He nodded. “I should,” he said. “I spent enough time in them. Why?”
“Do you recall the servants’ stairwell down to the storage vault?”
“The one with the small door outside?”
“The same,” Astoria said. “If you go there and wait, I could send her to you and you would have all of the time and privacy you need.”
Raymond looked at her. “Why should you be so eager to do this?” he asked. Then he eyed her for a moment. “I thought I did not know you, but I believe I was wrong. I think I do know you.”
You called me ugly, once,Astoria thought, but she didn’t say it. Instead, she tried to seem as innocent as possible.
“I am eager to do this because Mira is my friend and I want her to be happy,” she said. “She has spoken of you often in the years you have been gone. This is a chance for me to help her. But only if you are agreeable, of course.”
Raymond believed her. He had no reason not to. With a shrug, he turned for the hall entry. “Then send her to me,” he said. “I will be waiting.”
With that, he headed out of the hall, leaving Astoria thinking she was about to get even with Mira for every little insult, every little infraction the woman had ever committed against her. It couldn’t have been easier. Now the trap was set.
She simply had to send the quarry to it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next personwho touched Mira’s arm received a scream of terror.
Douglas had to grab on to her to keep her from bolting.
“What?” he asked, alarmed. “What did I do?”
When Mira realized who it was, she tried not to weep with relief. “Nothing,” she assured him. “I am so sorry. Nothing at all. You… you simply startled me.”
They were standing back behind the dais, behind an enormous wooden screen painted with woodlands scenes. Some famous Savoyard artist had been commissioned to paint it and it was an object of pride for Isabel, but right now, it blocked Douglas and Mira from a roomful of nosy eyes.
He peered at her closely.
“Does this have something to do with Raymond?” he asked.
She was trying to pretend that nothing was amiss. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because I saw you talking to him,” Douglas said, lifting a blond eyebrow. “I saw him with his hand on your arm, and had it lasted a moment longer, I would have intervened and cut his hand off. You should be proud of the fact that I did not bolt over the table and charge the man the very moment I saw it. I thoughtI was giving you the opportunity to handle the situation but now I see that I was more than likely wrong. He rattled you.”
Mira was trying very hard to pretend that absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary, but that simply wasn’t the case. Raymond had rattled her no matter how hard she tried not to let him affect her.
He had.
The tears began to come.
“He said that someone told him I wished to dance with him,” she said, breaking down. “He told me that he had not forgotten about me and he knew that I had not forgotten about him. He wanted to dance and talk and I told him to go away and leave me alone, for whoever told him such things about me was wrong.”
Douglas had both hands on her arms, trying to be of some comfort. He’d never really seen Mira as vulnerable because she always came across so confident and strong, but at this moment, he could see that vulnerability that she tried so hard to hide.
It had his protective instincts surging.
“He told you that someone told him you wished to dance with him?” he asked. “Is it possible he mistook you for someone else? Who else did he know when he was at Axminster those years ago?”
Mira sniffled, trying not to openly weep. “He knew Astoria and Helen and Davina,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “It is possible he mistook me for one of them, but who would tell him I wished to dance with him? Thatanyonewished to dance with him?”
Douglas shook his head, rubbing her arms gently. “I do not know, love.”
Without an answer, she gestured in the direction of the hall. “And some of the soldiers are waving at me,” she said, growing agitated. “Why are they waving at me? I feel as if everyone is looking at me and waving at me and I do not know why.”
