“Miss Fitzhenry,” Pawly snapped, his temper clearly worn through, “Lord Ashfield does not need any tending. Please wait right there. Let me just tell Lord Ashfield we are leaving, and I will be with you straightaway.”
Mira nodded reluctant acquiescence, and a satisfied smile bloomed on Pawly’s face.
But as soon as he disappeared inside the cottage, Mira darted through the trees, gained the cliff path, and began hurrying along toward Blackwell.
She managed to get quite far, past the point at which the rider had run her off the cliff, before she heard Pawly’s angry cries behind her. Hoping that her haste would not cost him his position, she ignored the calls and continued on to Blackwell Hall.
Chapter Seventeen
When she returned to Blackwell, she headed immediately to her bedchamber where she had to soothe the nerves of a terrified Nan. Reassuring the maid that she was perfectly fine, she requested Nan draw her a bath.
As soon as Nan left to fetch the hip bath and hot water, Mira sat at her dressing table. Holding her own solemn gaze in the looking glass, she slowly removed Olivia’s locket from around her neck. She opened the locket and looked again at the image inside, a miniature of a woman who was a slightly older version of Sarah Linworth. Yes, there was no question that the locket belonged to Olivia, that it was the locket someone had stolen from her the day before she died.
And it had been at Dowerdu, tucked into the folds of Mira’s own shawl, where only Nicholas could have put it.
In the quiet of her bedroom, facing herself in the mirror, Mira realized the facts now pointed toward Nicholas’s guilt.
Only Nicholas had known of the depths of Mira’s investigation. Only Nicholas had known that she would be on the path to Dowerdu and when she would be there. Nicholas claimed to have found her because he had seen her shawl, that he had gone to Blackwell for help and the shawl was gone when he returned. But then the shawl was at Dowerdu. Logic suggested he had known Mira was on the ledge because he had been the one to put her there. He had ridden on to Dowerdu with her shawl before doubling back to Blackwell for Pawly.
Logic dictated that Nicholas had tried to kill her. The conclusion was inescapable.
Yet somehow Mira could not believe that it was true. He had pulled her from the cliff, then he had spent the entire night alone with her at Dowerdu and had not harmed her at all. Indeed, he had held her tenderly. She grasped at that fact desperately, holding it like a shield between her heart and her head.
Mira had always despised the heroines in gothic novels, the heroines who blindly accepted what they were told, who believed in coincidence and magic and allowed themselves to be lulled into a dangerous complacency. She had never understood how they could be so foolish.
Now she understood only too well.
If she closed her eyes, she heard Nan’s voice, saw the concern on her face, felt the steady pressure of her hand. Nan would tell her—had told her—that she must be careful not to let her emotion cloud her reason.
But Mira also heard the siren call of her own heart.
Suddenly, the unearthly quiet of the bedroom was shattered by a knock on the door. Mira quickly tucked Olivia’s locket into her own jewelry box before going to answer the knock. She opened the door slowly, a tiny bit unsure who might be waiting on the other side.
She could not have been more surprised to see her Uncle George standing in the hallway, hands clasped behind his back, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
Mira pulled the door wide. “Uncle George! Do come in.”
“Um, yes, yes,” George muttered as he sidled into the room. His eyes darted about the room, and he seemed vaguely alarmed by the painted birds covering the walls.
He stopped just inside the doorway and pressed against the wall as though he wished to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible.
“Did you have any luck with that brood mare?” Mira asked casually.
George’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
“Yesterday,” Mira said, “were you not going to inspect a brood mare with Lord Blackwell?”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course,” George said, shaking his head. “Left at dawn, we did. Uncivilized, I say. Rode for hours, and Blackwell did not even buy the horse. Waste of time.”