to John and face the demons that—

He froze. Blazing fire lit the black windows of the stables, and through the door he’d left open in his haste to leave, he saw flames creeping up the walls like hellish fingers reaching out gleefully to consume the building. Billows of smoke rose into the night. In their fighting, they must have knocked over the lantern.

“Fire!” he shouted and ran toward the stables. “Fire!”

A wall of heat and flames greeted him as he rushed inside, desperate to find John. The horses reared in their boxes, their frightened neighs piercing the growls and groans of the fire. The hay and old timbers fed the greedy flames, which lapped hungrily at the walls and stalls.

The heat burned his lungs with every inhalation. He placed his forearm in front of his nose and mouth in a futile attempt to filter the smoke as he made his way deeper into the building, toward the end of the aisle where he’d left John.

“John!” he shouted between coughs as his chest spasmed from smoke. He choked, barely able to find enough air, yet he kept going, kept calling out—

His brother lay unconscious on the floor. The fire had reached him. His clothes were ablaze, and smoke rose up from his boots. The tips of his fingers in the burning hay had charred to black. Shay stripped off his jacket and beat at the flames until he’d squelched them enough to grasp John by the arms and drag him toward the door.

Above them, the building gave an angry, dying groan. Shay glanced up and watched helplessly as the roof crashed down upon them.