see was the west wing of the extensive property, and at present that was not a pretty view because for many weeks that part of the building had been shrouded in unsightly scaffolding while it was being converted into staff accommodation. It was a clear night, without clouds, and when Lindy was closing the curtains shortly before midnight she immediately noticed a puff of smoke issuing from the roof. A frown line dividing her brow, she stared until she saw another, floating up slowly into the night sky. There was no chimney, and nobody living there yet either. She snatched in a dismayed breath, her fingers biting into the curtain as she peered out at the house. She was striving to crush back the bone-deep terror of fire that was already bringing her out in a cold sweat. Could it really be a fire? A suspicion of an orange glow behind a formerly blank window unfroze her from her position. She immediately reached for the phone to call the emergency services.
Then, in a frantic rush, she raced downstairs and snatched up her mobile phone to ring Phoebe Carstairs, who lived in the village and was the sister of Emma, who ran the animal sanctuary.
Phoebe ran out into her garden to take a look at Chantry House from across the fields.
‘Oh, my goodness, I can see the smoke from here! We’ll have to try and get the house cleared—it’s full of priceless furniture and paintings!’ Phoebe exclaimed in consternation.
‘Phoebe…’ Lindy interrupted as the other woman outlined her plan to call in the neighbours to help. ‘Is there anyone staying in the house at present?’
‘Mr Dionides arrived this afternoon…Oh, yes, and the cat—Dolly. I borrowed her from Emma to catch mice. I’m trying to call Mr Dionides…on the landline right now…but he’s not answering. Oh, no, maybe he’s been overcome by smoke! Look, you’re much closer than I am. You’d better go and knock him up before he gets incinerated in his bed!’
Wincing in reaction at that unfortunate turn of phrase, and suppressing the panic and reluctance awakened by Phoebe’s instruction, Lindy fled outside and jumped on her bike. She knew she had no choice but to get involved, and she was determined not to let her fear of fire prevent her from doing what she had to do. She pedalled frantically down the drive. There were no lights on. The mansion looked dead. Letting the bike fall to the gravel, she took the steps to the front door two at a time and hammered as noisily as she could on the giant knocker. Breathless and fiercely concerned, she kept on thumping the knocker until her arm ached and she had to change hands. By the time the big door finally opened, she could hear cars coming up the drive.
‘What the hell—? It’s after midnight.’ Atreus Dionides stared out at her with a frown of incomprehension. He was still fully dressed in an elegant pinstriped suit. With his luxuriant black hair dishevelled and a blue-black shadow of stubble roughening his strong jawline, he was no longer immaculate in appearance, but he looked startlingly masculine and…sexy, Lindy conceded—in some shock at this awareness occurring to her. Her tummy flipped, and perspiration dampened her short upper lip. She was embarrassed for herself.
‘The west wing is on fire!’ she gasped.
Atreus dealt her a look of frank incredulity. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Look, your house is on fire…don’t be pigheaded!’ Lindy yelled at him, sensing that being obstinate and independent of thought ran through his every fibre, like a name stamped indelibly into a stick of seaside rock.
Atreus strode down the steps. ‘On…fire?’
‘West wing. Top floor!’
His long, powerful legs cut the distance to the corner of the house at a rate she could not keep up with. Once there, he stilled at the sight of the glow lighting the darkness, while Lindy’s tummy gave a sickening lurch and cold fear chilled her to the marrow. A biting phrase of guttural Greek escaped him before he was galvanised into action.
Several powerfully built men had already jumped out of a big four-wheel-drive to race across the gravel towards him. Lindy recognised the musclebound males who seemed to travel everywhere with him as his bodyguards. He rapped out instructions to them and they walked straight into the house.
‘Is it safe to let them go inside?’ Lindy queried worriedly.
‘If it were not I would not send them. The seat of the fire is a considerable distance from the library,’ Atreus responded loftily, his irritation at that suggestion of censure unconcealed. ‘My laptop and sensitive papers must be retrieved.’
Lindy could not credit that he could still be concentrating solely on business when the superb paintings she could see decorating the hall walls were under threat. Didn’t he appreciate how terrifyingly fast a fire could move through a building? A terrifying shiver of remembrance that was a powerful hangover from her childhood experiences ran through her. Clenching her hands into fists of restraint, she turned away to approach Phoebe, who was surrounded by a cluster of locals. All of them were frozen into inactivity in the weird fascination of spectators watching a potential disaster develop.
‘There’s no time to waste. Let’s get the artworks out,’ Lindy urged.
A chain of willing helpers formed, and the first paintings were removed and passed out through the windows from hand to hand. Lindy, always a talented organiser, co-ordinated the effort, and once the Dionides bodyguards and estate workers joined them the salvage operation began to function with greater speed and efficiency. Two fire engines arrived and Atreus went into immediate consultation with the senior officer in charge. Ladders went up and hoses began to cover the ground. Chantry House sat on a hill, and water would have to be pumped up from the lake if the flames got a firm hold.
The task of clearing valuables from the vast mansion was eased by the fortunate fact that many of the rooms were awaiting redecoration and still empty. As the pressure on the salvage operation lessened Lindy watched in fierce trepidation as jets of water were directed into the burning building and billowing clouds of black smoke poured into the night sky. Even the smell of the smoke in the air made her feel queasy.
‘The fire’s travelling through the roof void,’ Atreus ground out.
‘Did the cat get out okay?’ Lindy asked, belatedly recalling Dolly, the animal the housekeeper had mentioned.
Atreus urged her back onto the lawn as the orange glare behind a sash window loudly cracked the glass. ‘What cat? I don’t have animals in the house.’
Lindy dealt him a look of consternation and raced over to Phoebe. A storage lorry was reversing in readiness to load the paintings stacked on the tarpaulins that had been spread on the grass.
‘Did Dolly get out?’ Lindy asked frantically.
‘Oh! I forgot about her!’ the older woman admitted guiltily. ‘I closed her in the kitchen for the night. I didn’t want to risk her getting out and wandering round the house.’
The fire team in the hallway told her she couldn’t enter the building. Tears of frustration in her eyes, Lindy pelted round to the back of the house. Would she really have the courage to go inside? she asked herself fiercely, doubting her strength of will in the face of such a challenge? The back door lay open. Her legs felt weak and woolly. She thought about the cat and, sucking in a deep jagged breath, conquered her paralysis and stumbled forward to race into the house. She sped down the flagged corridor and past innumerable closed doors. For a split second she froze in fear, for the smell of the smoke was rousing ever more frightening memories. But commonsense intervened and she snatched up a towel in the laundry room and held it to her face because the acrid smoke was catching horribly at her nose and her throat. Long before she reached the
