Once Upon a Wallflower

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 trying to figure a way out to the tower that is not quite so, um, damp?”

Mira was slightly taken aback that the young man knew her name, but she supposed everyone at Blackwell must know the identity of the guests and, with her flamboyant hair, she was rarely mistaken for anyone else.

“Uh, yes, actually I was, Mister…”

“Pawly. Pawly Hart. Lord Ashfield’s own valet.” The young man raised his chin a notch in obvious pride over his elevated title, and then stepped back to sketch a courtly bow. Mira noticed that he held a small glass vessel, sealed with a dollop of muddy-colored wax.

“A pleasure to meet you, Pawly,” she said, with all the cool aplomb she could muster.

Pawly’s impish smile widened. “Miss Fitzhenry, I assure you the pleasure is all mine. Now,” he added, with an elaborate flourish of his arm, “if you will allow me to direct you down these stairs here, I believe you will find that there is a passageway through the curtain wall which will lead you to the tower. Once on the other side, you will have to climb up a flight of stairs to reach Lord Ashfield’s quarters, but you should find the stairwell with no difficulty. I will warn you, the inside passage is a bit cramped and musty. That is why most folk prefer to walk on the allure. But, in weather like this, I am sure you will find the going more comfortable.”

He gallantly ushered her around a corner to a narrow flight of stone stairs. Tucked in a sheltered recess in a dark corner, she never would have noticed the stairs herself.

As she began to descend into the murky shadows, she quickly realized that Pawly was not following her. She stopped and looked back inquiringly. “I’m sorry, Pawly, were you on your way to the tower yourself?” She glanced pointedly at the jar in Pawly’s hand. “I would not wish to interfere with your duties.”

He bobbed his head and his curls fell forward to obscure his face, but she would swear that his smile had become a grin. “No, miss, I assure you I have no more business over in the tower.” With that, he was gone.

Mira made her way down the narrow, uneven stairs, through the even-narrower passageway, holding her breath against the smell of mold and mice, and then up the stairway at the other end. She found herself in front of a single massive iron-banded door. The door to Nicholas’s quarters.