There were two letters waiting for her the next morning.

Your silence plagues me.

Then, atop that one:

Goodnight and sleep well, scandalous angel.

Even now, dressed and prepared for Lady Blackwood's picnic, as she sat on the stool at her vanity, Nicola stewed and considered those letters from where she had hidden them away, stored inside the locked draw before her.

She hadn't replied, not yet, but knew well enough that she would see him and converse with him shortly, and later, probably, she would reply. Of course she would... there was no denying the thrilled delight she found in interacting with him and even though she should nip this torment in the bud before it grew wildly out of control, she knew that she could not.

"There," Clara announced proudly, stepping back and studying Nicola's hair with a look of immense pleasure on her young face. "Done. I think it's a fine job, if I do say so myself. It's a good thing Lady Blackwood chose a theme that compliments your locks- for a change."

Nicola raised her head and met her gaze through the mirror before her. Her eyes rounded in surprise. Though still wild and untameable, her hair was simply allowed to flow where it pleased and the result was lovely. A thick braid had been loosely plaited and fell over one shoulder, while shorter locks framed the sides of her face in a golden-coppery mane. Delicate violet-coloured freesia blossoms were pinned in the finely styled plait, lending an air of natural frivolity that fit in accordingly with the theme of the event.

As Nicola studied her reflection, she couldn't help but find herself looking quite pretty. Normally she thought the squarish lines of her chin too strong, but today she was reminded of her quiet confidence and found grace in the way her chin jutted forward ever so slightly. Around her neck was a gold chain and a small heart pendant that had once belonged to her mother, engraved on the gold- a single rose. Her high-waisted gown was of a sunflower yellow today, banded at the waist by a silk black ribbon that also lined the hem of her short train and the heart-shaped neckline of the bodice, as well as the caps of her sleeves.

"Clara, you're a true illusionist," Nicola breathed, unfolding her legs and standing before the mirror so she could fully appreciate the transformation.

"Don't thank me yet, miss." Her mischievous brown eyes were dancing with amusement as she held up the final part of the ensemble.

Although Nicola did enjoy the charade of costumes and disguises, especially the varying trends that entered the masquerade balls of the seasons, she was a little put off by this insistence from Lady Blackwood herself. The wings themselves were quite beautifully made and designed, wearable art indeed- fine wiring meshed and shaped to form delicate fairy wings, each side consisting of three graceful arches, tapering in size. They were covered with translucent gossamer silk, the tips of each wing yellow to match her dress and blending subtly with a deep teal to offset the other colour. The wings shimmered with glorious opulence as they shifted and caught the light of the mirror, of the sunlight streaming in through the window.

"How do you even begin to put those on?" Nicola wondered aloud, her eyes wide and curiously perplexed as Clara began applying herself to the task.

"There are ribbons that we need to tie around your arms first, then one to your waist." Clara caught her eye in the reflection and grinned. "Then we need to pin them to the back of your dress."

"If you prick me, Clara, I will be returning the favour tenfold," Nicola warned, but the other woman was deft and nimble, quickly securing them to her gown without so much as a fumble or a graze.

Complete, Nicola tilted her head to the side, notching her braid lower over her shoulder and the swell of her left breast. Well, she truly did look like a fairy, she supposed, and that was apt considering Lady Blackwood's Woodland Myths & Creatures theme, requesting that ladies attend wearing something to match. The year prior, she had chosen Greek Mythology, and the effort expended to tame and cajole her hair into that tightly braided bun that had wound around her crown and the back of her head had been woefully unsuccessfully. Nicola had resembled a tabby cat that had taken a particularly rendering scare to cause its fur to stand upright at odd angles.

Today, however, she was pleased to note no such thing. When her hair was allowed to flow in a wild, thick mane, it fell quite calmly around her face.

"You do look rather charming, miss," Clara confirmed. Normally the process of dressing Nicola would abound with voiced lamentations about trends in fashion that were only set to infuriate a lady, but not today.

"I do think you're right," Nicola agreed, quirking a smile before thanking her and exiting her chamber to meet Blanche, Grace, Diana, Lady Blackwood and, of course, Jason, who were all coalescing downstairs.

Blanche's irate voice met Nicola's ears as she descended the stairs, her hand suspended above the mahogany railing for support as she circled. "It simply isn't fair!" she complained as Nicola's eyes met the scene at the bottom. "If I have to wear them, so should he." A dainty gloved hand was thrust towards the him she referred to, leaning casually against the threshold of the drawing room and surveying them all with an air of bored amusement.

"As I have said before, Bee, I have absolutely no qualms with that," Jason intoned drolly, "however, mother seems to have forgotten to make me a set."

"Jason, you know very well you can't be seen in public with a pair of fairy wings between your shoulders!" Kathleen argued, vexed.

Nicola stood at the bottom of the steps, smiling at the scene and trying to picture Jason wearing a set of beautiful gossamer silk wings, her hand poised on the railing where she had stopped to observe the family bickering in the hallway. Blanche, like herself, was dressed to match Nicola almost identically par the difference in colouring. Where Nicola was yellow, Blanche was the same teal that convalesced with the tips of Nicola's yellow wings. The youngest Blackwood was probably the most breath-taking figure in the room, made ethereal by the gossamer wings she was wearing and the yellow chrysanthemum in her rich mahogany locks. Diana and Grace were also dressed similarly, though their colours were burgundy and aquamarine, and then of course Lady Blackwood who had chosen an exquisite gown of burnished gold to complete her figure. She, however, was not wearing wings.

"He can have mine," Grace offered eagerly, beginning to untie the ribbons at her shoulders and waist.

