Nicholas stealthily raised one hand to point out a stone house next to the church, at the far edge of the village. “That,” he said, “is where the vicar and his wife live.”
He slid his hand over to grasp hers, the brief clasp concealed by the folds of her skirt. “Good luck,” he whispered with a tiny waggle of his eyebrows.
Then, in a louder voice, he said, “Mrs. Fitzhenry, perhaps you would care to visit our small millinery? The selection is quite limited, I’m afraid, but the wares are of excellent quality.”
Bella cast her mother an imploring look. Kitty raised a hand to her head, self-consciously stroking the brim of her rather plain bonnet, and her face took on a wistful, almost girlish expression. Even the insipid Lady Phoebe perked up at the mention of a milliner.
Nicholas looked down to catch Mira’s eye. “Magic,” he mouthed.
He then moved forward to take Kitty by the arm, leaving Bella free for Jeremy’s attentions. With Phoebe trailing in their wake like the tail of a kite, they set off for the small shop in the center of town.
Seemingly forgotten, Mira walked the rest of the way through Upper Bidwell to the vicar’s house at her usual brisk pace.
She strode purposefully up the garden walkway to the vicar’s cottage and knocked sharply on the door. It was immediately opened by a small round woman, neat as a pin, her mud-brown hair swept up in a simple chignon to reveal streaks of white beneath the lacy edge of her linen cap. Behind a pair of tiny round spectacles, she wore an eager expression that suggested she had been waiting anxiously by the door all day in the hopes of receiving a visitor. The little woman took one look at the vibrant red curls peeping out from under Mira’s cap and began talking.
“Welcome, welcome,” she chirped. “You can be none other than the Miss Fitzhenry what’s engaged to his lordship. I am Eloise Thomas, and my husband’s the vicar, whom you’ve met. He told me all about you, I’m afraid. Quite an impression you made on him the other evening. All favorable, I assure you. Yes, quite taken with you, he was. ‘Such a sweet girl,’ he said, and ‘lovely as the day is long.’ Oh, do come in, dear, and let me get you some tea. You do care for tea, don’t you? Of course you do. My, now, you must tell me all about yourself, dear. Why, good gracious, my own husband will be marrying you, won’t he?” She chuckled. “Not getting married to you, of course, but performing the service. Such a goose I am sometimes. Oh, you must come in!”
Dazed by the barrage of chatter, Mira allowed herself to be swept along to a small parlor, where she was seated on a velvet settee and offered tea and cakes and a variety of sweetmeats by Mrs. Thomas, who never once seemed to pause for breath as she filled Mira’s ears with descriptions of all the people in town, what they did, where they came from, and what kind of people they were. Mira thought that, if she could ever squeeze in a word of her own, Mrs. Thomas would be sure to provide her with every detail about the murders. She might even volunteer the information without Mira ever saying a word.
“Here, now,” Mrs. Thomas said, as she plopped herself down on a small wing chair, setting her feet—which did not reach the ground—upon an embroidered footstool and folding her hands in her lap, “I have been doing all the talking and haven’t learned a thing about you. Where are my manners?”
And suddenly the parlor fell deathly silent. Mrs. Thomas blinked owlishly, waiting for Mira to spill forth her life story in a cataclysm of words. But Mira was still trying to remember how she came to have a cup of tea—just as she liked it, with a smidge of milk and plenty of sugar—and an iced cake in her hands.
Mrs. Thomas gave a tiny sniff, as though she had suddenly caught the scent of something odd and promptly began talking again. “Reverend Mr. Thomas told me that you reside primarily in London. How exciting! It must be positively grand to attend all of those soirées and balls and such. Oh, and the public amusements! Have you been often to the performances at Astley’s? I have always thought I should like to go there myself. Acrobats and sword-fighters and magicians…it all sounds just splendidly exciting. Of course, we hardly ever manage to get away from Upper Bidwell, and then just to visit my people in Devon or to take the waters at Bath. The Reverend Mr. Thomas suffers from the gout, you know. Dreadful affliction, the gout. But then you are too young to be troubled by such things yet, aren’t you? Why you cannot be more than twenty-one? Twenty-two?”