of the blue satin lining gaped open, the threads dangling. She probed inside and drew forth an oiled paper, folded over several times, brown and bedraggled in the dim light from the lamps.
Her games didn’t interest him now. Only Alicia, still in Hailstock’s power. But Alicia was frowning, watching her mother. Then Lady Eleanor pushed the unfolded paper into his hand.
He looked down, and his gaze riveted to the page. Spidery handwriting on an official-looking document. Beneath it, a second paper, a statement signed and notarized.
Ghostly prickles ran over his skin. He gripped the papers tightly. Lady Eleanor had had these documents with her all the time. A marriage certificate. And proof of his birth. If he’d had any doubts before, he didn’t now. He was legitimate, born of Claire, Lady Hailstock.
“Are those the papers?” Hailstock asked hoarsely. “Give them here.”
“I’ll do better than that,” Drake said. “I’ll save you the trouble of burning them.”
Striding to the edge of the dais, he pulled the lamp closer and lifted the glass chimney. Alicia uttered a choked gasp as he touched the documents to the flame. He looked straight at her, willing her to believe in him again. The oiled paper took a moment to catch.
Then he jerked his gaze to Hailstock. “Let her go now.”
His face stark with surprise, Hailstock said in a raw, incredulous voice, “You really do mean it. You don’t want the title.”
“I never did.”
Moving as slowly as an old man, the marquess lowered the pistol and loosed his hold on Alicia. She darted away, descending from the dais and drawing her mother back into the shadows. Drake felt a boundless relief at her safety, greater even than his satisfaction at burning these documents. He wanted to go to her, to hold her in his arms, to reassure himself that she belonged to him.
The racket of wheels sounded from behind him. He kept his gaze on the smoldering documents, watching the edges blacken. “You’ll want to witness this, James. Now you can keep your bloody damned title—”
The chair careened into him. Drake staggered sideways; his shoulder struck the lamp. He heard the shattering of glass as momentum threw him to the floor.
Without the documents.
James had snatched the papers away. He’d lunged for them with such force, he’d thrown himself out of his chair and landed onto the parquet floor. With his bare hands, he beat out the flame. But larger flames raced toward him, the spilled oil pouring down from the dais in a stream of fire.
Even as Drake leapt to his feet, Hailstock scrambled off the dais, slipping on the spilled oil as he shoved James to safety. Drake sprang forward to drag James well away from danger.
Then gut instinct sent him surging toward the doorway to shout, “Fire!”
Mrs. Yates must have been waiting outside in case a scuffle arose. Carrying rugs to beat out the flames, she and several footmen ran into the ballroom.
Drake tore off his coat and raced back toward the blaze. An agonized cry echoed through the ballroom.
The sound made his stomach curdle. He spied a figure by the dais, encased in flame, a living pillar of fire.
Hailstock.
The marquess staggered away from the dais. Alicia frantically tried to put out the flames with the moleskin cape. In a flash of movement, Drake reached his father, thrusting him to the floor, smothering the flames with his coat. But it was too late. The marquess lay badly burned, breathing in ragged gasps, his face a mass of charred flesh.
Drake crouched beside him. He called to one of the footmen, “Fetch a doctor!” The man dashed toward the doorway.
Caught in his own private hell, Drake had a numb awareness of the other servants extinguishing the last flames, and the choking smoke in the air. Alicia had shielded her mother from Hailstock. They knelt by Mrs. Philpot, who sat up, coughing. Mrs. Yates helped her to her feet.
James hitched himself forward by his elbows. His voice rough with pain, he whispered, “Father.”
The marquess groaned. His breath rattled in his throat and then ceased. James uttered a low cry, reaching out to touch his father’s unmoving chest. Then he bent his head and wept.
Drake pressed his fingers against his burning eyes. A welter of emotion choked him, the longing he’d felt for a father’s love, the regrets that he couldn’t change the past. Hailstock had given his own life to save his younger son. And Drake had to admire him for that.
He didn’t know how long he and