“Hmm?”
“Were you aware that Evie doesn’t own one of those?”
“Yes.” She looked up and took in his thoughtful frown. “I take it you were not.”
“No.” He picked idly at the arm of the chair. “I stopped by her room, thinking to borrow one for you, and she informed me she’s had no need of them.”
“Evie’s leg is strong, Whit, and it rarely bothers her except in extreme cold.”
“I hadn’t realized it bothered her at all,” he said more to himself than her. “Why would she keep that from me?”
“She hasn’t,” Mirabelle responded instantly, uncomfortable with the brief glimpse of hurt she saw cloud his eyes. “Certainly, not intentionally. It simply isn’t something she speaks of. It just
is
—much like your blue eyes or my drab hair. And since there’s nothing she can do other than take a hot soak on cold days—”
“There are physicians who specialize in these sorts of things.”
“You take too much on yourself, Whit.”
He visibly started at the comment. “I do nothing of the sort. Evie is an unmarried woman under my care. It’s my responsibility to see to her well-being, her protection—”
“She’d buy a cane fast enough if she heard you speaking of her like that,” Mirabelle scoffed. “If only to beat you about the head with it.”
“I’ve every right to—” He cut himself off and blew out a frustrated breath. “She would, wouldn’t she?”
“With great fervor. And without mercy.”
“She’s a bloodythirsty wench. And you may tell your mistress I said so,” he added in a louder voice for Lizzy.
“Very good, my lord.”
“I would have told her in any case,” Mirabelle informed
him. And then, quite out of nowhere, she asked, “Why did you carry me up the hill?”
If Whit was surprised by the abrupt question—and she couldn’t imagine anyone
not
being surprised by such an abrupt question—it was nothing compared to her own shock. Where the devil had that come from? Had she hit her head?
She must have hit her head.
Hit it so tremendously hard during her fall that the impact removed all memory—along with all common sense—of…of having hit it at all. It was the only explanation, even if it didn’t seem to make sense to her at the moment.
“I told you why,” Whit answered with a concerned tilt of his head. “It was too steep and full of bramble for a horse to traverse.”
“Yes, but…” She trailed off when his face blurred before her eyes.
“I’ve tired you,” she heard Whit murmur.
“No, I’m not tired.” Oh, but she was. Suddenly, she was very, very tired.
“Your head is drooping.”
“Isn’t,” she countered, and was still lucid enough to recognize how childish that sounded. She willed her head to clear. “Mrs. Hanson put something suspicious in my tea.”
Whit took the cup and sniffed at it. “Sweet,” he commented. “Laudanum, I’d wager.”
“Laudanum?” She jerked herself awake—relatively, at least. “She put—?”
“No more than a drop.”
“But I don’t want—”
“It’s too late to do much about it now.” He reached over to pull the blankets up to her shoulders. “Go to sleep, imp.”
“Later,” she muttered.
“All right, later.”
She was vaguely aware of movement in the room, of hushed voices and the door opening with a creak.
“Mirabelle?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Your hair’s not drab.”
“All ri—” Her eyes snapped open again. “What’s that?”
“It’s the color of the chestnut tree we saw today. I find it to be rather nice.”
Before she could even begin to respond to the comment—and really, how
did
one respond to having one’s hair compared to a tree—he was gone, and she was asleep.
Those persons who spend an above average portion of their time attending secret meetings in the dead of night—for reasons other than a pleasant tryst—often prefer to hold said meetings in varying and out-of-the-way places, so as to keep their secrets, secret. As such, the two gentlemen whispering to each other now were not doing so in the library, but rather the currently vacant nanny’s quarters, where even the nosiest guests were unlikely to visit.
“Is this it?” the younger gentleman asked as an older man held out a brown package.
“It is.”
“And where do you want it?”
“In the study if you can manage it. Anywhere it can be found, but not stumbled upon.”
“Easy enough.” The younger man turned the package over in his hands. “Are you certain you want the both of them involved in this?”
“Of course. There’s no reason for her not to be. It would defeat half the purpose, really.”
