Love and Justice For a Wallflower

Love & Justice For a Wallflower Aline Francis Neechie Girl Publishing Copyright © 2023 by Aline Francis & Neechie Girl Publishing. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. Contents Prologue 1. Art of An Ultimatum 2. A Case to Embark On 3. Her Familiar Friend 4. Confession of Attraction 5. Longing For Assurance 6. Paying a Visit 7. Yet Another Dance 8. Surviving The Blast 9. With Her Hair Down 10. Dangerous Duty 11. Clash of Confrontation 12. Promises In the Dead of Night 13. A Revelation 14. Attempt To Escape Fate 15. Love and Justice Epilogue Did You Love The Story? Like Free Books? Prologue London | 1819 Smoke teased her nostrils. Fear lanced through her sleep. Lydia sat up straight in her bed, smelling the acrid scent floating into her suite through the door jamb, between the door and the floor. A faint orange glow framing the doorway forced her out of bed and into a robe, panic drying her mouth. “Anna?” Lydia suddenly remembered. Her abigail, Anna, no longer slept in the suite with her. The orange glow illuminated her room enough to permit her to navigate to the door, then swing it open. Thick smoke filled the corridor, the flickering flames lighting the staircase to her right. Lydia glanced left, observing only smoke but no flames in that direction. Althea! Ian! Coughing, holding her robe’s sleeve over her mouth and nose, Lydia ran to the nursery down the hall. Flinging the door open, she cried, “Althea! Ian!” Like her abigail, the children’s nurse had departed the previous day. Rushing inside, Lydia called her siblings' names, terrified they’d already been overwhelmed by the dense dark fog that swirled ominously in the big room. Smothering her coughs, half-blinded by stinging tears, Lydia fought to locate her small sister and brother. “Althea!” The choking and gagging she’d heard led her straight to Althea’s bed. The little girl coughed, fighting for breath while young Ian crawled across the floor toward Lydia. He cried, sobbing with fear, and seized Lydia’s legs. “Come on.” Lydia picked him up and seized Althea’s small hand. “We must hurry. We have to get downstairs.” “I’m scared,” Althea shrieked, gasping, pulling away. “Where’s Mama? Mama!” “Come with me now,” Lydia ordered, half-dragging her seven-year-old sister with her. “We’ll find Mama and Papa. Come.” The wicked flames crept down the hall toward the nursery, setting afire the paper on the walls, the precious paintings Lydia had adored all her life. None of that mattered now. If she didn’t get her siblings, and herself, out of the house, they would all perish. The flickering thought of her parents’ safety crossed her mind, but Lydia could only pray they’d make it out as well. “Down,” she gasped, pushing the children to the floor. “Get down. We can breathe down here.” The fire roared with a real voice as Lydia pushed the crying, screaming Althea and Ian ahead of her, crawling on their bellies, seeking the stairs and the safety of the lower portion of the big house. Terror blinded her even as she reached the stairs, shoving her siblings down them. Pursued, she slid down the carpet as though oiled, hoping and praying she’d discover her father rushing up to help them. Reaching the main floor and the crisping tiles, Lydia saw a faint shadow and heard a man coughing. “Papa!” she screamed. “Help us!” The shadow bent down and picked u Althea and Ian. “I cannot find them,” choked a familiar voice deep with pain and smoke. “Come on, My Lady, you must run.” Frederick. The family butler. Also due to depart for other employment, but hadn’t yet left the household. Lydia, her stinging eyes bleeding tears, her lungs burning, fought to follow the shadow. Rising, getting to her feet, trying not to breathe, holding in her choking coughs, Lydia stumbled after the tall butler’s dark shape. Flames bellowed as they chased her across the broad foyer, the walls collapsing, fire racing across the ceiling above. A roof beam, blazing, dropped to the floor mere feet from Lydia as she screamed, trying to cover her head as she ran for the front door. No longer able to remain upright, Lydia collapsed on the cold cobbles of the courtyard. The late winter drizzle and deep chill instantly cooled her hot body as she lay, coughing, vomiting, on the wet stone. Over the roar of the fire, the noise of the house’s roof caving in, she vaguely heard her siblings’ cries. “Althea,” Lydia mumbled, crawling, her hair in her face. “Ian.” Hardly able to think, guided by the light of the vast fire behind her, Lydia found them. Althea and Ian, crying, wet, growing cold quickly, beyond the courtyard’s walls. With no sign of Frederick anywhere near, Lydia gathered the children to her, shivering. Shouted voices bounced through the darkness as the neighbors’ servants ran to the scene of the fire. “Are there more survivors?” yelled a man whose shadow crossed over Lydia. “I see only Lady Lydia and the children.” Another lifted his arm to shield his face from the heat, gazing toward the inferno. “No one else! Crikey, no one can survive that.” A kindly woman settled a blanket around Lydia, folding it to enclose Althea and Ian within it. Coughing, shivering with pain and cold, Lydia stared at the flames devouring her home even as it collapsed. Bricks, wooden beams, and stonework all fell into a pile of flaming rubble. Smoke and sparks boiled up into the dark sky and the icy rain. Papa! Mama! Her parents – they never made it out. They had died, trapped in their rooms by the terrible fire that now consumed the house. Grief and agony struck her like a physical blow. Weeping, Lydia clutched Ian and Althea to her, one under each arm. She barely listened to the