Once Upon a Wallflower

by Wendy Lyn Watson

  Logic dictated that Nicholas had tried to kill her. The conclusion was inescapable.

  Yet somehow Mira could not believe that it was true. He had pulled her from the cliff, then he had spent the entire night alone with her at Dowerdu and had not harmed her at all. Indeed, he had held her tenderly. She grasped at that fact desperately, holding it like a shield between her heart and her head.

  Mira had always despised the heroines in gothic novels, the heroines who blindly accepted what they were told, who believed in coincidence and magic and allowed themselves to be lulled into a dangerous complacency. She had never understood how they could be so foolish.

  Now she understood only too well.

  If she closed her eyes, she heard Nan’s voice, saw the concern on her face, felt the steady pressure of her hand. Nan would tell her—had told her—that she must be careful not to let her emotion cloud her reason.

  But Mira also heard the siren call of her own heart.

  Suddenly, the unearthly quiet of the bedroom was shattered by a knock on the door. Mira quickly tucked Olivia’s locket into her own jewelry box before going to answer the knock. She opened the door slowly, a tiny bit unsure who might be waiting on the other side.

  She could not have been more surprised to see her Uncle George standing in the hallway, hands clasped behind his back, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

  Mira pulled the door wide. “Uncle George! Do come in.”

  “Um, yes, yes,” George muttered as he sidled into the room. His eyes darted about the room, and he seemed vaguely alarmed by the painted birds covering the walls.

  He stopped just inside the doorway and pressed against the wall as though he wished to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible.

  “Did you have any luck with that brood mare?” Mira asked casually.

  George’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

  “Yesterday,” Mira said, “were you not going to inspect a brood mare with Lord Blackwell?”

  “Oh, yes, yes, of course,” George said, shaking his head. “Left at dawn, we did. Uncivilized, I say. Rode for hours, and Blackwell did not even buy the horse. Waste of time.”

  Mira nodded sympathetically, then waited for George to continue. An uneasy silence stretched between them.

  “What can I do for you, Uncle George?” Mira prompted gently.

  “Yes, well, now.” He paused, and Mira was afraid she would get nothing out of him other than nervous interjections. But suddenly he blurted, “The messenger has arrived.”

  Mira blinked. “What messenger?”

  “The, um, the messenger from London. With the certification of the banns. You and Ashfield can be married now.”

  “Oh.”

  “Blackwell wants to have the marriage solemnized tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh.”

  So her time was up. Mira would have to decide once and for all whether she would go through with the wedding. There would be no more delays, and whatever she decided now would be irrevocable. She felt faint.

  “Yes, well, um…” George muttered.

  “There is more?”

  “Yes.”

  Mira watched in amazement as George took a deep breath and drew himself up. He was taller than Mira had realized. And with his features drawn into an expression of earnest dignity, George was almost handsome.

  A pang of emotion rocked Mira as George’s resemblance to her own father came into focus.

  “Mira, I…” George cleared his throat and fixed his gaze somewhere over Mira’s left shoulder. “I want to apologize for placing you in this situation,” he continued. “You are my own brother’s only child. And I, uh, I loved my brother very much.

  “I have not always done right by you. I know that. But I want to make amends now. I cannot just stand aside and see you marry a dangerous man, especially to cover my own debt. I want you to take this.” George drew his hands from behind his back. He held a leather sack in one hand and a velvet sack in the other, and he offered them both to Mira.

  Dazedly, she reached out to accept them.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much ready,” he said with a nod toward the leather satchel. “Never do. But that’s all the coin I have, and it should be enough for you to find a coach back to London or to wherever you wish to go. The other is a necklace. Belonged to your grandmother. Kitty doesn’t know about that one. I was saving it for you.” George blushed. “If you sell it, it should fetch enough to set you up in a small cottage somewhere. And I will do my best to send along more money when I can.”

  Mira struggled to find something to say, but she was too stunned for words.

  “So.” George heaved a great sigh, as though he had just climbed a steep hill. “So now the choice is yours. I cannot offer you a life of luxury, but if you can tolerate a bit of genteel poverty, you do not need to marry Ashfield. It is up to you.”

  Mira swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Thank you, Uncle George. But what about your debt to Blackwell?”

  George colored deeply, but he waved his hand dismissively. “A matter between gentlemen. I will handle that. Nothing for you to worry about.” It was not a convincing lie, but Mira was touched by his effort.

  “Thank you,” she repeated.

  “Yes, well, I should be going. Your Aunt Kitty wants me to go hunting with Blackwell and the other men. Hate guns, I do. Terrible shot. But appearances and all.” He inched toward the still-open door, but paused on the threshold. “I suppose I will see you at dinner. Everyone will be going on to the Midsummer festivities later,” he added, his voice heavy with meaning. After giving Mira one last long, searching look, George slipped out the doorway and began ambling down the hall.

  She watched him go, still trying to digest this turn of events. When he disappeared from sight, she leaned into the door to close it, but before she could swing it shut, Nicholas appeared as if from thin air and raised his hand to halt the door’s momentum.

