Free Once Upon a Wallflower by Wendy Lyn Watson Page B

dressing table.
    “Nan, I assure you that I will be perfectly safe,” Mira soothed as she tied her curls back with a length of apple green ribbon. “Nicholas may not even be guilty of anything at all. But,” she held up a placating hand at Nan’s mutinous expression, “but even assuming he is the most heinous villain, he is not a fool. He would not harm me in his own room where his crime would be sure to be discovered. In fact, I would say that Nicholas’s room is about the safest place I could possibly be.”
    Her mouth drawing out into a flat line of disbelief, Nan shook her head. “Miss Mira, I am not certain you are right about that at all. And what about your reputation? Sure as anything, your reputation isn’t safe in that man’s room.”
    “I hardly think this is a time to worry over my reputation, Nan,” Mira responded, a bit put out that her fellow adventuress should raise such a mundane issue at such a critical moment in their endeavor.
    “My mother says that a girl should always be worried about her reputation. I should think that would be even more true for ladies.”
    Mira sighed, adjusting her skirts as she rose from the wing chair by the fire. “Very well then, but I truly do not think my reputation is in any more danger than my person. If Nicholas is innocent, then I shall be marrying him in a few short days and a small lapse in decorum will not matter a whit. If, on the other hand, Nicholas is guilty, then I will be forced to call off the engagement, and that alone will destroy my reputation. This particular transgression, going unchaperoned to Nicholas’s room, will be but a drop in the proverbial bucket.” She couldn’t help the satisfied smile that crept across her face. She did so love it when her logic fell neatly into place.
    Nan stood tall and squared her shoulders. “If you insist on going on this fool’s errand, Miss Mira, then at least take me with you.”
    Mira walked over to stand in front of Nan, and placed her hands on the smaller woman’s arms. “Thank you for that.”
    “For what?”
    “For offering to accompany me even though you are obviously terrified,” Mira said, giving Nan’s arms a gentle squeeze. “But, as much as I appreciate the offer, it really is not necessary. I will be perfectly safe. Besides, I believe Nicholas will speak more freely if we are alone. He does not seem to care for crowds.”
    “Three is hardly a crowd, Miss Mira, but if you are certain you should go alone, I promise you I will sit right here and fret until you come back, so do not be gone too long.” Nan met Mira’s eyes with a look of frightened sincerity. “Promise me you will be careful.”
    “I promise,” Mira replied, punctuating the pledge with a brief kiss on Nan’s cheek. “But now, I must go.”
    Mira took up her new luscious dark green Kashmir shawl, and, with one last reassuring smile for Nan, made her way toward the curtain wall that led to Nicholas’s tower.
    Squinting her eyes against the spray of rainwater, Mira held the door open just a crack and peered out into the relentless downpour. The rain fell in shimmering sheets, like silver satin undulating gently in the wind, but the force with which it struck the stone of the curtain wall, and the banshee howl of the wind as it forced its way between the battlements, left no doubt of the storm’s ferocity.
    She clutched her shawl more tightly about her shoulders. She would not venture into that deluge. This was the walkway from which Olivia Linworth had fallen to her death. Common sense dictated that Mira not traipse across that same stretch of stone, wet now with rain rather than mist and with the added danger of the brutal wind, tempting the same horrible fate.
    “Miss Fitzhenry?”
    Mira yelped in surprise and spun around, only to come face to face with a smiling young man with a mop of tawny curls and the most outrageous dimples she had ever seen.
    “Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Fitzhenry, but are you by chance