“Beatrix,” he said, tone measured and calm, “I know what you have sacrificed. And I know how much you love Jeremy. But Jeremy thinks he is in love with Bella. Don’t you think he will be angry if you harm her?”
Beatrix shook her head vehemently as she approached the door to the walkway atop the curtain wall. “He will not know. He does not know about Olivia Linworth. This will be the same. It will look like an accident, like she fell.”
“Except that this time there are witnesses, my lady.”
“Only you. And Jeremy hates you.” Beatrix smiled again, but this time the expression was sad, as though she almost felt sorry for Nicholas.
“Nicholas is not the only witness, Lady Beatrix,” Mira said softly, almost choking on her fear. “I am here as well.”
For an instant, Beatrix looked panicked, but then her face fell back into its expression of eerie serenity. She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Yes. Miss Fitzhenry. You will vouch for Nicholas. Of course you will. I see you found Olivia’s locket,” Beatrix removed the knife from Bella’s throat long enough to gesture toward Mira’s own neck, “yet you did not run away. You must be completely smitten with Ashfield.” Beatrix kicked open the door leading to the allure and a cool breath of salt-laden air, heavy with moisture, swept into the hallway. The wind was picking up, and the waves crashing below the cliff filled the air with sea spray.
“So when Mira Fitzhenry—who is so obviously madly in love with her betrothed, and who has every reason to detest her cousin—protests Ashfield’s innocence, who will believe you?”
“I will.”
Chapter Twenty
Nicholas had never been so pleased to see his brother.
The young man moved around Mira to stand at Nicholas’s side, hand outstretched in supplication to his mother.
“Mother, please let Bella go.”
Jeremy’s voice sounded hoarse, strangled, and his hand was trembling.
“Jeremy.” The lines of Beatrix’s face softened, and a wistful smile played at the corners of her mouth.
“Mother, please.”
Beatrix sighed in disappointment. “Just like Blackwell. Head turned by every pretty little bit of fluff.” She took a step backward, out the doorway, and the breeze lifted strands of Bella’s fine hair into Beatrix’s eyes. “You always emulated him, tried so hard to please him. Not like you,” she turned to glare at Nicholas, “you who seemed determined to provoke Blackwell at every turn.”
She shook her head sadly. “No, Jeremy, you always tried to be just like Blackwell. And I wanted so badly to tell you to stop wasting your energy, he would never love you. You were only a second son. Worse, you were my son, and I meant nothing to him. He only married me to give Ashfield a mother, and you were but a trifling consequence of our union. But still you mimicked his ways and look where it has gotten us.”
“Mother, why are you doing this?” A note of desperation and anger had crept into Jeremy’s voice, and he took a step toward Beatrix…sending her back a step, farther onto the walkway.
She cocked her head and frowned, as though the question confused her.
“Please, please, please,” Bella begged, her voice small and scared even as her body thrashed in an effort to get away.
Jeremy kept moving closer to his mother, and she kept retreating, angling toward a gap between the battlements, pulling Bella along with her despite the girl’s frenzied struggle. But Jeremy’s steps were quickening so that Beatrix could not maintain the distance between them.
“Tell me, mother, why won’t you let Bella go?”
“Because I love you,” she replied.
Another gust of wind, stronger than the last, came off the sea, and Bella’s hair flew up into Beatrix’s face. When she lifted the knife away from Bella’s throat to brush the hair from her eyes, Jeremy acted, lunging the short distance to grab Bella by the hand and pull her from Beatrix’s grip. He drew Bella to him, arms coming up to circle her fragile shoulders, as they both fell backward through the doorway.
Nicholas watched in horror as Beatrix, thrown off balance by the sudden assault, stumbled and slipped on the spray-slicked stone of the walkway. Her arms flailed about her head as her feet flew up. A sickening feeling, a blend of bitter memory and prescience, washed through Nicholas. He threw himself forward, grasping for any part of Beatrix’s body or clothing.
He caught her skirt and held on for all he was worth. But even as he tightened his grip on Beatrix, Nicholas’s footing faltered and slipped, his own momentum driving him toward the abyss. He struggled to pull away from the edge, but the stone beneath his feet was as slick as glass, and he knew with sudden certainty that he could not stop.
Until his jacket caught on something, halting his fall. Not something, Nicholas realized. Someone. There was a small hand tangled in the fabric of his jacket. Instinctively he knew it was Mira, and she did not let go.
As he steadied himself, Nicholas pulled Beatrix hard, sending her spilling across the walkway in a tangle of skirts. She lay still, but safe, on the wet stone walkway. With a force of will, he relaxed his fingers, letting Beatrix go.
He turned around slowly and pulled Mira into the shelter of his embrace. Without a word, he drew her near and buried his head in the curve of her neck, inhaling the clean scent of her hair, feeling the hammering of her heart against his side, losing himself in her warm vitality, clinging to her as to his own life.
Mira’s arms tightened around him, pulling him close to her softness. She was alive. And she did not let go.
…
Mira sat at her dressing table, gazing thoughtfully at her reflection in the mirror. She knew she would never be a fashionable beauty, but she realized that didn’t matter.
What mattered was that she was alive, the man she loved was safe, and Beatrix would never hurt anyone again.
A rap on the door drew her attention.