  Startled, Mira jumped back and let out a little yelp.

  “Good morning.” Nicholas made his way into the room without waiting for an invitation. After their intimacy of the night before, she supposed he was entitled to that presumption.

  Careful to conceal the bags George had given her in the folds of her skirt, Mira moved slowly toward the blue velvet settee. She was not yet ready to see him. She was still too unsettled, too unsure of her own heart and mind. She needed to sit down. “Good morning, Nicholas,” she managed, the words clumsy in her mouth.

  As she sank down on the settee, Nicholas watched her with an unnerving intensity. Despite the cold fire of his gaze, he seemed distant somehow, his physical presence reserved and contained, as though he were trying to maximize the space between them without actually moving. But Mira could not tell whether his withdrawal was out of anger or awkwardness.

  She suddenly wondered how long he had been standing in the hallway, how much he had heard of her conversation with George.

  Once she was seated, she surreptitiously dropped the small velvet bag containing her grandmother’s necklace to the floor and used her foot to push it back out of view. The larger bag, she nestled behind an embroidered pillow.

  Still Nicholas said nothing, only stared.

  Mira thought she might go mad from the tension. Unsure of his mood, she was reluctant to break the silence first, but she was not certain how much longer she could stand the quiet.

  Finally he spoke, his voice cold and clipped. “Pawly woke me.”

  This was not good. He was most definitely angry.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh.”

  Very angry indeed.

  “I am sorry?” It came out more as a question than a statement.

  “Sorry does not begin to cover it, Mira-mine.” A flicker of raw emotion began to shine through his cold reserve. “Do you have any idea what I went through, wondering whether you were safe? After your…your encounter yesterday, you go traipsing off along the very same path, by yourself, without an
y thought at all. Supremely foolish behavior, Mira. Supremely foolish.”

  Although a small voice in Mira’s head had to agree that she should not have walked back to Blackwell alone, her temper leapt at his patronizing tone. After all, she would not have left unescorted if he had not been hiding Olivia’s locket, if he had not been behaving in such a secretive manner, if he had not lied about her shawl. Certainly she had reacted without much thought, but she had been reacting to him.

  Between teeth clenched tight in anger, Mira ground out a response. “I may be foolish, sir, but you are pompous and overbearing. I had every right to leave the cottage this morning. I was not your prisoner, I had done nothing wrong. And you, sir, do not have the right to order me about. As I have said before, you do not yet own me.”

  At the mention of marriage, Nicholas’s expression again grew hard, all traces of concern and passion gone.

  “I shall never own you, Mira. But you are correct: we are not yet married. Still, I should think that after last night I might be permitted some concern for your well-being. And I might be entitled to some small consideration from you.”

  With that, Nicholas turned on his heel and stalked from the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Mira took a moment to steady her temper. She should not have let it get the better of her. Her situation with Nicholas was already precarious; she did not need to be making matters even worse by snapping at the man.

  He claimed concern for her safety, but perhaps he was more concerned about what had caused her to flee. Perhaps he knew that she had found her shawl…and Olivia’s locket. Perhaps he was truly angry that she was close to exposing him.

  Again, the question stared at her, refusing to blink: was Nicholas guilty of murder?

  For as long as she could remember, Mira had relied on logic to guide her actions, to protect her from harm and to keep her secure. Yet her feelings for Nicholas defied all logic, promising instead a passion she had never dared to dream she could experience for herself.

  But what would be the cost of turning her back on logic, of following her heart and trusting without reason?

  Whether she would follow her heart or her head, Mira would have to decide quickly. The Midsummer festivities would provide her last chance to clear Nicholas’s name before the wedding. And her last chance to flee if she could not.

  …

  She was going to leave.

  Just as Olivia had intended, Mira was going to run off in the hours before their marriage and leave him to look the fool.

  Nicholas made his way across the allure to his sanctuary, every step agony.

  It was for the best she left. She was too clever by half. If she stayed, she would be in constant danger. And, as he had proven yesterday, he could not protect her.

  It was for the best.

  But it felt like a knife in his gut.

  He had been startled to hear George Fitzhenry apologize to Mira for the situation in which he had placed her, stunned to hear the man offer her money so that she might leave. Nicholas had not thought George had the courage or the honor to do either.

  He had been so surprised he had almost laughed out loud. Then he had heard Mira accept the money, thanking George in a voice thick with emotion, and Nicholas had felt a burning loss unlike anything he could remember, a grief every bit as intense as the grief he had felt when his mother had died.

  In that sense, Mira’s leaving was nothing like Olivia’s.

  Nicholas threw open the door of the tower room, startling Pawly in the midst of stirring the dust about the floor with a broom. Nicholas made his laborious way across the room to the fireplace, and shot Pawly a dark look before sinking down into his chair and propping up his leg.

  Pawly dropped the broom where he stood and came to sit across from Nicholas, the difference in rank between them fading in the wake of Nicholas’s obvious need.

  “And?” Pawly prompted.

  Nicholas stared into the fire, watching the flames licking the logs in a frenzied passion. A passion that destroyed with its fervor.

  “She is leaving.”

