“You should go, Mirabelle.”
“Hmm? Oh, right. Right.” It took her a moment to regain the use of her legs to the extent that she could walk towards the door without stumbling.
“Mirabelle?”
She spun around with an eagerness that would embarrass her later. “Yes?”
“Dance with me?”
“What…now?”
He grinned suddenly, the s elf-satisfied smile of a man who’d befuddled a woman. “I wouldn’t say no, if you’ve a mind to. But we might find it an easier prospect in the ballroom, with music.”
“Oh,” she said, finally understanding. And then said, “Oh,” again in pleasure. Whit had danced with her before, but only out of a sense of obligation…and because his mother nagged. Now he was asking for himself. Her feet, already light from the kiss, nearly floated off the floor.
She smiled at him. “I could probably see my way to clearing a space on my dance card for a reel.”
“A waltz,” he countered. “I want a waltz.”
She gave a brief thought to saying something sophisticated and witty, something to offset the delight she was certain her face betrayed. But she had neither the skill nor the inclination to play the flirt.
“A waltz, then.”
Although Mirabelle saw Whit the next day, it was only from afar or in passing. The gentlemen engaged in separate activities, preferring cards and a trip to Maver’s Tavern over the more staid pursuits of charades in the parlor and walks about the grounds.
Mirabelle made a sincere attempt to not be distracted by thoughts of Whit, but every time she began to attain some success in that endeavor—and by success she meant a solid five to ten minutes of time in which she thought of him only once or twice—she would catch sight of him across the lawn, or hear his voice from the far end of the dinner table, and her heart would beat wildly and her thoughts would scatter, rearrange themselves, and return focused solely on him.
She thought of the way he’d held her close as they’d waltzed a slow circle about the room the night before—how the music drifted over them, his hand solid and warm on the small of her back. From that memory, it was a very small leap to recalling where his hand had been earlier in the study.
It was maddening. It left her feeling tense and anxious. It left her feeling aggravatingly needy. And the fact that he’d appeared perfectly composed the few times she had seen him, only succeeded in making her more agitated.
Shouldn’t he be as worked up as she? she wondered as she let herself into her room after dinner. It didn’t seem at all fair that she should be the only one feeling excited and miserable at the same time.
Of course, if she was the only one feeling that way, it had very little to do with what was fair, and with what simply was. A few secret kisses likely weren’t so very large a thing to someone like Whit. They weren’t, after all, his first kisses.
Swearing under her breath, she yanked off her gloves and tossed them on the foot of the bed.
The counterpane shifted.
It was only the slightest of movements, but she’d caught it, and sighed.
“Again? Honestly, couldn’t the boy come up with something—?”
She broke off, speechless, as she pulled back the covers.
Spiders. Everywhere. A mass of legs and fangs spread out over her bed like a gruesome blanket. A blanket she watched undulate, then tear as the exposed spiders scurried to find refuge.
She didn’t scream, not even when one of the little monsters crawled over her hand, and though her pride would be grateful for that later, it wasn’t pride that kept her from screeching at the top of her lungs at present. It was the fact she hadn’t the breath to manage more than a strangled, “Nyah.”
She tossed the counterpane down again and took two steps back.
“Nnn,” or something very close to it, emerged around clenched teeth as she shook her hands wildly. She slapped at her skirts, patted at her hair and took another step back, just to be safe.
“Something the matter, imp?”
She whirled to find Whit standing in the doorway, a quizzical smile on his face.
“Are they on me?” she whispered in a strangled voice. “Are they? Get them off. Get them—”
“Is what on you?”
“Spiders!”
“Hold still then, let me have a look.” He made what appeared to her to be a cursory glance of her hair and clothes. “Not a thing on you. I wouldn’t have thought you’d make such a fuss over one little spider.”
“Spiders.” She swatted at a tickle on the back of her neck before jabbing a finger at the bed. “Plural. There.”
“In your bed, you mean?”
The amusement in his voice had her temper rising, conveniently pushing aside the worst of her jitters. “No, in the imaginary jar sitting atop the bed,” she snapped. “Don’t you see it? Of course in my bed.”
“No need to get testy,” he muttered and walked over to grab the counterpane.