“I know,” Mirabelle chuckled. “It’s fortunate others are fond of writing letters or I should never know what happens on your adventures.”
“Nothing happens on my adventures, that’s why I write so little. It takes up half a week of my time composing enough material to fill one page, and to be honest, a good deal of it is exaggerated—for dramatic purposes, you understand.”
“Naturally. The Miss Willory incident?”
Evie grinned wickedly. “Oh no, my recounting of that event was true down to the last blessed detail. God knows I made every effort to memorize the scene. I shall live off the memory for years.”
Mirabelle tried and failed not to smile. “I suppose we hardly do ourselves credit by sinking to her level of spitefulness. Besides, she could have been injured.”
“Oh, she was,” Evie replied, unrepentantly cheerful. “She had a lump on her forehead the size of a hen’s egg.” She smiled wistfully at the memory. “It was glorious—all black and blue and red around the edges.”
“God, that sounds painful.”
“One can only hope. And it turned the most spectacular shade of green after several days. I’ve never seen the like. I was tempted to invite her to the modiste so I might have a gown made in the same shade in honor of the occasion, but I didn’t think I could stand her company for quite so long a time.”
A rattling at the door and the appearance of a bedraggled young woman stopped Mirabelle’s reply.
“Kate!” Both girls cried, half in pleased greeting and half in dismay over her state.
Lady Kate Cole, under better circumstances, was a beauty—tall enough to wear the current high-waisted fashions with ease, but still petite enough to appear respectably delicate—and endowed with enough curves to keep men’s eyes and thoughts off either one of those concerns. She’d had the good fortune to be born with the pale blonde hair and soft blue eyes the ton was currently raving over, as well as a straight blade of nose, an adorable little chin, and a perfect rosebud mouth. Normally, she was a vision. At the moment, however, her hair was half undone from its pins, hanging in damp lanks down her neck. Her dress was torn, and the front of it splattered liberally in mud.
“Oh, Kate,” Evie sighed, standing up to take her cousin’s hand. “What ever happened?”
Kate blew an errant lock out of her eyes. “I fell off my horse.”
Both Mirabelle and Evie gasped. Kate’s mishaps were common, but rarely were they dangerous.
“You what!”
“Are you hurt? Should we call for a physician?”
“Does your mother know?”
“You should sit. Immediately.”
Kate let herself be led to one of the chairs where she sat down with a disgruntled sigh. “I fell off my horse, and I’m perfectly well, I assure you. I don’t need a doctor, or my mother. Has anyone rung for tea, I’m in desperate need—”
“Yes, yes,” Mirabelle cried impatiently, “but are you sure you’re uninjured? Being thrown from a horse is no small matter, Kate. Maybe we should—”
Mirabelle stopped at Kate’s sheepish grimace.
“Daisy didn’t throw me,” Kate supplied reluctantly. “I fell off.”
There was a moment of silence before Evie raised her eyebrows and said, “Well, I’ll concede there is a difference.”
Kate nodded and waved at her friends to resume their seats. “I was in the east pasture, and I stopped to look at a little flower just starting to bloom quite in the middle of nowhere, and so early as well. I thought if I could find out what it was, I could plant some of them along that far side of the walled garden that gets so little sun. You know the spot, where nothing ever seems to grow but spiny weeds and—”
“Kate,” Mirabelle admonished gently.
“Right, well…I leaned down for a closer peek and my dress, or maybe it was my heel…” She paused to look down questioningly at her feet. “Something, at any rate, caught on something else, and the next thing I knew, I was face down in the mud. Daisy was standing perfectly still.”
Evie and Mirabelle winced sympathetically. Mirabelle couldn’t help but ask one more time if she was all right.
“I’m fine. Truly,” Kate replied. “Nothing was injured besides my riding habit, which can be replaced, and my pride—which, fortunately, has developed a healthy callus over the years and shall no doubt heal completely before the day is out. Oh, and the flower. I landed on it.”
“That’s a shame,” Evie remarked.
“Rather. Now I’ll never know what it was.”
“I’m sure there are others,” Mirabelle assured her. “I think you should go change your dress before you catch a chill.”
“Oh no, it isn’t necessary. I’m dry as a bone underneath all the mud. Speaking of dresses, you look quite lovely today, Mira. Is that a new gown?”
“It is.” She plucked at the skirts. “My uncle sent his note this morning. I rather thought the dress might cheer me up.”