Lord of Ice Read Online Free PDF Page B

and bullying, far worse was Mr. Reed’s inability to keep his hands to himself. And when it came to discipline, wielding the birch was his favorite pastime. It had been weeks since he’d had the opportunity to flog anyone. Miranda gulped silently, fearful that he was eager to keep his hand in play.
    “This act of subterfuge indicates a serious lack of moral development,” he remarked, stalking slowly toward her, his pale, long-fingered hands dangling at his sides. He had thinning hair, a bony beak of a nose, and shifty eyes. Tall and spare, he stood with a slight stoop that added to his air of furtiveness. “Are you proud of this act of destruction, FitzHubert?”
    “Pride is her natural manner,” Brocklehurst said in contempt.
    “Mm, yes, vanity. Are you vain because men think you beautiful, Miss?” His stare raked her body and her face. “Do you forget that pride is first among the mortal sins, the very sin that toppled the angels?”
    “I have tried for years to remove that stain from her character,” Brocklehurst chimed in, nodding.
    “As have I, ma'am, as have I. Alas, I see we both have failed,” he said, staring at Miranda for a moment in lecherous malice. “In addition to what Miss Brocklehurst has indicated, you will come to my office tomorrow following the eleven o’clock service and take your punishment from my hand . . . privately.”
    Miranda flinched down into the core of her soul and closed her eyes, dropping her chin slightly, but she knew better than to argue with him. That would only make it worse. It doesn’t matter, she told herself fiercely. She had lived through the humiliation and pain of a flogging before. Amy had been saved again. That was all that mattered—that, and tonight’s performance. She could get through it tomorrow if only she could have her dream tonight.
    When she heard Amy sobbing a few feet away, she feared the guilty child would confess. She shot the girl a sharp look askance. Hold your tongue.
    In that moment, more than she despised Brocklehurst, even more than she detested Mr. Reed, she cursed Uncle Jason for abandoning her here and going off to war, forgetting about her. She despised him for it.
    Patriotism, bah! she thought bitterly. He had gone for the adventure and had long since forgotten she existed. He had left her, his bastard niece, dangling here between two worlds—neither aristocratic, like her father, nor fallen, like Mama. He barely even remembered to pay her tuition anymore, as Brocklehurst frequently reminded her. She was little better than a charity girl, and that was even more humiliating than having to submit to the birch. Closing her eyes, she fought the feeling of it all crushing her. Only by remembering the last time she was onstage could she even breathe.
    She struggled to remember the faces of the people who had watched her in delight and admiration and had listened to her singing with charmed looks. She knew of course that the rollicking entertainments and gaudy spectacles at the Pavilion hardly ranked as legitimate theater; Mama would have lifted her nose at the place with a diva’s disdain. The amphitheater served another audience entirely—not lords and ladies, but the working people of Birmingham’s factories, potteries, breweries, and mills, those who dug its canals, and the nearby garrison of soldiers. Miranda didn’t care. Even if it was only a third-rate circuit theater, when the limelights gleamed and the applause rushed over her, she was someone else up there, someone beautiful and carefree, who made everybody happy, like her mother had. She made people laugh and forget their woes, and when they applauded and cheered and even threw flowers, for a fleeting instant, she was someone who was loved.
    It was the closest she would ever come to recapturing those halcyon days in her father’s glittering world of wealth and privilege, when she had been a little girl and would sing and dance to entertain her doting, wonderful parents.