Ford was only a few feet away from her when she whirled on him, and he was so surprised by her words that he actually draw back for a moment. This wasn't the time to feel chastised that she'd pointed out his lack of decorum, though — she was on fire, or if she wasn't yet she would be quite soon. Still, his cheeks flushed as he gestured at her skirt. "It's not," he insisted, not sure why he had to find the words to articulate this at all. Shouldn't the situation itself have been quite obvious? How could she not have noticed that a flaming candlestick had fallen onto her skirt? Luckily the flames didn't seem to have caught too quickly — maybe the champagne she'd mentioned had done a passable job of dampening the fabric, or maybe she'd gotten near enough one of the open doors to be soaked by the rain. If the candle didn't catch her skirt, though, it would only catch the carpet once it fell, and that would hardly be any safer for either of them.

"The candle, it's — oh," he said, cutting off abruptly as he spotted a smoldering red ember on the edge of her skirt. There ought to be smoke, and maybe there was, but he couldn't tell. The air was so thick and heavy with whatever was happening with the weather, and it was too dark to see much beyond vague outlines of shapes. "Hold still, I'll —" he started, moving closer to her and attempting to stamp out the hem of her skirt. That was actually much harder than he would have thought, and he found himself so close to her that he had to catch hold of her elbow to keep from losing his balance.

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