“Thank you, Mrs. Thomas,” Mira said, deeply touched by the warmth extended by this funny little woman.
Mira was surprised to find Nicholas and the others just emerging from the milliner’s when she arrived. Whatever they saw in that tiny shop, they seemed to have bought. Bella danced about in jubilant circles, overflowing with the joy of her purchases, which Jeremy gallantly carried. Kitty edged around the young man her arms extended as though ready to catch any precariously perched packages Jeremy managed to lose. Even silent Phoebe held a small package grasped tightly between her gloved hands, and her face was alight with uncharacteristic excitement.
Nicholas brought up the rear of the shopping party. He looked weary, and his limp was decidedly more pronounced.
With Jeremy concentrating on holding all of the packages, and the women still flushed with the excitement of their purchases, Mira managed to join the group without anyone but Nicholas seeming to notice.
She cast a questioning smile at Nicholas as she fell into step with him.
He gave her a small salute. “The battle was a long one, but I can safely say that every plume and ribbon in Upper Bidwell is now ours. In the name of God and country and fashion, the milliner has been defeated.”
Chapter Twelve
The mood at the dinner table bordered on pleasant. Bella rattled endlessly about the fripperies she had found at the milliner, while Jeremy and Phoebe, who had been at her side during her entire shopping excursion, listened with good-natured resignation and the occasional polite expression of interest.
Lords Marleston and Blackwell were debating the merits of various lines of bloodstock, and George Fitzhenry nodded along with a look of intense concentration, as though he were in the thick of things.
Kitty Fitzhenry was busy offering sage advice to Lady Marleston about the ins and outs of a girl’s first Season, Kitty having just completed Bella’s and Lady Marleston preparing for Phoebe’s.
Nicholas caught Mira’s eye from across the table. He gave her a slow, wolfish grin just so he could watch the blush rise in her cheeks. When she appeared sufficiently flustered, he gave her a teasing wink, and peered down the table at the one person who did not seem to be enjoying herself at all: Beatrix.
She swept the company with a bored gaze, the corners of her mouth turned up in the faintest feline smile. Her fork touched each of the foods on her plate in turn, but she did not take a bite. Nicholas could not shake the feeling that she was plotting something, a cat lying still and squint-eyed in the grass waiting for just the right moment to pounce.
The only question was which of the diners would be her mouse tonight.
As he took another bite of his beef roast, Nicholas absently massaged his injured leg.
The walk back from Upper Bidwell had been slow and painful, but he had taken the opportunity to ask Mira about her visit with Mrs. Thomas. Nicholas had suggested Mira talk with Mrs. Thomas specifically because he anticipated the vicar’s wife would natter on for hours, neatly distracting Mira, but not providing any useful information.
Indeed, Mrs. Thomas had not added much to what Mira already knew, only confirming the existence of the elusive “wealthy suitor.” No, she had added only one devastating fact to the story. After some hemming and hawing, Nicholas had been able to coax the information about Bridget’s pregnancy out of Mira. A five-or-six-month pregnancy meant that Bridget had become with child near the Christmas before she died.
The timing was a small matter by itself, but Nicholas had no idea what Mira might make of it, given enough time—and the possibilities sent a chill down his spine.
A burst of male laughter drew his attention to his father. Blackwell was still a handsome man, fit and strong though beginning to show the first signs of his age. A few silver hairs caught the light when he nodded, and, when he laughed at some comment by Lord Marleston, Nicholas noted that the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were growing deeper.
And Lady Beatrix was still a beautiful woman. Alas, beauty alone had never been enough to hold Blackwell’s attention. Blackwell craved youth and variety the way some men craved laudanum or gin. He always had. Poor Beatrix could tend her complexion and her figure with the utmost care, but it would not keep Blackwell from straying.
Not for the first time, Nicholas winced from a pang of sympathy for his stepmother. She was tied to a wayward husband, without the means to have her own discreet adventures and left moldering on the Cornish cliffs. That life had driven his mother mad. Beatrix, instead, gave herself over to her bitterness, becoming more brittle and angry with each passing year.