“If something happens to her—”
“You’ll break my nose,” the older man interrupted with a much put-upon sigh. “I know.”
“Whit will break your nose,” the younger corrected. “I’ll break your legs. And the women will take turns breaking everything else.”
W
as there anything more lovely, Mirabelle wondered, than spending a lazy day in Haldon’s library, curled up in a window seat with a good book, while the warm sun played against one’s skin?
She pondered that for several minutes before being forced to admit that, yes—yes, there certainly was. In fact, there were any number of more appealing things to do on a warm and sunny day.
One could go for a picnic, for example. The picnic most of the guests were even now gathering in preparation for, outside. At least, one could if one wasn’t surrounded by overprotective worrywarts.
She gave up trying to make the best of her situation, snapped her book shut, and tossed it aside. She absolutely refused to acknowledge the shot of pain that movement caused her ankle. She considered it her own small penance for telling the worst of the worrywarts her injury might look a bit ghastly, but hardly hurt at all. She hadn’t cared for the lie, but there’d been nothing else for it. She’d simply
had
to get out of bed, or go stark raving mad.
At the insistence of Lady Thurston, Mrs. Hanson, and Kate—the traitor—she’d spent the whole of yesterday in that bed, resting. She hadn’t done it willingly, or even particularly gracefully, but she’d done it. And now she wanted to do something,
anything,
besides rest.
She wanted to go on that damnable picnic.
It was only a sprained ankle, for heaven’s sake, and she’d found she could get about well enough with the cane Whit
had brought her. There wasn’t a single reason she could see for keeping her confined to the house.
“Ready to go, imp?”
Her head snapped around at the sound of Whit’s voice. A voice that sounded tremendously jovial at the moment, which, given her current circumstances and mood, she found tremendously irritating.
“Ready to go where? I…” She trailed off and narrowed her eyes at him. “If you think I’m spending one more second of daylight in that bed, you are utterly,
utterly
mistaken.” To emphasize the point, she reached for the cane and grasped it as one might a weapon.
“This is quite a reversal from the last time I saw you.” He studied her with concerned eyes. “Is your ankle paining you? Let me see—”
She lifted the cane and sent him a scowl she very much hoped came off as menacing. “My ankle has never felt better,” she bit out. “But my patience has suffered irreparable damage.”
“Don’t be a brat,” he chided. “Lift your skirts.”
She raised her makeshift club another inch. “Stay away from me. I thought we’d agreed not to insult each other.”
“So we have.”
“You just called me a brat.”
“No, I advised you against behaving like one. That’s entirely different,” he informed her.
“In that case, I advise you to stick your head in—”
“If you choose not to take my advice,” he continued in a casual tone. “I’ll simply assume your foul mood is a result of your injury and leave you to heal.”
If her arm wasn’t already tiring, she would have lifted the cane a bit higher. “I’m not—”
“If you do behave, however, I’ll take it as a sign you’re feeling better. Possibly even well enough to join us on our little picnic.”
She dropped the cane with a clatter. “Do you mean it?”
“Are you going to let me inspect your ankle?”
Without so much as a hint of hesitation or embarrassment, she pulled up the hem of her skirts and stuck out her leg. “Inspect away.”
Whit stood where he was and frowned. “I’m uncertain as to whether I’m pleased or unnerved by how quickly you just did that.”
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t take offense. “It’s not as if I’d let just any man see my ankles, Whit.”
“That’s reassuring.” He stepped forward to kneel at her feet and press his fingers against the tender skin. It hurt, just as it had when she moved so quickly to extend it to him, but she was determined not to let on.
“But as we very nearly grew up together,” she continued after forcing her teeth to unclench, “and you’ve seen them a dozen times or more in the past—including only yesterday, I’d like to point out—I think it’s only sensible to let
you
take a look if need be.”
“I see.”
“And the physician, of course.”
“Naturally.”
“And Alex, if it were absolutely necessary.”
His gaze shot up to hers. “Alex doesn’t need to be looking at your bare ankles.”
“Not at the moment, of course not, but if the situation arose in which—”
“Ever,” Whit qualified and pulled down her skirts.
