She had kissed Whit. Whit had kissed her. They had kissed each other.
She managed, somehow, to greet the group waiting on the front steps with a smile. She responded to questions, asked one or two of her own and otherwise made a very fine job of pretending she hadn’t just had her world turned upside down. But when someone suggested a game of whist in the front parlor, she demurred, using the excuse of her sore ankle to retreat to her room.
She slipped—or hobbled to be more precise—away before Whit could offer his assistance, and after a laborious climb up the stairs, made it to her room where she collapsed in a dazed heap on the soft chair by the window. She looked through the glass without seeing what lay beyond. Her mind remained steeped in the kiss. That lovely and terrifying kiss.
Why had it happened, when only days ago they would both have sneered at the idea of Whit so much as kissing her hand?
Would she have sneered at it? She shifted in her seat as if gaining physical comfort could somehow compensate for the discomfort of the truth. And the truth was, she would have let him kiss her hand. If she had known he did so with sincerity, that it wasn’t a joke or the beginnings of an insult, she would have taken that compliment and cherished it.
And if her recent reactions to touching him were any indication, she would have wished for more. She had felt the jolt of awareness when he’d sat next to her on the bench that morning, and the shock of excitement when he’d picked her up in his arms and carried her up the hill.
With the certainty that nothing could come of it, she’d done her best to ignore her physical response to him. Now something had come of it. There could be no more pretending not to notice the way her heart leapt, and her skin felt hot and sensitive whenever he was close enough to touch.
Wondering what that meant, and if it meant anything at all to Whit, she snuggled deeper into her chair. There was so much to sort through—too much, she decided, to attempt to make sense of all at once. Particularly while her ankle throbbed, her mind whirled, and her heart skipped uncomfortably in her chest. Giving into exhaustion, she closed her eyes and slept.
She woke several hours later stiff and cramped, her neck twisted at an awkward angle against the back of the chair. She groaned softly as she fought off the dregs of sleep, sitting upright to look at the clock on her mantel. It was dark out, but not yet eight. She had time to straighten her appearance and perhaps stretch out the worst of her kinks with a short walk before dinner.
With her ankle injured and exhaustion still lingering, she found it difficult to undress and dress. But if she rang the bell for assistance now, it would likely be Lizzy who came, which increased the probability of Evie or Kate appearing as well. As much as she loved her friends, Mirabelle wanted some quiet time before dinner to clear her head and settle her thoughts.
She took one of the secondary staircases down in the hopes of avoiding everyone, but as she reached the bottom, raised voices in the hall told her solitude was not to be had.
“Stop it! You give her back!”
Mirabelle stepped around the corner to find little Isabelle Waters, no more than six years of age, confronting a thirteen-year-old Victor Jarles.
“Give her back!” Isabelle stomped her foot in temper even as the first tears fell. “You give her back!”
“What’s all this?” Mirabelle asked, stepping between the two.
“Victor’s taken my Caro!”
Mirabelle turned to the boy and noticed he was holding a small doll. “Is that true, Victor?”
The boy shrugged and tossed the doll at Isabelle’s feet. She snatched it up and ran to the corner where she cradled her toy and sniffled.
“I was only playing,” Victor said carelessly.
“It didn’t look as if she wanted to play your sort of game.”
“What does she know? She’s only a baby.”
“I am not!” the little girl wailed. “I’m six! Nearly.”
“Aren’t you a bit old to be teasing a six-year-old?” Mirabelle inquired, fisting her hands on her hips.
Victor sniffed and tugged regally at his cuffs. “Can’t see how it’s any of your concern. Mirabelle.”
Her eyes narrowed at the insult. The boy was every inch his father, she thought, a man whose drunken attentions she’d twice had to fend off in the past. The second, and final time, had required Sophie’s unique skill with knives.
“It is Miss Browning,” she corrected sternly. “You’ll apologize to Isabelle and to me.”
“I won’t. She’s a brat. And you’re not but one step removed from a servant,” Victor returned derisively. “Servants are referred to by their Christian names.”
Patience, she told herself, even as she felt that particular virtue dwindling away at an astounding rate. “I am but one step removed from a baron—”
“A baron no one knows,” he interrupted snidely. “My father says you’re poor as paupers.”