Chapter 29 - Mira
Madame Pruitt was a hoverer, Mira decided the next morning over breakfast. The woman had the dramatic ways and flair of her French forebears, but she also tended to hover and worry like a mother hen.
It was easy to see why Mikhail was so attached to her, Mira thought with a small smile.
Madame Pruitt had bustled into their house at the crack of dawn and commandeered the kitchen and the kitchen staff because she “suspected they did not know the proper way to cook for a pregnant woman.”
When Mira had tried to protest that she was being taken proper care of, Madame Pruitt had ordered her to shush and put her feet up. Even Mikhail had been banished to his office with stern instructions not to interrupt her while she cared for her “daughter.”
An hour later, Mira was seated at the breakfast table enjoying a meal of fruits, veggies, and two sausages. The two sausages were a grudging concession on Madame Pruitt’s part because she had stubbornly insisted that Mira had to eat only “organic” food while she was expecting.
Her actions reminded Mira of what a mother would do, and she blinked back tears as she bent her head over her plate. She missed her mother terribly in these moments. True, she hadn’t met her, but she imagined her mother would have been as loving and caring as Madame Pruitt was now.
Remembering her mother brought a resurgence of anger at her father and how he had tried to make it seem like Mikhail was responsible for her mother’s death.
“Isn’t she done?” Mira whispered around a mouthful of cabbage and carrots to Sarah, as Madame Pruitt bustled back toward the kitchen.
Sarah shook her head. “Not even close. She’s cooking up a storm. Seems she plans to cook what you’ll eat for the next month.”
Mira laughed, shaking her head in wonder. As she ate and drank, she reflected that she was settling in nicely into life with Mikhail. They had been married for almost two months now and in all that time, she’d gotten to know and love him more than life itself.
Pity he didn’t seem to feel the same way. Sure, he was caring and attentive, but every time she wanted to declare her love for him, he stopped her. With every passing day, Mira feared more and more that Alena was probably right: Mikhail was incapable of love. He had to be, because how else could a man who was ordinarily so astute and observant miss all the clues she had been dropping like breadcrumbs? She loved him to the moon and back and she yearned to hear him say those same words back to her.
“Mira? Is the juice not to your liking?” Madame Pruitt questioned.
Mira looked up in surprise. She hadn’t heard the other woman return to the dining room, nor had she noticed when Sarah left.
“Everything is absolutely perfect, Madame Pruitt. Thank you. You truly didn’t have to go to all the trouble.”
The woman gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I wanted to.”
She sank into a chair beside Mira’s and peered at her face with eyes that saw way too much.
“Is there some reason you haven’t told him how much you love him?” Madame Pruitt demanded.
Mira froze in shock, her gaze flying to the other woman’s face. Her expression was gentle and kind. “Please tell me, Mira. It’s as obvious as the nose on my face that you’re head over heels in love with Mikhail. So why aren’t you telling him?”
Mira shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. She lowered her gaze to the sausage on her plate and attacked it with zeal.
Silence reigned a bit and then Madame Pruitt placed one hand on her shoulder and demanded, “Are you gonna tell me what’s bothering you or are you gonna pretend that sausage is the most important thing in the world right now?”
Mira laughed nervously and released the sausage. Her eyes filled with tears, and despite her best efforts to blink them back furiously, they dropped down her cheeks.
Madame Pruitt handed her a handkerchief without a word, and that singular act of kindness broke the dam. Mira went from silent tears to gasping sobs in a heartbeat. She was beyond mortified, but try as she might, she didn’t seem to be able to get a handle on herself.
Madame Pruitt abandoned her seat and came over to Mira. She gathered her weeping face against her massive bosom, comforting and shushing her until finally, Mira’s tears began to subside.
She cupped Mira’s chin gently in her palm and made her look up at her. “I see I was right. You’ve been carrying around a lot of pain and hurt and I would like to know why.”
Mira started to shake her head, but Madame Pruitt insisted gently, “Tell me, Mira. You can trust me.”
Mira sighed, and slowly began to narrate how she’d been forced to marry Mikhail by their unique circumstances and how he and her father hated each other’s guts. Slowly, she also began to reveal her growing feelings for Mikhail and how he seemed disinclined to hear of her love for him.
“Any time I try to bring up the subject he either silences me with a kiss, or tosses an expensive gift my way, or he just bolts from the room,” Mira complained. “We have a baby on the way. No one saw that coming, but it’s obvious to me that he’s happy about it. But I would like to know how he feels about me.”
Madame Pruitt sat back down, pulling her chair closer to Mira’s. “It’s perfectly normal to want to know how he feels about you, dear. And he’s so stubborn. But you need to understand something about Mikhail. He is a lover.”
Mira looked up in confusion.
Madame Pruitt nodded for emphasis. “That boy has a heart the size of Texas. Sure, he hides it behind a tough exterior, but I’m telling you, he has the kindest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. He can’t bear to cause pain to innocent people. He can’t bear to see anyone mistreated, and whatever he does, he does it with all his heart. He loves with all his heart.”
Mira frowned, still trying to follow the woman’s explanation.
“When Alena—a curse upon her black soul—broke his heart, he almost went mad. He almost lost his mind. He withdrew from everyone and everything—even from me.”
Mira hadn’t known the exact details of how he’d handled that period. Sure, Williams had shared what Alena had done, but that had been it. There’d been nothing much on how it had affected Mikhail.
Her heart twisted in her chest at how he must have been hurt to see the woman he loved screwing one of his men. His Russian pride must have suffered a severe blow.
“He doesn’t seem to be withdrawn from you now,” Mira observed.
Madame Pruitt shook her head. “He was never the same after that. It seemed almost as though a part of his soul had…died. He wouldn’t speak about her, and he swore off all women—until you came along.”
“Really?” Mira wondered aloud.
“Yes, my dear,” Madame Pruitt assured her, patting her hand. “And think about it—Mikhail is a deadly man when he wants to be. Do you really think he would let anyone disrespect him and live? He married you because he wanted to marry you, my dear. That slap was nothing—he just used it as an excuse. Whether you had married him or not, no man alive would dare disrespect him. He is Mikhail Nikolai,” she added proudly.
Mira bit her lips as she thought about it. Hope unfurled gradually in her chest like a flower blossoming under the rays of the sun. If Madame Pruitt was right, then Mikhail hadn’t married her because he had to, he’d married her because he wanted to.
But why?
Just then, he bounded into the dining room and drew up short when he saw the tears on Mira’s face.
He gave Madame Pruitt a quelling frown. “You haven’t done anything upsetting to her, have you? Why is she crying?”
Madame Pruitt looked from his handsome face to Mira’s and said with a jaunty grin, “Hormones, my boy. Pregnancy hormones.”
Mira was watching Mikhail when Madame Pruitt responded and she couldn’t help noticing how his face lit up with absolute joy and pride when Madame Pruitt mentioned the word pregnancy .
There was no faking it, Mira thought. He really was happy about the pregnancy. Alena was wrong then, she assured herself; Mikhail was very capable of love. She could feel his love for their unborn child even though he was yet to meet it.
Now if only he could go the whole hog and tell her he loved her too, her miracles would be complete, and her joy would know no bounds.