Still, Nicholas feared her end would be the same as his mother’s: death, far too young. Indeed, Beatrix was already plagued by declining health. She had suffered from headaches for years, and he suspected she was now dependent on the foul green liquor her physician had prescribed to treat them. And she rarely ate more than a few morsels at a time. She had never been a stout woman, but now she was painfully thin, her fair skin taut over her fine bones, her form so slight she looked as though she might shatter.
Nicholas caught Mira’s eye again. Although she was quiet, not involved in any of the conversations around her, there was an air of satisfied contentment about her tonight. Her skin had a rosy glow from their time outside, and the blue underslip beneath her muslin gown suited her complexion nicely. He would like to paint her as she looked tonight, a simple portrait of domestic happiness.
And she would soon be his.
He was startled to discover the thought aroused him. His. His wife. This bright bundle of passion and warmth would be his wife. Sometime during the course of the day, Nicholas had come to accept that he did not want Mira to leave. It was selfish of him in the extreme, but he could not let her goodness slip from his life.
She offered him a shy smile from across the table, and he had to fight the urge to grab her hand and haul her out of the dining room right then and there. He imagined taking her out to the garden where they had talked that morning, laying her down on the soft grass beneath the magnolia tree, and kissing her senseless.
Before his imagination could run too far astray, Beatrix pounced.
“Miss Fitzhenry?”
Her crisp, precise voice easily carried the length of the table. Bella Fitzhenry leaned forward slightly and looked inquisitively at Beatrix.
“No, dear, the other Miss Fitzhenry.”
Mira set down her fork and turned her full attention to Beatrix, her expressive eyes wide and anxious.
“Miss Fitzhenry, I understand you have been making inquiries regarding our community’s unfortunate murders.”
All conversation at the table abruptly stopped. In the sudden silence, the sound of Phoebe’s fork hitting her plate was deafening. Every eye was fixed on Mira. Nicholas glanced at his father and saw that Blackwell was leaning forward, staring at Mira in fascination, as though she had suddenly sprouted wings.
Mira swallowed visibly, and Nicholas saw her hands trembling slightly.
Ah, well, he thought, once more into the breach. It was what any good general would do to defend his loyal troops. He adopted his most sardonic air, letting his mouth curl into an almost feral smile.
“Here, now, my lady,” Nicholas said. “What would you expect? She is to marry me in a few short days, is she not? It seems only natural that she should have some curiosity about those who have gone before her, don’t you think?”
Beatrix surprised him by smiling. It was a smile of grudging admiration and amusement. Nicholas had the uncanny feeling that he and Beatrix were the sole players in some deep game, that she viewed him as an adversary, but a worthy one, while the rest of the dinner guests were mere spectators.
But before either Nicholas or Beatrix could make the next play in their bizarre match, Jeremy slammed his fists down on the table and leapt to his feet.
“You devil!” he cried. “Is that an admission? Do you admit that you had some hand in the deaths of those girls? In the death of Olivia?”
Beatrix cut in, her eyes wide with alarm, her face gone ashen beneath the fine dusting of powder she wore. “Jeremy, please—.”
But Jeremy merely waved away her protests. “No, mother, this is long overdue. So tell me, Ashfield, shall I fetch the magistrate right now, or shall we settle this at dawn on the field of honor?”
Nicholas stared at his brother’s manic expression, unsure what to say in response. He had meant only to deflect attention from Mira, but he had obviously grossly miscalculated. A denial of guilt now would ring hollow, perhaps even smack of cowardice. But he certainly had no interest in dueling with Jeremy, or in being arrested for murder.
“Well?” Jeremy prompted, his voice almost a shout. “What shall it be, Ashfield?”
Nicholas cast a quick glance at his father, wondering why Blackwell did not intercede to defuse the situation, if only for the sake of appearances. But his father appeared intrigued by the open conflict between the son he despised and the son he ignored, and Nicholas realized no aid would come from that quarter.
Before he settled on a course of action, Mira entered the fray.
