“Very well,” Miss Bexton replied gravely and flipped the pages back to reveal the title page. The text was rather different from the cover displayed there.
“Miss Bexton!” Nora hissed excitedly. “You are reading Mrs. Wollstonecraft!”
“Yes, and call me Beth,” she replied with a jubilant grin and a placating gesture for Nora to keep her voice down.
“My mother says I’m not mature enough to read her yet, but my sisters frequently discuss her work.”
“My mother won’t allow me to either,” Beth said with a conspiratory smile.
“Then how did you ever obtain a copy?”
“My elder brother.” Beth leaned back contentedly.
“And the new binding?”
“Also my brother. Thomas is a dear. You may borrow it when you leave; I have read it many times already.”
Nora knew immediately she and Beth would be fast friends.
Chapter Two
Despite frequent visits of varying length, Nora did not meet the infamous Thomas Bexton—the youngest viscount since the title’s creation—for several more months. In the meantime, Beth regaled Nora with tales of her brother’s mischief; how he filched extra desserts at school for his friends, that he caused their mother no small amount of frustration with his refusal to focus more on his studies and, still, somehow managed to receive relatively high marks. At five years Beth’s elder—now seventeen to her twelve years of age—Thomas was a young man who rode too fast, laughed loudly, doted upon his frail younger sister, and seemed to be incapable of staying out of trouble.
After hearing all the stories, it seemed only fair that, while he was away at school, Nora took up the mantle of resident hellion. Almost immediately, she made it her mission to have as much fun with Beth as possible.
It turned out Nora was only a quiet, tame child when she was being directly compared to her rambunctious siblings—something neither Lady Mylton nor Lady Bexton was ready for.
Their mischief began slowly; Nora was, after all, still rather conscientious for her age and did not wish to place Beth’s health in jeopardy. After weeks without incident, their quiet meetings in the dim sitting room moved to the library, then the gardens. Soon, they were sneaking off to the fields and traipsing through the woods. They read in the dappled light filtering through the canopy, dipped their toes into the stream, and fed plump apples to horses in the Bexton stables.
They were doing just that when Beth suffered her first attack in Nora’s presence.
At first, Nora thought her friend had tripped on an uneven bit of the packed flooring. She knelt to help Beth with a sympathetic cluck of her tongue, but the smile abruptly fell from her face when the tremors began.
“Beth?” Her friend’s body was stiff, her arms clenched and shaking; her beautiful blue eyes unseeing. “Beth!” Nora screeched and began to shake her. Her voice echoed in the empty stable, eliciting irritated whickers from the horses and startling a bird from its dusty nest in the rafters. “Please Beth—help!” she screamed, not knowing what to do. Nora’s gut urged her to seek out assistance, but her heart would not allow her to leave her friend there alone on the floor.
Suddenly, a pair of strong hands wrenched her out of the way; she was so caught off guard that she fell to her bottom with an oof and just barely prevented her back from colliding with the wall of a stall.
“You must roll her to her side,” the young male voice commanded and proceeded to do just that. He maneuvered Beth to her shoulder and, cradling her neck, he used his teeth to ripthe fine leather riding glove from his hand and promptly stuck his fingers into Beth’s mouth.
“What are you doing?” Nora stammered. “What are you doing?” she repeated more loudly when he didn’t answer. Her hands floated helplessly in the air. Did she stop him?
“Making sure she didn’t swallow her tongue—or bite it off,” the young man ground out as he struggled to maintain control of Beth’s writhing body. It was remarkable that he was nearly double her size and yet Beth’s insensible movements were so strong he had to use his entire body to prevent her from injuring herself.
“What can I do?” Nora asked, desperately needing to make this horror end…to ease her friend’s pain.
The young man met her gaze with eyes so unnaturally ice-blue they appeared to glow. “We wait,” he replied flatly.
The heavy silence between them was unbearable. It felt as if it lasted hours when, in reality, it was likely no more than a minute or two before Beth sighed and went unnaturally still.
The young man lifted Beth, cradled her limp body to his chest, and produced a handkerchief from his pocket to clean her face. She looked so small in his arms, so cherished as he held her so gently.
Nora clenched her freezing, trembling hands in an attempt to still them. She willed her racing heart to slow and tore her eyes away from Beth to focus on the man who’d flown to their aid. Dark hair. Lean frame. Wide mouth and proud nose, so similar to Beth’s.
The dappled white gelding he’d abandoned upon arriving at the stables and witnessing Beth’s fit stood in the aisle like a well-mannered gentleman in his gleaming black-and-silver tack. He was just as Beth had described.
She looked back at the newcomer. “Thomas?” she whispered tremulously, hazarding a guess as to the young man’s identity.
He met her eyes and nodded once. “You are the infamous Nora Allen,” he stated, no question at all in his words. Beth must have written to her beloved elder brother about their blossoming friendship; the knowledge thawed some of the chill that had overtaken her. “This was your first time witnessing one of Beth’s spells?”
