Page 34 of The Heiress Masquerade (Dollar Princess #2)
A loud crack echoed in the distance, and Harrison came to an abrupt stop, his eyes scanning the woods ahead of him, listening intently for any threat, but the only thing he could hear was the birds fleeing their canopy of trees in response to the sound.
“What was that?” Mrs. Holbrook panted, coming to a halt beside him, her hands dropping to her knees as she dragged in several haggard breaths, resting her lantern on the ground.
“A gunshot,” Harrison replied, handing Mrs. Holbrook his lantern before he shrugged off his jacket and gave her that, too. He pulled out his pistol then took back the lantern with his other hand. “Go and get help, now.” Without looking back, he took off up the path, his lantern held in front of him as he raced up the uneven surface, sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him, heedless of the dangers of the night.
His heart was pounding like a freight train, not from the physical exertion, but from the terror of what he might confront ahead.
Please don’t let it be Aimee , he kept repeating over and over in his head as he urged himself to run faster up the path toward the cottage, jumping over the branches and rocks he caught sight of, while stumbling over some he didn’t see. He was probably still five minutes from the cottage, but even that could be too long. Faster . He had to move faster. He had to get there and save her if he wasn’t already too late…
No. He couldn’t think that way. He couldn’t. She was going to be fine. She was. She had to be.
But a few minutes later the smell of smoke hit him and his faith plummeted.
Ahead in the distance, where there should only be darkness, was an orange glow lighting up the night. A bright, incandescent sheen that could only be one thing… Fire . And it was coming from the direction the path was taking to the cottage.
It felt like the longest few minutes of his life as he ran toward the light, his legs pumping as hard as they could, while sweat dripped down his brow and the sky overhead cracked with thunder and then opened up, unleashing a deluge.
Heedless of the rain, he kept running until he crested a rise, only to be confronted by the sight of a cottage in the middle of a clearing, completely ablaze. The flames were bursting through the door and windows, fighting desperately against the sudden downpour, but lighting up the area as if it were day. It was then he noticed an old man on the grass, watching the fire burn while sobbing loudly, his clothes soaked to the bone.
Harrison ran up to him, holstering his pistol and putting his lantern on the ground. “Is anyone in there?” he yelled loudly, trying to be heard over the rain starting to fall in earnest.
Slowly, the man glanced up at Harrison and nodded, uncaring as the raindrops slammed onto his face. “Aye. I couldn’t save her, though…”
Without thought, Harrison raced for the cottage, but the wall of flames were viciously fighting to stay alive, the heat from them blistering in their intensity, despite slowly starting to be tamed by the rain. He ran around the house, trying to find some way in, but each opening was blanketed by flames, and there was no way through. He could only stare in frozen horror at the cottage and the inferno inside.
“She was already dead,” the man said beside him, having followed him.
Harrison spun around and grabbed the man’s shoulders, his words echoing like a dagger in his heart. “What do you mean she was already dead?”
The man sobbed lightly. “When I woke up after being clonked on me head, I could smell the smoke, so I rushed through the place seeing if anyone was still in there, and then I spotted her lying on the floor in the back room. Looked like she was asleep, but I saw all the blood pooling around her, and the horrible gunshot wound in her chest.” The man’s breath hitched. “I ain’t never seen such a horrible sight before. Her glassy eyes will haunt me forever…”
“You just left her there?” Harrison roared.
The man dipped his head and nodded. “There was no saving her, and by then the fire was licking at my feet, so I had to get out.”
“But what if she was still alive?” Harrison shook the man’s shoulders, much like he was a rag doll. “You could’ve tried to pull her out. You should have tried to save her!”
The man shook his head, deep remorse on his face. “There weren’t no saving her. God had already taken her.” He made the sign of a cross over his chest. “There was no mistaking that.”
“No. That can’t be!” Harrison glanced back to the cottage, the flames battling a hopeless fight against the rain, but having already been effective in their destruction…and Aimee was in there, dead? With an anguished cry, he dropped to his knees, unable to drag his eyes away from the blaze. He was too late to save her. And the pain of losing her was unbearable, like someone had ripped his heart from his chest and torn it in two.
He felt numb all over.
What a fool he’d been to let himself feel again, especially knowing the pain of losing his parents. And now he was going to have to live with the agony of losing her for the rest of his life.
“Harrison!” Aimee’s voice screamed from the tree line to his right, jolting him out of his stupor and making him question his sanity.
He whipped his head around as she raced across the clearing toward him, stumbling slightly with her hands tied in front of her, and her clothes and hair a wet mess, but she was alive… He staggered to his feet, a part of him disbelieving what he was seeing. “Aimee? You’re alive? But who’s dead in the cottage?”
“Deidre,” she replied as she rushed up to him. “Molly killed her. She’s behind everything and she’s got a shotgun.”
“Where is she?” Harrison asked, his voice thick as he resisted reaching for her and pulling her into his arms. But before Aimee could even answer, Molly and another man burst through the tree line about forty yards away. There was shock and anger on Molly’s face as she caught sight of him and raised her shotgun toward them.
He dragged Aimee behind him and drew out his revolver, then without hesitation he pulled the trigger, knowing there was no room for error. His bullet found its mark, hitting Molly in the chest. She jerked backward and collapsed to the ground, unmoving.
The man next to her stopped in his tracks and raised his hands up high in front of him as Harrison ran toward them, his pistol pointed at the man.
“Don’t shoot!” the man yelled, his voice a nasal plea. “I ain’t got no weapon.”
“Put your hands on your head and sit down,” he yelled to the man, scooping up Molly’s shotgun with his free hand, while Aimee bent down over Molly and checked her pulse.
“She’s dead,” Aimee said, glancing up at him.
Harrison nodded. He’d known she would be. He hadn’t had another choice.
“Molly?” Mrs. Holbrook’s voice echoed from the woods behind them and Harrison turned and saw her with Wilheimer and a contingent of his servants.
Mrs. Holbrook’s eyes darted down to Molly’s body on the ground. “Oh no, Molly,” she cried, rushing to them, her lantern bobbing up and down as she stopped just short of Molly, catching sight of the bullet wound in her chest. “Is she…dead?”
Harrison nodded. “She is. I’m sorry, Ann, I had no choice. She would have killed us if she’d gotten a shot off.”
“But why couldn’t you have just shot her in the a—arm?” Ann said, her voice catching. “Then she’d still be alive…”
“I might have missed,” he tried to explain. “She was running toward us.”
“She might have missed, too,” Ann replied. “She might have—”
“She had buckshot in her shotgun, Mrs. Holbrook,” Aimee interrupted. “So even if she’d missed hitting us directly, from this distance, the spray from her bullet would have been fatal.” She glanced up at Harrison, her eyes staring steadily into his. “He had no other choice but to aim for her chest to stop her, and he saved my life by doing so.”
Ann nodded. “I see… It’s just hard to believe she’s gone.” She glanced down at Molly and gulped, before averting her eyes back up to Aimee. “I know she wasn’t well, and had obviously become far more fixated on harming you than I’d realized, but can you tell me what happened this afternoon?”
Aimee nodded and recounted what had occurred after she’d left Harrison. Tears streamed down Ann’s face the entire time, while Harrison felt a gut-wrenching sickness to his stomach realizing how much peril she’d been in. She’d been so close to being taken from him forever…which had nearly undone him. It would only be all the worse in the future if he did succumb and give his heart to her, more than he already had.
He didn’t think he was strong enough to risk such devastation again. Not after his parents. Not ever again.