Once Upon a Wallflower (16 page)

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.

She nodded.

“Mira-mine, your cousin…” Nicholas stopped, unsure how best to express himself.

Squeezing her eyes even tighter, Mira rushed to fill the silence. “Yes, I know. She is quite beautiful. Stunning, really. And she knows her way about Society. She would make you a wonderful viscountess. It is difficult to fathom that we are even related.”

“On that point you speak the truth.” Nicholas regretted the words as soon as they were spoken, as he felt Mira tense even further, wincing away from him as though she were in physical pain.

“Mira, open your eyes and look at me.”

He was surprised that she did as he asked.

“Mira, your cousin is dreadful.”

She frowned in confusion.

“I was trying to think of a diplomatic way to say it,” Nicholas continued, “but there really is no way around it. The girl is dreadful. I suppose one might say she is pretty, if one had a penchant for girls with all the complexity and color of a cup of warm milk. But she does not appear to have one whit of sense. She never ceases to squeal and squawk about every meaningless bit of drivel. It is quite maddening.”

Nicholas paused for breath. “I am sorry to be so blunt, but Bella Fitzhenry is possibly the most horrid creature I have ever met.”

Mira’s eyes were wide with alarm. She looked at him as though he had gone mad.

“Mira,” Nicholas said, softening his voice, “your aunt and uncle may think they have cheated my family in some way. In fact, it may be that my
father
does feel cheated. But I assure you that
I
do not. I think your aunt and uncle did me a great service by bringing you to that ball in place of your cousin. For that alone, I am forever in their debt.”

Mira shook her head slowly. “No,” she stated emphatically, “no, I would not have lies between us.”

Nicholas released an impatient sigh. “Mira, you are a clever girl. Cease being so mulish about this. You must realize that I am being perfectly honest.”

“But how can that be?”

Mira sounded genuinely distressed. Nicholas could not grasp why she seemed so desperate to believe that he was disappointed, so reluctant to accept that he preferred her to her cousin.

“It simply is,” he finally answered.

“But she is so beautiful.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes, trying to pin down the frustrating woman before him. “Do you really think me so shallow, that I should only be interested in a woman’s appearance?”

“No,” Mira responded, puzzlement slowing her words, “no, of course not, but…”

“Mira-mine,” he questioned softly, “what do you see when you look in the mirror?”

She frowned, suspicious. “I see myself.”

“Yes, in a way. But seeing is not an objective exercise. Think of my paintings. They reveal how I see the world, colored with my own emotion. When you look in the mirror, you see the actual image of yourself there, but you also see what you expect to see. You see every unkind word your aunt and uncle and cousin have said about you. You see every feature that does not meet Society’s standards of what is beautiful.”

“Oh.” Mira’s voice was quiet, still uncertain.

“Would you do me a favor?” He waited for her to nod in agreement. “Tonight, look in the mirror and try to see what I see when I look at you. Try to see a woman with hair the decadent color of Chinese poppies. Try to see a woman with skin as rich as Devon cream, and eyes the startling blue of lapis lazuli. And, more importantly, try to see the fire and the intelligence and the good, true heart that make you the person you are. Because,” he added, his voice rough with the vehemence of his words, “I think that if you look in the mirror and see what I see, you will understand why I am glad to be marrying you rather than Bella.”

With that, he pulled her close, kissed her hard on her still-trembling lips, and then stalked out of the room.

As he made his way back to his tower room, his leg throbbing from overuse, he licked the salt of Mira’s silent tears from his lips. There was no doubt that her arrival in his life had heralded the end of his solitary existence. For better or worse, his life would never be the same. The only question that remained was whether the upheaval of his life was for the better. Or for the worse.

Chapter Thirteen

The next day, Mira hid.

The fickle Cornish weather had once again turned brutal, with wind and rain lashing the walls of Blackwell Hall. Mira could not bring herself to face the Ellerbys or her own family after the debacle at dinner.

Nor could she yet face Nicholas.

She sat for hours before the mirror, trying to strip away the years of criticism and the tarnish of unmet social expectations. Trying to banish the tinkling voice of a six-year-old Bella, on the day Mira first came to live with her aunt and uncle, declaring that her cousin looked like a red-haired sausage. Trying to forget Aunt Kitty’s incessant refrain: plump, pale, graceless Mira. Trying to see only herself, through new eyes. Nicholas’s eyes.

Late in the day, just as Mira was beginning to consider the need to dress for dinner, a timid knock at her door interrupted her brooding.

She was stunned to discover that her visitor was Bella, and that she looked positively contrite.

“Mira, may I come in?”

The temptation to say “no” flitted through Mira’s mind, but instead she held the door open wider and allowed Bella to pass.

“Mira,” Bella said, her eyes on the carpet, “I…I suppose you must have gathered that I told Lord Jeremy about Maman and Papa deciding to fob you off as the Miss Mirabelle Fitzhenry to whom Lord Ashfield is engaged. But I think he already knew. He did not seem surprised. And, well, I also told him that you had never had a suitor before.”

Bella paused and flashed a quick glance at Mira. Her lovely eyes, the color of a cloudless spring sky, were puddled with tears.

“But, Mira,” she continued, a catch in her voice, “I swear to you that I did not mean to be unkind. I never
mean
to be unkind.” She looked up again, and her brow wrinkled in confusion. “It is only that I open my mouth, and unkind words rush out. I cannot seem to help myself. Honestly, no matter how hard I try.”

Mira doubted Bella tried very hard at all. But neither could she entirely blame Bella for her many thoughtless cruelties. After all, Bella had been weaned on Kitty Fitzhenry’s venom and tempered in the cold fire of Society’s brutality.

With Bella standing before her, looking so lost, so young, so distraught, the tension drained from Mira’s shoulders. “It is all right, Bella,” she said with a faint smile, “you only told the truth. And there should never be any shame in that.”

A flurry of emotions crossed Bella’s face, a rush of profound relief chased immediately by a look of desolation. She sank down onto the settee, buried her face in her hands, and began to sob.

Mira was alarmed. Bella sulked and yelled and pouted. She might even muster a delicate tear or two. She did not sob.

Quickly crossing to sit next to her cousin, Mira began making soothing sounds. “Here, now, dear-heart. Do not cry. Please, do not cry. Everything will be fine, I promise you.”

Without raising her face, Bella shook her head in vehement denial. “No,” she moaned, her words muffled by tears and her own hands. “No, everything will not be fine. Everything is a disaster!”

Mira patted Bella’s knee awkwardly. “Oh, Bella, whatever could be so horrible?”

Bella raised her head then, her face swollen and red from crying, her hair in disarray, her eyes blue wounds. “Mira,” she said, “I am in love.”

“Oh, dear,” Mira sighed. “Did you receive a letter from Mr. Penrose?”

“No, no, no. I am not in love with Mr. Penrose.”

“You are not?”

“No. I thought I was, but I did not even know what love was!” Bella’s voice rang with the fervor of her conviction. “Oh, Mira, I am in love with Mr. Jeremy Ellerby! And,” Bella smiled shyly, “and he is in love with me.”

Mira’s heart sank. “Bella, dear,” she said gently, “you cannot be in love with Mr. Ellerby, nor he with you. You have only just met.”