“Thank you.” She could only manage the faintest murmur.
“No, Mira-mine. Thank you.”
He leaned down, then, his body curving around hers, making her feel small and delicate and cherished. His heat washed over her in a luscious wave, bearing the scent of cloves and sea air and woodsmoke. Lightly, his lips brushed hers, a gossamer hint of a kiss, but it was enough to spark a fire deep in her belly.
She yearned toward him, her body seeking contact as though compelled by some natural force, something stronger than her own will. With a soft sigh, she abandoned herself to that compulsion, allowing instinct to guide her.
“Oh, ho, ho! What do we have here?”
Mira pulled away from Nicholas in alarm, peeking around his shoulder to see Lady Marleston tittering into her hand.
The older woman looked like an overblown rose, abundant flesh overflowing the ruched bodice of her scarlet gown, hair amassed in a pile of exuberant curls atop her head, her features lax and ruddy from intoxication. She swayed slightly on her feet as she leaned forward to speak in a conspiratorial whisper. “Antishi…ansnishi…ahem, anticipating the wedding, are we?”
She laughed again, sending a hot blast of moist, alcoholic breath directly into Mira’s face. Lady Marleston was redolent of some strange liquor, something sweet and yet peppery, sugary but with an awful bite. Something familiar.
Mira drew back and stared at the woman in amazement.
Nicholas cleared his throat, drawing Lady Marleston’s confused attention.
“Madam,” Nicholas said, his voice slow and firm, like the tone one would take with an obstinate child, “madam, I believe you are quite drunk.”
He might have gone on, chastising Lady Marleston for her vulgar observation and sending the woman on her way, but Mira cut in.
“Lady Marleston, might I ask what you have been drinking?”
With a wild swing of her head, Lady Marleston shifted her attention back to Mira. “Pardon me, dear?”
Slowly, Mira repeated, “What have you been drinking?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nicholas frowning in puzzlement.
Lady Marleston also frowned, in earnest concentration. “Oh yes,” she replied, her face lighting up with a self-satisfied smile. “But, oh no. I have not been drinking at all, dear. I simply took a tonic.”
“What tonic?” Mira said, struggling to keep her patience in the face of Lady Marleston’s drink-addled wits.
“Beatrix gave me a tonic for my head. Her physician recommended it for her megrims, and I was coming down with one this evening. Nasty stuff, even when you mix it with sugar. But Beatrix swears by it. I took the dose she gave me, and when that didn’t work, I took a little more. And then just a teensy bit more.”
Mira turned an expectant gaze on Nicholas.
“Absinthe,” he said, seeming to anticipate her question.
“Absinthe?”
“Yes, it is a decoction of wormwood in an alcohol base. Spices are added to make it more palatable, aniseed and who knows what else. Some Frenchman produces it for sale on the continent, and he claims it cures all sorts of maladies. Beatrix takes it for headaches.”
“Does anyone else in the household take this remedy?” Mira asked, tension stretching her voice taut as a bowstring.
“Not that I know of,” Nicholas responded. “Mira, why the sudden interest in Beatrix’s headaches?”
“I—”
“This is dull.” Lady Marleston lowered her brow and pouted her lip in a petulant sulk. “You are dull. I’m going to find Henrietta Bosworth. She’s a card.” Lady Marleston swung about on her heel, tilting precariously to one side, and then forged off into the crowd.
Mira shook her head, watching her go, and then turned back to Nicholas. “I’m not interested in her headaches but in that odor. It was the same scent I noted when the horseman ran me off the path to Dowerdu. Only it was faint then, just a whiff in the folds of the rider’s cloak as it brushed past my face.”
“You smelled absinthe when you were run off the cliff?” Nicholas spoke with a sense of unreality, as though he were repeating words in a foreign tongue without having any clue of their meaning.