He crouched beside what looked to have been her primary workspace. Here, the damage was fiercest. The fire had flared high, licked up the wall and left a tongue of blackened soot reaching toward the ceiling, which had partially collapsed.
He touched a scorched iron mortar, still warm. Then, frowning, examined the edge of a wooden drawer. It was blackened on the outside but—yes—lighter wood was visible within, the grain not fully consumed. That told him something. The fire had spread inward from the outside walls. This was not the origin, then. More like a second stage—an escalation.
He stood and moved with methodical care, careful not to disturb too much of the scene. A shattered oil lamp lay on its side atop an overturned table, but the wood beneath it remained oddly untouched. He frowned. The wick was barely singed. The spill—if there had been one—should’ve burned hotter, longer.
Staged, he thought grimly. Made to look like the source, but the fire started elsewhere.
His gaze lifted to the windows—one gaping open, its latch splintered. Not burned. Broken.
Wind hadn’t done that.
Nor had a careless servant.
He ran his fingers lightly over the scorched windowsill and found what he’d suspected: faint traces of wax and oil residue in the grain. Not from a perfume bottle. From a torch—or a fire starter. Possibly resin-soaked.
He crouched, fingers brushing over a patch of scorched floorboard. It gave slightly under the pressure—not from the burn, but from something slick clinging to the grain. He rubbed it between thumb and forefinger, brought it to his nose.
Paraffin.
His lips thinned into a grim line. Not lamp oil spilled by accident. This had been poured.
He stood, turning his gaze slowly across the blackened room. The fire had consumed the side next to the windows, and from there, it had spread in two different directions. One toward the worktable with the flammable materials, the other toward the wall leading to the next room. A quick check confirmed it was Josephine’s room, as a few of her possessions remained among the charred debris. The flames had not raged unchecked. They had known exactly where to go. Exactly where to hurt.
Deliberate. Controlled.
His gut clenched.
He turned back to the perfumery table. The chaos here—the shattered bottles, the melted wax seals, the unnatural bloom of char across the room—had masked the fire's true beginning. To anyone without military training, it would look like carelessness. An accident with alcohol.
But it wasn’t.
It was meant to look like an accident. Whoever had done this was clever. But not clever enough.
He had seen enough in this room to confirm arson. Was the intent to scare…or to kill? Josephine had said the servants’ staircase was engulfed as well. But those were on the opposite side of the corridor.
"Two separate burns," he muttered. One from the corner by the servants’ stairs, the other by the sitting room adjacent to Josephine’s bedchamber. Not connected by flue or wall, not even a shared draught. Not natural. The nursery was right above these rooms. The placement of the fire was designed to trap the occupants of this side of the house.
The confirmation of his deepest fears sent a chill down his spine.
From the far end of the hall, a coughing footman approached, soot smearing his livery and face pale. “Your Grace, Lady Josephine asked if—”
“I’ll report to her shortly,” Michael said, his tone clipped but not unkind. “One question. Who locked up last night?”
“That’d be Perkins, sir.”
“Has anyone seen anything out of the ordinary? A rope, a ladder, maybe a stranger roaming the property? Any new workers in the house or the stables?” There were a lot of questions, especially so soon after the emergency. He’d have to conduct a thorough interrogation of the staff later, but this could be a start.
The footman scratched his head, scrunching his brow as he thought. “The stable boy swears he saw a man by the tool shed before the fire started. But it was just a shadow. Could have been one of the workers. He didn’t think anything of it until after the fire.”
Michael’s jaw flexed. Deliberate ignition. Forced entry. Witness sighting.
The conclusion was inescapable. This wasn’t some tragic mishap. It was sabotage.
Whoever set it had meant to harm Josephine and Edward. And they very nearly succeeded.
CHAPTER 21
ExhaustiondraggedJosephine’sfeetand weighed her arms down as she trudged through the house just as dawn pinkened the horizon. It had taken several hours just to get the fire under control, and then they had to go through the house, assessing the damage and salvaging what they could.
