A Duke In Need Of A Wife. ANNIE BURROWS

       Chapter One

      July 1814

      It all happened so fast.

      One moment, everyone was oohing and aahing at the cascade of red and gold sparks bursting into the night sky. The next, they were screaming and running as a sheet of flame erupted with a sound that put Sofia in mind of a fusillade of cannon.

      Worse still, the bigger people were shoving the smaller, slower-moving ones out of their way. In the panic, a tall man elbowed Sofia right in her eye as he spun away from the exploding fireworks. A split second later someone else deliberately shoved her aside. What with the blow to the face, the shove and the surge of running people, Sofia felt herself beginning to lose her footing.

      Already scared, Sofia now faced the terrifying prospect of being trampled underfoot. Fortunately, the man who’d shoved her out of his way had shoved her in the direction of a clump of sturdy-looking bushes. All Sofia had to do was alter her topple into a deliberate dive and she ended up underneath them, rather than under the pounding feet of the fleeing mob.

      Her heart was pounding, her limbs were shaking, but she was safe—if a bit bruised and grubby. Still, for once she’d have a jolly good excuse for returning to her aunt and uncle covered in leaves and mud. For once, she could lay the blame squarely at the feet of the beast who’d pushed her out of his way, rather than having to confess that she’d had to dig her dog out of a rabbit burrow, or rescue her from a boggy patch of meadow, or one of the many other mishaps which so regularly seemed to befall her when exploring Uncle Ned’s estates.

      It took a remarkably short time for the massive crowd which had gathered to watch the fireworks display to disperse.

      Still unsure that it would be safe to emerge from her cover, Sofia gingerly raised herself on one elbow and peered out from under the lower branches to see what was going on.

      Uncle Ned had bought the most expensive tickets to this event which Burslem Bay’s town council had put on to celebrate the peace with France. It had not only included the price of supper, but also the right to stand halfway up the castle mound, ensuring the best view of the fireworks. It meant that even from beneath the bushes, Sofia could still clearly see that the scaffolding on which the fireworks display had been mounted was now well ablaze.

      She could also hear someone screaming. She raised herself a bit further and saw, to her horror, right beneath the flaming scaffolding, in the area where the servants and shopkeepers had been standing, a woman with her skirts on fire.

      A woman all on her own, desperately swatting at the flames, which were now licking up her sleeves. Sofia had seen something similar in her childhood, when a stray rocket had set a magazine, as well as the men nearest to it, ablaze, so she knew that the woman ought to lie on the ground and roll, not leap about the way she was doing. But this was England in peacetime, not a fortress on high alert. Which meant she could well be the only person here who knew what needed doing.

      So Sofia wriggled out from under the shrubbery and began running back down the slope as fast as she could, desperately hoping she’d be strong enough to wrestle the panicked woman to the ground and extinguish the flames before it was too late. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed two men also running in the same direction—two of the waiters who’d served at supper, to judge from the white shirts they wore, with blue sashes wrapped round their waists. They reached the burning woman first. One of them pushed her to the ground. The other one, who was slightly behind him, and who’d clearly had the presence of mind to grab a champagne bucket on his way, upended the contents over the unfortunate woman, putting out most of the flames at once.

      By the time Sofia got there, the waiters had extinguished all the flames and were standing back, breathing heavily and looking a bit sick at the state of the poor woman who lay there moaning and shaking.

      Most of one side of her dress had gone and her hair looked as though it, too, had been singed. Sofia wasn’t surprised the woman was trembling. Her clothing had caught fire, she’d been flung to the ground by one burly man and then had ice-cold water thrown over her by another. She’d felt pretty shaky herself when she’d been lying on the ground, after two men had treated her rather roughly. And her gown had only been ripped a bit. It hadn’t melted away, leaving her legs exposed.

      How she wished there was something she could do for the poor woman.

      Well, actually, there was. She tore at the fastening of her cloak, and, falling to her knees beside the woman, flung it over her body. It might not be able to stop the tremors racking the poor creature, but at least it would prevent the two men from being able to look at her exposed limbs.

      ‘Don’t just stand there staring,’ she shouted at them. ‘This woman needs medical attention! One of you run and fetch a doctor!’

      The two men exchanged a glance.

      ‘I say...’ one of them began to protest.