“Yes?” Mira called.
The door cracked open, and Nicholas poked his head in. She gave him a welcoming smile, and he slipped into the room and crossed over to her. He pulled her into his arms and drew her tight against him, tangling his hands in her hair. She leaned into his caress, smiling as his fingers moved, softly stroking the delicate hair at her temple. After the terror of the evening, that simple touch filled her with inexplicable joy.
“Mira-mine,” Nicholas whispered, his low voice barely audible above the snapping of the fire. “Thank you.”
Her smile widened a fraction. “My pleasure, my lord. But what did I do?”
“You saved me,” he said simply.
Pressing her forehead to Nicholas’s chest, Mira shook her head. “Nonsense. You would not have fallen.”
Nicholas shrugged. “I did not only mean tonight.”
He released her and pulled back, though not too far. With one gentle finger, he reached down and traced the line of the chain around Mira’s neck to the golden disk that rested on the swell of her breast.
“This is Olivia’s locket?”
“Yes.”
“And you found it at Dowerdu?”
“Yes.”
Nicholas paused to consider that.
“Is that why you ran off this morning?”
Mira nodded.
“But you did not leave tonight, even though George gave you the means.”
She nodded again.
“Why?”
She shrugged, hoping that the dim light would hide the blush that stained her cheeks.
“Did some twist of logic convince you that I was innocent, despite the locket?”
Mira sighed. “No,” she said softly. “Logic failed me. Or I failed it. I just trusted you.”
It took Nicholas a moment to speak, his breath seeming to catch in his throat.
“Mira-mine, you humble me. I…” He paused to clear his throat. “This,” he continued, “this is how you save me. With your love and your trust.”
A lump rose hard and tight in Mira’s throat, and her gaze slid from his. Struggli
ng to find her voice, she managed only a choking whisper. “I have no choice but to love you and trust you. I would not have you feel beholden to me for something I cannot control.”
Nicholas placed his hands on either side of Mira’s face, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Mira,” he said, words vibrating with intensity, “I do not feel beholden to you. I love you. There is a very big difference.”
For an instant, Mira’s heart stilled in her chest, every sound faded, and there was nothing in the world but Nicholas’s silver eyes and the echo of his words hanging between them.
“Truly?” she whispered.
“Truly,” he said, and his smile was lost in their kiss.
When he broke the embrace, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Mira,” he murmured, “we are supposed to marry in the morning.” She heard the question in his words and felt him hold his breath, waiting for her response.
“Yes.”
His breath left him in a rush. “Yes,” he repeated. “But you know that my name may never be cleared? Blackwell will see that Beatrix is cared for, kept somewhere safe, where she cannot harm herself or others. But a trial…a trial would serve no purpose. She has not spoken a word since she lost hold of Bella, since Jeremy chose Bella over her. She simply stares into nothingness. I believe her mind has snapped, and she may never speak again. Without a confession a trial would be a waste of time.”
“I understand.”
“There may always be whispers about me.”
“I know,” she responded.
“Can you live with that?”
“The more important question, my lord, is whether I can live without you. And the answer is ‘no.’”
Nicholas sighed, but carried on. “And our children? What about the stigma they will endure?”
Mira’s breath caught at the thought of children. “Teasing and taunts are hard things for children,” she said. He tensed. “But, children can survive them. Especially with parents who love them.”
He pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “So you will marry me tomorrow morning?”
“Of course I will marry you,” she said, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice, “but maybe we should wait until things settle down a bit. It would be more proper.”
Nicholas shook his head. “You know I do not give a fig for what is and is not proper, and I am going to have to teach you not to care either. But in this case, the more proper thing to do is to get married posthaste. After last night,” he continued, his voice dropping to a seductive whisper, “after last night, we cannot afford to wait.”
Mira tilted her head and frowned, confused.
“My dear, after last night you might be with child.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh. We should wed without a moment’s delay.”
Mira fought against the hope blossoming in her heart. “And you really meant it, what you said before?”
“What?” he teased.
She lowered her eyes and a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “About loving me.”
“Oh, that. Yes, Mira, I most assuredly meant that.”
A laugh of pure delight welled up in Mira’s chest, and she threw her arms around Nicholas’s neck, impulsively raining kisses on the hard angle of his jaw. At his answering chuckle, she drew back and covered her mouth with her hand, but she was too giddy to stop smiling.
“How do you think that is possible?” she asked. “How is it possible that our engagement should come about as the result of your father’s cunning and my uncle’s trickery, but that we should somehow still fall in love in a few short weeks?”
“Mira-mine, I’m disappointed in you,” Nicholas responded with mock severity. “There’s only one logical explanation.”
He winked at her.
“Magic.”
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the Lit Girls and Peter Hawkinson. You have all given me support and encouragement through some tough times. I couldn’t have stuck with it without you. And a special thank you to my editor, Erin Molta, who has put a tremendous amount of work and love into this manuscript.
About the Author
Wendy Lyn Watson writes cozy mysteries, historical romantic mysteries, and crime fiction of all sorts. She lives in Texas with her husband and three spoiled cats. Visit her on the web at www.wendylynwatson.com, find her on Facebook at @wendylynwatsonauthor, and on Twitter at @wendylynwatson.
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