Once Upon a Wallflower
Page 69So delicate, the flower. Yet it found a way to fight through the earth and strive for the sun.
She closed the locket and wrapped her cold hand about it, clutching it close like a talisman. If a flower could find its way, she could too.
…
Cloves and heat and wet wool. Lulled by a gentle rocking motion, Mira burrowed deeper into the sudden warmth and breathed in the intoxicating scent of Nicholas.
Nicholas.
He was here.
“Mira-mine, open your eyes.”
It was difficult, so difficult, but Mira did as asked and looked up into Nicholas’s face, meeting his silvery gaze. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw hard, the force of his will rousing her from her stupor.
“Good girl,” he said.
“On a horse.”
“Mmmm.” She closed her eyes again and leaned into the shelter of his embrace.
Without stirring, she muttered against his waistcoat, “A horse going where?”
“Going to Dowerdu. It is closer than Blackwell.” She felt his voice as much as she heard it, rumbling beneath her cheek.
“Mmmm. I was on a cliff.”
“Yes, Mira, I know you were.” His words were clipped. He sounded angry.
Details of the incident began to intrude on the muzzy warmth in Mira’s mind: the horse and rider, the fall, the rain pummeling her on the ledge, and then blackness. She had no recollection of her apparent rescue.
She struggled to sit up again, to look Nicholas in the eye. “Where did you come from?” she asked. “I waited in the library for you, but you did not come.”
She looked about, taking stock of her surroundings. There was a light mist in the air, but the rain had ceased. It was nearing dark, a wash of orange and red across the ocean heralding the last glimmer of daylight. She must have been on the ledge for hours. That would certainly explain the bone-biting cold she felt, the grinding ache in her limbs, and the stirring of hunger deep in her belly.
“But how did you ever find me?” she whispered, marveling at her good fortune.
“Your shawl. The green one.” A faint smile brushed his face. “The color suits you,” he added with a shrug. “It was caught on a bit of gorse by the edge of the pathway. You were not far below.”
Mira remembered, now, the feel of the shawl sliding off as she fell. She glanced about vaguely. “Where is it?”
“What?”
“My shawl.”
Nicholas glanced down at her, eyes wide with incredulity. “You might have died, Mira. You are battered and wet and freezing. But you are worried about the location of your shawl?”
She shrugged.
“But you said you saw it. How can it now be gone?”
“I… When I saw you on the ledge…” He paused and returned his gaze to the pathway. Now there was no mistaking the flush that crept up his throat and suffused his face. “I could not reach you myself,” he ground out. “I had to leave you there and return to Blackwell for help.”
Straightening as much as she could, Mira peered over Nicholas’s broad shoulder. Just behind them rode another man. He wore a hat pulled low to protect him from the lingering drizzle, but based on the man’s rangy build and the tawny curls that poked from beneath his drooping brim she recognized it was Pawly. He raised a hand in silent greeting, and Mira gave him a tiny wave in return.
“When Pawly and I returned to fetch you, the shawl was gone,” Nicholas continued in a tight voice.
“Oh.” Mira suddenly realized that she must sound ungrateful, fretting over the loss of her shawl when Nicholas and Pawly had surely risked their lives to pull her from the cliff ledge. “The shawl really does not matter,” she said, “I was just curious. And, um, thank you for saving me.”
“I could hardly just leave you there,” Nicholas responded, the tension draining from his form and voice. “People would talk,” he added, giving her a teasing wink.