Once Upon a Wallflower

“Mmmm,” Beatrix murmured noncommittally, “I can see that.”

Beatrix turned her attention to Bella, who was still lying in a flushed and giggling heap on the library floor. Beatrix looked the girl up and down with insulting thoroughness, a sneer of sheer contempt marring her patrician features.

“If you and this…” Beatrix paused, her elegant nose wrinkling as she searched for some word which would adequately describe Bella’s fluff and flirtation. Failing that, she resorted to Bella’s name, but her tone made her disdain clear. “If you and Miss Fitzhenry insist upon running wild, perhaps you should do so in the out of doors. Ashfield and the other Miss Fitzhenry were going to accompany your cousin Phoebe to town. Perhaps you should join them.”

Jeremy turned his head, then, to look back and forth between Mira and Nicholas. A sly smile, so like his mother’s, spread across his face. “A jaunt to town sounds just the thing,” he said. “What do you say, Bella?”

Bella struggled to right herself, still breathing heavily from her mad dash and all of the excitement of the game. She gazed with adoration at Jeremy. When she spoke, her words were tinged with just the slightest affected lisp, and were directed at Jeremy alone. “I would enjoy that ever so much.”

Nicholas heaved a sigh. He knew Jeremy was not the sort to tramp about for pleasure, and he could not imagine Bella truly enjoying—ever so much—a trip into the drab nothingness of Upper Bidwell. But Jeremy saw an opportunity to meddle, and Bella would obviously follow Jeremy to the ends of the earth if he asked.

And so their little party grew.

“Bella! Bella Fitzhenry!” Kitty Fitzhenry’s roar echoed through the entryway.

Nicholas cast a look of utter disbelief at Mira, and saw that her face had fallen into lines of weary misery.

“Bella!” Kitty trudged into the library, her broad face red and her mighty bosom heaving. “There you are! I have been worried to tears about you. You know how delicate my constitution is.”

Bella’s expression instantly wilted into a sullen pout. “Yes, Maman.”

“Well, then, very good.” With a satisfied huff, Kitty turned her attention to the other people in the library. At least those who mattered. “Lady Blackwell,” she gushed. “A pleasant day to you. I hope Bella has not been a bother. And Lord Ashfield, Lord Jeremy.” She inclined her head in greeting.

“Good day, Mrs. Fitzhenry,” Beatrix said. “I was just suggesting that the younger Miss Fitzhenry and Jeremy accompany Ashfield, the elder Miss Fitzhenry, and Lady Phoebe into Upper Bidwell.”

“Oh.” Kitty looked from Bella, who was making eyes at Jeremy, to Jeremy, who was making eyes right back. Kitty frowned. She looked at Mira, standing forlornly in the middle of the library floor, Mira who had no experience with the world at all and would never know how to keep Jeremy and Bella adequately supervised. Kitty’s frown deepened. Finally, Kitty looked at Nicholas. The murderer. Kitty’s brows snapped down in a scowl.

Kitty looked back at Bella, her darling Bella. “Why I believe a walk would be just the thing to strengthen my constitution,” she said, her voice ringing with false enthusiasm. “I believe I shall join you.”

Nicholas took Mira’s arm. Leaning in close, he whispered to her, “We had best be off before Mrs. Murrish and the stable boys decide to join us as well.” She smiled at him, and a warm rush of pleasure filled him at their private jest.

“Well, then,” Nicholas said, “all those heading for Upper Bidwell, let us make haste before the day is gone.”

With Mira on his arm and Kitty, Jeremy and Bella vying for position behind him, Nicholas headed down the hallway. He stopped in the entryway and yelled up the stairs for Phoebe in the loudest, most commanding voice he could muster. To his surprise, Phoebe materialized right beside him, standing in the dining room doorway with a half-eaten tea cake clutched in her bloodless hand and a scattering of crumbs festooning her linen tucker.

“Good God, girl, you startled me out of my wits,” he muttered in consternation. “Do you ever make a sound?”