  “Who?”

  “Mira,” he snapped. “Miss Fitzhenry.”

  Pawly leaned forward in his chair, barely balancing on the edge of the seat. “What do you mean, she is leaving?” he asked, outrage mingling with the confusion in his voice. “Where is she going? And why?”

  “Where, I do not know.” Nicholas focused again on the fire, anchoring himself in his concentration of its violent beauty. “Why? Because she can. She only agreed to the marriage and came to Blackwell because she had no choice. But now her pathetic uncle has finally found his backbone, and has given her the means and his blessing to leave.” He kept his voice carefully neutral, but he could not help the faint tremor that betrayed him now. “And so she is leaving.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Nicholas could see Pawly shaking his head slowly. “No,” his friend insisted, “it makes no sense. I saw you two together yesterday. She was holding on to you like you were her own soul.”

  “That was gratitude. I did save her life, after all.”

  Pawly snorted. “So did I, if you want to be particular. But she didn’t cling to me like a limpet. And there was more than gratitude in her eyes when she looked at you. No, my lord, that girl is in love with you.”

  Nicholas shook his head firmly. “I just saw her. The only thing in her eyes when she looked at me was fear. And I heard her take the money from her uncle. She is leaving.”

  Pawly jumped to his feet and began pacing. “If she is leaving, then it is because something has changed. When she left Dowerdu this morning, she seemed anxious and upset. Maybe something there is sending her off.”

  “I cannot imagine what.”

  Pawly stopped in his tracks and faced Nicholas squarely. In an uncharacteristically sharp voice he took Nicholas to task. “Well, my lord, something in that cottage scared the girl. And you better be thinking what it might be, or you are going to lose her.”

  Nicholas met his friend’s eye and raised one brow in challenge. “Perhaps I scared her off,” he shot back, memories of their passion taunting him. He had thought the passion shared, but perhaps he had frightened her somehow with his intensity. Perhaps he had bungled it all.

  He shrugged. “It does not really matter. She is leaving tonight, and I will not stop her if she wishes to go. Besides,” he added, letting his gaze drift back to the fireplace, “besides, it is really for the best.”

  “It is not for the best,” Pawly muttered.

  An uneasy silence filled the room, but Nicholas had no interest in breaking it. He continued to stare hard into the fire, letting everything else melt away until he had recovered a sense of cold, empty calm.

  When Pawly spoke again, his voice was hushed, but earnest.

  “You are not a child anymore, my lord.” Pawly ignored the thunderous rage that clouded Nicholas’s face. “You could not have saved your mother, but you have the power to stop this.”

  For an instant, Nicholas’s heart froze in his chest, and then it began to hammer there, the insistent thudding filling his ears.

  “Even if I could stop her from leaving, I should not. She has already threatened to expose my father and her life has been endangered as a result. For her sake and ours, I should let her go.” Nicholas heard his own words as though they were coming from far away, in a voice not his own, filtering through the pounding of his heart like a whisper through a closed door.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You look lovely, Miss Mira.” Nan tucked another pin in Mira’s curls and smiled.

  Mira took in her own reflection with an ironic sense of amusement. She did look lovely, as lovely as she ever had. She wore an emerald green, satin dress covered with peacock blue netting, cut low and square at the neck and secured beneath her breasts with gold lacing. Other than her wedding clothes, which she might or might not be wearing in the morning, the dress and the matching emerald slippers and wrap were the finest cloth
es she owned. Nan had dressed Mira’s hair with a broad satin ribbon of peacock blue adorned with a cluster of white satin roses and gold foil leaves. It was a simple style, but it was flattering, emphasizing her wide blue eyes.

  It seemed ridiculous to wear such finery to an outdoor fair where they would eat meat pies with their hands and drink ale rather than lemonade, but Lady Beatrix had made it clear that, as the centerpiece of the Blackwell house party, the event should be treated as one of the grandest gatherings of the London Season.

  So, for perhaps the first time in her life, Mira felt comfortable in her own skin and proud of her appearance, yet she could take no joy in the evening at all. Instead of dancing and flirting and enjoying the other delights pretty young women enjoyed, she would spend the evening solving a murder and perhaps running away from her best chance at happiness…running away from the shelter of Nicholas’s arms. Indeed, as much as she loved the stylish clothes, she wanted nothing more than to strip them off and hide beneath the bedcovers.

  “Thank you, Nan,” she murmured, returning the young woman’s smile with a wan one of her own.

  Reaching for her wrap, she studied her reflection one last time. She wore no jewelry except for the pendant Nicholas had given her, and that was hidden within the bodice of her gown, the long fine gold chain on which it hung the only evidence of its existence. On impulse, she carefully lifted the necklace over her head and laid it on the dressing table.

  She was conscious of Nan looking on curiously as she searched the dressing table for a small length of narrow ribbon. Gently, so as not to damage the delicate links of the chain, she held a segment of the chain together and tied the ribbon around it, in effect shortening the length of the chain. With a fleeting smile Mira slipped the necklace back over her head. The pendant now hung above the neck of her gown, there for everyone to see.