"Grace, please, you'll shame us all!" Kathleen hissed and a giggle escaped Nicola's mouth, the sound almost freezing the chamber with deafening silence and five Blackwood heads turned to face her with expressions ranging from incredulity, to wonder, and then pleasure. Then there was Jason's gaze, who she had locked with the moment his head had snapped to her, and her knees turned to liquid at the expression on his face.

Gone was the droll humour, gone the casual nonchalance, gone the boyish charm of his countenance.

Now, there was something hard and implacable, a predatory light that flared in the darkened silver depths of his eyes. His jaw flexed, his arms dropped from where they had been crossed over his chest to lie stiffly at his sides as he came off the wall bracing his shoulder completely. That sinful mouth formed a hard line and a muscle twitched in his freshly shaven cheek, then his gaze shifted, idly, leisurely, dragging over the contours of her face, lingering over her lips, and then lower yet, and when he settled over her breasts, she thought she imagined the corner of his mouth flicker up- a quirk of approval- but then his eyes returned to hers and held her prisoner with the intensity of his hooded gaze.

Heat, scalding and demanding, pooled like liquid fire in her abdomen, an answering summons to something she felt permeating from him.

"Nicola!" Kathleen said, pleasure enthusing her tone as she came forward to take her hands. "You look wonderful, dear."

"I told you the yellow was your colour," Blanche declared triumphantly, also coming forward and hooking her arm through Nicola's elbow. Their wings clashed.

"You all look quite marvellous yourselves," Nicola said, and meant it, by way of greeting. "I'll admit the wings are unusual, though."

"Exactly why the eldest daughter shouldn't be required to wear them!" Grace shrugged out the contraption with a triumphant look towards her mother and held out her shimmering blue wings to Jason.

"The Maquis of Northwick will not be seen cavorting around the grounds wearing silk fairy wings," Kathleen said in direst warning to her daughters. "It is simply not done."

"Careful, mother," Jason said, the words directed at Kathleen yet his eyes remained locked on Nicola during the entire discourse with his family, "you are beginning to sound a lot like Wilhelmina." Kathleen gasped in outrage. "Now, we wouldn't want that, would we?" The gaze levelled at Nicola tore away briefly and scrutinized the wings held out to him. A cat-like grin crept up his lips. "I should think that the Marquis of Northwick does whatever he damn well likes."

His mother eyed him with a look that could shatter stone. "People will talk," she said testily.

"Let them." Jason held out his arms to his sisters and, with giggling delight, Blanche, Diana and Grace swarmed him and began tying the brightly coloured ribbons around his arms. "They will talk regardless of what we do, mother."

"We hardly need to provide them with content, though."

"Relax, mother," Diana told her warmly, "look how dashing our brother looks, even with fairy wings."

"Perhaps Jason will set the next new trend among the beau monde," Grace teased, straightening the wings thoughtfully from behind her brother.

Jason glared at her playfully over his shoulder. "God forbid."

Kathleen merely sighed, resigned. "At least try to behave with some decorum, this time, if you are to insist meeting our guests dressed like that."

"I can't imagine what you must be implying, mother." Jason was all innocence when he addressed his mother, wings set. With their attention focused elsewhere, Nicola was afforded the time to admire him openly. The wings were set firmly, the blue tips framing his face, and the affect was comical but not off-putting. She doubted there was many a man who could wear such a feminine contraption without earning himself the title of a fop or dandy, but none would dare allude that to Jason, wings or no. And Nicola liked the fact that he so easily accepted wearing them, liked that he did not care, liked that he was amusing his sisters and outwardly enjoying himself.

He really did, she mused with quiet misery, make it difficult sometimes to remember his libertine ways.

"I seem to remember," Blanche said, refreshing Jason's memory obligingly of the events of last year's picnic, "Lord Oliver Hollingsworth being tossed into the lake."

"Blanche, don't encourage him," Kathleen muttered, coming forward to brush an invisible speck of dust off the lapels of her son's formal black coat.

"Hardly tossed," Jason snorted, dismissing Blanche's recollection. "He tripped."

"Jason," Grace said dryly, "we all saw you pick the man up by the seat of his trousers and the neck of his coat, and throw him in."

Jason held out his palms and appealed to them all with a look of pure innocence. "He finished the last of the champagne," he explained, as if that justified everything. "How was I to endure the afternoon sober?"

Lady Blackwood swatted the back of his head with her fan. "How did I get a son like you, I'll never know," she said, but there was an edge of warmth in her tone while Jason rubbed the back of his head and eyed her with reproach. "Now, let us not tarry. Our guests await." With that, she held out her arm and Jason took it smoothly, offering his free arm to his eldest sister, Grace, to escort them through the house and out the front, through the ballroom at the other end of the manor whose tall, white-paned double French doors opened out onto the party gathering on the impressive Northwick lawns.

Diana, Blanche and Nicola fell into step behind them. As they walked, Jason's blue wings swayed, glinting as they caught every nuance of light, and just before they exited the manor house, he turned his head to look back at them, to look at her.

Briefly, he met her gaze, that warmth returning once more, angled and downcast as he peered over his broad shoulder. Her breath caught at the shock that jolted across her skin and the way he looked directly at her, time seemed to slow. The smile that curved his lips was unlike any she had seen before- there was a promise there, secretive and hot, just for her- and then time returned to normal. Jason winked at her and turned forward again, casual and composed.

Nicola was a puddle of nerves and desire.

Blanche had to held her arm as she tripped over her skirts, giving her a queer look, before they stepped outside... into a transformed world entirely.