“Have I passed your inspection? May I go?”
“Grab your cane,” was his somewhat gruff reply.
He had a curricle ready. The spot chosen for the picnic wasn’t far, just on the other side of the lake, and the others would be making the short trip on foot. With her ankle injured, however, it would have been an arduous journey for Mirabelle. She’d have managed it, she was certain, but the curricle made everything so much simpler.
“It’ll take some time,” Whit informed her as he helped her up. “As the road veers away from the water before it cuts back again.”
“It’s perfect weather for a drive,” Mirabelle replied.
It was perfect weather to be doing anything outside.
The fresh air and sunshine did more for her than all the other medicine and rest combined. Once they were both settled and the curricle moving, she let out a long heartfelt sigh.
“This is lovely. Absolutely lovely. Thank you, Whit.”
He tossed a quick smile at her and adjusted his grip on the reins. “My pleasure.”
She very much doubted it, as her behavior so far had been decidedly less than pleasant. She didn’t mind a show of temper as a rule—hers or others—but an explanation and an apology were in order if one didn’t have a good reason for the outburst. Two days ago, she wouldn’t have troubled to offer them to Whit—she’d always felt he was reason enough for a good show of temper—but things, she was all too aware, had changed.
Still, she waited until they were a considerable distance from the house before working up the courage to turn her face in his general direction and speak.
“I should like…” She cleared her throat and fixed her gaze over his shoulder. “I should like to…to…” She cleared her throat again and had Whit frowning at her.
“Are you coming down with a cold, imp?”
“Am I…?” She blinked at him. “Oh. Oh, no. I just…” She managed, barely, to keep from clearing her throat again. “It’s only that I…”
“Because you sound as if you are.”
“No, no—”
“Have Cook fix you a pot of her special tea—the one for head colds—when we return. It does wonders with a sore throat.”
“I’m perfectly well, Whit, honestly.”
But she wouldn’t be, she knew, if the family and staff developed the impression that she was both injured
and
ill. And because Whit was looking at her as if seriously considering the possibility of consumption, she took a deep breath and—God help her, she just couldn’t stop herself—cleared her throat for the fourth time.
“I want to apologize for my behavior in the library,” she began in a rush. “You were—
have been
—very kind to me, and rather than thank you as I should have, I”—threatened to do you bodily harm with your great-great-grandmother’s cane, she thought with a wince—“I was inexcusably antagonistic. Being uncomfortable makes me testy, and I’ll admit my ankle does give me some pain. I don’t mean to use that as a justification, I—”
“It’s all right, imp. Apology accepted.”
She waited a beat before asking, “That’s it?”
“What more were you expecting?”
“Well, I rather thought you might milk it a bit,” she replied, a trifle surprised.
“I might have, a few days ago,” he admitted. “But we made an agreement, if you recall. Any particular reason you waited to tell me this?”
She wanted, badly, to shift in her seat. “I didn’t want to give you an excuse to leave me behind.”
“I’m not in the habit of reacting to an apology with spite,” he said a little indignantly.
“Of course not,” she was quick to agree. “But I wasn’t certain you’d react to my admission of pain by letting me come along either.”
“And made the decision to postpone your conscience until we were safely away from Haldon?”
This time she did shift in her seat. “Essentially.”
He nodded. “I thought as much.”
She risked a glance at him. “You’re not angry, then?”
“No, I’m not. In fact, I’m delighted you behaved in such a way as to require an apology.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve one of my own to make,” he began by way of explanation. “And after having your own so generously, so selflessly, so—”
“I believe I grasp the general idea, Whit.”
“—charitably accepted,” he finished. “You really have no other choice but to do the same in return, or else run the risk of appearing petty and vindictive by comparison.”
“That’s a twisted bit of logic.”
“But sound if one takes the time to follow it.”
“And equally irrefutable if one doesn’t care to be bothered—which, I confess, I don’t.” She twisted further in her seat to look at him. Now that she’d finished with her apology, it didn’t seem so hard a thing to catch his eye. “What could you possibly have to apologize for?”