“Stop this.” At first her voice was so tremulous, so soft, Nicholas thought she might simply be entreating him to put an end to the madness. But then she said it again, her voice louder and more commanding. “Stop this at once.”
When every eye was on her, Mira continued, her words ringing with conviction despite the obvious tremor of her hand as it clutched her wine glass. “Lord Jeremy, I beg you to sit down. You must cease these wild accusations, because you will soon have cause to regret them. Nicholas did not kill anyone, and I intend to prove it. I will find the real killer, and then you shall be forced to see your error.”
As Mira paused to take a sip of her wine, Nicholas marveled at his bride-to-be, trembling with righteous fury on his behalf. On his behalf. How remarkable.
Setting down her glass with studied deliberation, Mira swept the table with a level gaze. “Nicholas is innocent, and I shall prove it.”
Jeremy laughed, a short ugly bark. “Oh, that is rich,” he said. “How ironic, Nick, that you should find a woman to champion your cause. What have you done to her, to blind her so to your true nature? Have you paid her pretty compliments, whispered sugared lies? Is she so desperate that a few sweet words are enough to obliterate her judgment?” Jeremy shook his head in mock sadness. “Poor, benighted little girl.”
Nicholas watched as Mira’s fiery indignation congealed into mortification, and anger rushed through him in a hot, wet wave.
Slowly, he rose to his feet.
“You have gone too far, Jeremy. How dare you speak that way of a lady?”
“Hah! And who are you to dictate how a lady should be treated?” Jeremy leaned forward to rest his palms on the dining table, his stance menacing despite the fact that he was several inches shorter than Nicholas. “At least I do not kill them.”
“No,” Nicholas responded. “No, you merely insult them, treat them with utter disrespect. You may not be a murderer, but neither are you a gentleman. You shall make your apologies. Now.” He did not raise his voice, but the threat in his tone was unmistakable.
Jeremy flushed to the roots of his tawny hair, and a faint sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. “I do not take my marching orders from you, sir. Besides, aren’t you the advocate of plain speech? I only spoke the truth. Miss Fitzhenry,” he indicated Mira with a toss of his head, “Miss Fitzhenry does not have the defenses to handle the likes of you. Miss Mira Fitzhenry is a spinster, a poor relation being foisted off on our family because the Fitzhenrys have the good sense not to trust their daughter to your care. And Miss Mira Fitzhenry surely must be grateful for whatever crumb of affection you throw her way because, murderer or not, you are her first and only suitor,” Jeremy concluded, with a telling glance down at Bella Fitzhenry, the obvious source of his intelligence.
Nicholas clenched his hands into tight fists, his arm flexing back as he resisted the urge to swing at his brother right there in the dining room.
But then, he looked at Mira. Her gaze was imploring, her face a stiff mask of horror.
“Please,” she begged quietly, through lips that barely moved. “Please just let it pass.”
Mira cast a sidelong glance at Bella, and the look of abject misery Nicholas saw on her face made his gut clench. Suddenly he understood. Mira believed what Jeremy had said. Not just that her aunt and uncle had attempted to wiggle out of their deal with Blackwell by offering Mira instead of Bella, but also that he should feel cheated and that she was lucky he had not yet publicly renounced her.
The realization made so many things so very clear.
Mira turned her attention back to Nicholas. “Please,” she said again. “Please.”
The look of disdain on Jeremy’s face almost moved Nicholas to act, to accept the boy’s challenge and have done with it, but he could not ignore Mira’s entreaty.
Nicholas took a deep breath, steadying his nerves. He shifted his weight, both to ease the pressure on his left leg and to adopt a more relaxed stance.
“Miss Fitzhenry is, as usual, the voice of reason. I have no wish to kill my baby brother,” his lips twisted in a smile to sharpen the barb, “and I am certain Jeremy is deeply sorry to have spoken so rashly and so ill of Miss Fitzhenry. Perhaps it would be best to let this unfortunate incident pass and allow everyone present to regain their composure before taking action we might regret.”
