Well, she couldn’t, she reminded herself, and resumed her walk.
She was to play hostess for her uncle, and there was nothing to be done about it. Except, of course, to prepare for what she knew was coming. She’d tried very hard this time not to let it ruin her stay at Haldon, even having gone so far as to have a new gown made up.
She hadn’t put on a new dress in…oh, forever it seemed. The pittance her uncle gave her for pin money didn’t allow for extravagant purchases. It barely allowed enough for basic necessities.
In retrospect, perhaps she shouldn’t have dipped into her savings, but after the note arrived, she’d gone straight to her room and put on her new dress. It was silly, really, how much better it made her feel…almost pretty. She’d rather expected someone might comment upon it.
Have you been ill?
She found the rock again and kicked it hard enough to feel the bite against her toe.
Really, Whit was about as perceptive as a…well she didn’t know exactly. Something blind and deaf. Pity he wasn’t mute in the bargain.
Mirabelle stopped to take a deep calming breath. It was pointless for her to become so worked up over one little comment. In particular when said comment had come from Whit. It wasn’t anywhere near the most offensive insult he’d ever handed her, and the fact that she was so angry over such a small slight only served to make her…well, angrier.
She turned and pushed through a side door into the house, turned her steps toward her room, and tried to sort through her muddled feelings. It wasn’t all anger, she realized. There was hurt, too, and disappointment. He had just stood there, with that famous lopsided devil-may-care grin that had half the ton in love with him, and for an instant it seemed as if he might actually say something pleasant. For reasons she chose not to examine too closely, she had very much wanted him to say something pleasant to her. Something along the lines of: “Why, Mirabelle…”
“Why, Mirabelle, what a lovely dress.”
Mirabelle whirled to find Evie Cole exiting a room behind her. A curvaceous young woman with light brown hair and dark eyes, Evie’s appearance would have been described as lovely were it not for a slight limp and the long thin scar that ran from her temple to her jaw, both remnants of a carriage accident during childhood.
Though it was not known outside the family, it was that very accident that had brought Evie to Haldon Hall. Her father—Whit’s uncle—had been taken that night, and her mother—not an attentive parent to begin with by all accounts—had chosen to dwell in grief rather than see to the care of her child. According to Evie, Mrs. Cole had been all too happy to accept Lady Thurston’s offer to raise Evie at Haldon.
After years of neglect, it was no great surprise that Evie arrived a painfully shy child. It had taken months to coax her out of her shell. When she finally emerged, Mirabelle had been astounded to find not a proper and demure little girl, but an opinionated bluestocking. Evie had an incredible gift for mathematics and a personal, albeit currently secret, goal to free the world’s—or at the very least England’s—female population from the oppressive rule of the subspecies she referred to as the male gender. In short, she was a radical.
She was also unerringly loyal, wickedly clever, and rather incongruently fashion conscious. There was little chance of Evie failing to notice a friend’s pretty new dress.
Mirabelle felt herself smiling broadly.
“Does this mean your uncle has finally loosened his death grip on the purse strings, then?” Evie inquired, plucking at the lavender sleeve of the dress.
“Hardly,” Mirabelle scoffed. “It would take a good deal more than the grim reaper to pry that man’s fingers from his money.”
At Evie’s questioning expression, Mirabelle took her hand and led her to a small sitting room at the end of the hall. “Come, I’ll explain when Kate returns from her ride. In the meantime, ring for tea and some of those delicious biscuits Cook makes. I know it’s early, but I’m starved. And now that I have you cornered, I insist you finally tell me all about your trip to Bath last month.”
“You’re always hungry,” Evie mumbled after pulling the bell cord and sending the answering servant for refreshments. “And I’ve told you, Bath was Bath. A goodly number of ugly people in pretty clothing, drinking filthy water. I wrote you quite faithfully,” she finished, taking a seat.
“You turned out one letter, and its entire contents were centered on a dreadful musicale you were forced to attend at the Watlingtons’. I want the high points.”
“That was the high point,” Evie insisted. “Miss Mary Willory tripped on the hem of her skirt and upended the cellist before her head connected soundly with the back of his chair, and by way of clarification, one letter is faithful correspondence where I’m concerned.”