Then Comes Murder

Dancing with Devils (part two)

Nora nodded and handed her cousin the cup of tea.

"Of course," she said, forcing her tone to be something between nonchalant and cheerful. Caroline's mood was a tenuous thing these days, and Nora endeavored to maintain the calm she'd seemed to have found this morning. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Because Lieutenant Jacob Thornton-Spencer, rake and rumored criminal was flirting with you.

Had the lieutenant been flirting with her? Nora tried to brush away the thought with a dismissive hand. She'd endeavored to be polite, but unapproachable, in their encounters. Following their own rather unpleasant conversation, and the stranger one she'd had on the walk home with Marcus, Margaret, and Ian Maxwell, Nora had found it easy to keep her distance from the man. He was a handsome devil, but she had no time to tarry with demons. No matter how pretty. So Nora held her tongue when he was near and distracted her mind with more important duties. What did it matter that her breath caught when he smiled crookedly at her? It was his fault for smiling at her, wasn't it? Hadn't she made it perfectly clear that she had no interest in the man?

And it wasn't as if she had meant to play coy with him: it really just wasn't any of his business as to what she was reading. At best, he would have laughed if she'd explained; at worst, Nora would have found herself at the bottom of more irritating gossip. She'd yet to have a pleasant experience describing the games Nora and her father played.

Caroline had smiled politely when she'd first learned of the games. Those of science and arithmetic and puzzles that required research and and cleverness. Her father would demand the antidote to Cleopatra's suicide. Nora would counter with riddles of murders behind locked doors. Then be presented with some foreign puzzle box her father had whittled. They'd played them for years, since Nora was old enough to pair reason and logic, and in each year, they grew more and more complicated. While it wasn't unheard of for ladies to take a passing interest in botany, how could she explain that she was researching if it was scientifically reasonable for Hamlet's father to have truly perished from poison in his ear?

It was exactly the type of activity that emphasized how different her childhood had been. Compared to Caroline's dancing lessons and pianoforte and embroidery, convoluted riddles and elaborate experiments seemed positively otherworldly. Her cousin had suggested they choose more typical parlor games when hosting company, and, due to the tempered expression on her cousin's face, Nora made an effort not to mention them while with company. With the constraints of the social season, it was only in those private, untouched hours of the morning that she'd found the time to return to them at all.

"You are quite flushed," Caroline answered. Her mouth tightened, and Nora could not tell if her cousin was amused or irritated.

"You know I hate being waited on," Nora said. More than the dresses and the dancing and the simpering smiles she was expected to make at puffed-up gentlemen, Nora loathed having an army of servants waiting to attend her. It was the best thing about her father inheriting an impoverished estate: they did not have to contend with more than a cook, a housekeeper, and a near-blind butler her father kept on out of pity alone. Caroline and Nora acted the other's lady's maid. With only the six of them in the country house and no occasion to stand on ceremony, it felt more an odd family than it did an earl's residence.

Caroline's lips broke into a sympathetic smile. "It was before you spilled the sugar, dear."

"Well, you also know I hate being flirted with," Nora said peevishly. She also hated being pestered.

The words chilled her cousin's expression into furrowed concern, and Caroline took her hands. She patted Nora's fingers affectionately. "Do be careful, Nora."