Nicholas turned the full force of his gaze on Mira, offering her a slow, deliberate nod of his head to show that he backed down only in deference to her. She returned his gesture with a grateful nod of her own, but she still looked as though she were about to shatter.
Mira stood carefully, and turned to drop a short curtsy to Beatrix. “My lady,” she said, her voice flat and distant, “if you will excuse me, I am feeling quite unwell. I believe I should like to retire.” She did not wait for Beatrix’s permission, but rather turned and walked away, her spine held stiff, her head high.
After watching her disappear into the hallway, Nicholas addressed the table at large.
“She is mine now,” he said with grim deliberateness, the truth of the statement resonating deep within him. “You would all do well to remember that in the future. From this point forward, when you speak ill of Miss Fitzhenry or treat her with disrespect, I will consider it a personal affront. Miss Fitzhenry may not fight back, but I assure you all that I do.”
He focused his gaze first on Jeremy, then on his father. Blackwell stared back unflinchingly, a spark of interest in his eyes. Some rough beast was stirring to life in his father’s mind, some new machination was taking shape. Though Nicholas could not fathom what Blackwell was thinking, the light in his eyes raised the hair on the back of Nicholas’s neck.
Turning abruptly, Nicholas left the dining room, a heavy cloak of silence billowing in his wake.
He paused in the hallway at the foot of the stairs. Mira had no sanctuary here at Blackwell Hall other than her bedchamber. Nan Collins would be there, however, and Nicholas suspected that Mira would seek total solitude in which to recover herself.
After only a moment’s hesitation, he turned away from the stairwell and headed, instead, toward the library.
He knocked lightly to announce his presence before poking his head into the room. Mira sat perched on the edge of a wing chair staring intently at a book held open in her lap, and she did not look up to acknowledge his entrance. She ran the tip of one finger along the lines of text, down one page and then the next, before touching the fingertip to her tongue, turning the page, and beginning again. Her movements were ritualistic, reminding Nicholas of a Catholic priest he had once seen at the Midsummer revels in Upper Bidwell whose lips had moved silently as he rhythmically stroked the beads of his rosary.
She looked terribly small sitting alone in the vast room, a bright little flame amidst the cases full of moldering books and the dark, oppressive furniture.
“Mira?”
; She did not falter, simply continued caressing the book.
Nicholas crossed the thick carpet to where she sat, the room’s heavy shadows seeming to swallow the sound of his footsteps. He pulled a chair close to hers and lowered himself into it. He caught her scent, sunshine and roses, over the stale smell of decaying paper and dust. Leaning forward, he reached out and gently laid a hand on the page she was trying to scan, effectively halting her small sacrament.
“Mira,” he repeated. She still did not look at him, and he sighed deeply. “I am sorry for what happened in there.”
A bubble of hysterical laughter escaped her, and then she was quiet again. “No, my lord,” she said finally, “I am the one who must apologize. It seems I have placed you in a very awkward position. In several very awkward positions, actually.”
“I have been in an awkward position for most of my life. It is none of your doing.” Nicholas shifted his hand to lay it atop Mira’s own, and he felt her trembling.
“But I have made matters worse. I have stirred up all of the rumors and drawn unwelcome attention to you with my investigation.” She punctuated her confession with a soft sniff.
Nicholas gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Nonsense. I promise you, the rumors have rarely subsided over the past few years. And you can hardly be blamed for this slight resurgence. People were bound to begin talking again when my engagement was announced. Nothing you could have done would have prevented that.”
“Still,” Mira insisted, “it would be better for you if you were to marry someone else.” She paused. “Perhaps someone more like Bella.”
He reached out to cup her chin in his palm, lifting her face to meet his gaze.
“Mira, do you think I am disappointed to be marrying you rather than Bella?” His voice was firm, demanding an answer.
Although he continued to hold up her face, she managed to avoid his eyes by closing her own. With her brow furrowed and her lips pressed in a tight miserable line, she was the very picture of desolation.
Once Upon a Wallflower Page 12
