Miss Wonderful

by Loretta Chase

  “What difference does it make?” she said. “Now you are here, they will melt away like snow under a hot sun.”

  “But that isn’t the way I want to do it!”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “Then you shouldn’t have come.”

  Alistair turned away and stared unseeingly out the window while he counted to ten. “Miss Oldridge, I must tell you plainly that you make me want to tear my hair out.”

  “I wondered what that was,” she said.

  Alistair turned back sharply. “What what was?”

  “Heavy weather. It felt as though heavy weather were bearing down upon the room. But it is only you. You have a remarkable force of personality, Mr. Carsington. Why do I make you want to tear your hair out?”

  Alistair gazed at her in exasperation. The loosened coil had slid to within a quarter inch of her ear.

  He straightened away from the window, marched to the table, swept up a handful of pins, and advanced upon her. “You’ve lost most of your hairpins,” he said.

  “Oh, thank you.” She put out her hand.

  He ignored the outstretched hand, took up the offending braid, coiled it up, set it back where it belonged, and pinned it in place.

  She stood rigidly still, her blue gaze fixed on his neckcloth.

  Her wild hair was silken soft. His fingers itched to tangle in it.

  He quickly finished his work and stood back. “That’s better,” he said.

  For a moment she said nothing. Her gaze went from his face to his hands, then back again. Otherwise, she did not move a muscle, only stood regarding Alistair with the same intensity of expression his cousin applied to Egyptian hieroglyphs.

  He said tightly, “It was…distracting. Your hair. Coming down.”

  Her expression did not change.

  “One can’t…think,” he added lamely.

  But it was no excuse. A gentleman never took such liberties, except with a very near relative or a mistress. He could not believe he’d done it. Yet he did not see how he could help it.

  He set his mind—what was left of it—to composing a suitable apology.

  She spoke before he could assemble the words.

  “So that was what upset you so much,” she said. “Well, I should not be surprised. A man who will set out in the dead of night in an ice storm—because he lacks a change of clothes—lives by sartorial standards too lofty for lesser mortals to comprehend.” She turned away and began to fold up the maps.

  He quickly gathered the shreds of his reason.

  “I also have principles, Miss Oldridge,” he said, “whether you wish to believe it or not. I should like to persuade the landowners of the merits of Lord Gordmor’s canal. I wish to find a way to remove the objectionable elements of the plan, or, if this is impossible, arrive at an acceptable compromise.”

  “Then go back to London and send someone else to make the case,” she said. “You are either sadly deluded or hopelessly idealistic if you think people will deal with you as they deal with ordinary men, even ordinary peers. My neighbors as well as my father left their estate managers to meet with Lord Gordmor’s agent. They wouldn’t dream of doing so themselves. You my father not only invited to meet with him, but asked to dinner. He even tried to persuade you to stay the night—though Papa is practically a recluse, who would rather talk to plants than people. Sir Roger Tolbert and Captain Hughes, who are more sociable, will call on you and invite you to dine with them. Everyone will ask you to visit and invite you to admire their pets, livestock, and children, especially their daughters.”

  While she talked, she was trying to roll and fold the maps, and was doing as well as her maid had done with her hair. She wound the rolled ones into cones and spirals and folded the others backwards and sideways and every way but the correct one. By degrees she became lost in a storm of swishing and crackling paper.

  Alistair advanced, extracted the maps from her taut grip, and one by one closed them properly. Then he set the lot down on the table, resisting the urge to keep one to swat her with.

  She frowned down at the maps. “I had no trouble opening them,” she said. “But when it came time to shut them up, they developed a life of their own. I suspect they dislike being closed, and it wants a special knack to coax them.”

  “No, it wants only simple logic,” he said.

  “It must be a different form of logic than I ever learned,” she said. “But you’re an Oxford man, I recall. If only I had gone to university, I, too, should know how to fold a map.”

  “I wish Oxford had taught me how to get a direct answer to a simple question,” he said.

  She bestowed upon him a brilliant smile, the one she’d favored him with the previous day, before she’d learnt his errand. Since she’d treated him to only a lesser and chillier variety of smiles since, he was caught unprepared, and his brain reacted as though she’d hit him in the head with a cricket bat.

  “You want me to tell you why Lord Gordmor’s agent could win no support for his canal,” she said. She collected her coat and bonnet.

  Alistair collected his wits. “The agent told us no one was willing even to discuss it. Everywhere he went, he was told no and shown the door. Yes, I want you to tell me, Miss Oldridge, since you claim everyone else will be too overawed by my consequence to tell me the truth.”

  She flung on the cloak. “I most certainly will not tell you,” she said. She jammed the bonnet on her head and quickly tied the ribbons. “You have every possible advantage. Everyone will fawn upon you. I do not see your encountering the smallest resistance. The situation is hopeless enough without my giving up to you my single piece of ammunition. Good day, Mr. Carsington.”

  She snatched up the maps, and out she went, leaving a vexed and baffled Alistair with nothing to do but watch her go, cloak crooked, bonnet lopsided, and perfect backside swaying.

  IT might have comforted Mr. Carsington to know he was not the only one who was vexed and baffled. Mirabel was disturbed enough to travel another two miles, to Cromford, to seek her former governess’s calming presence.

  At present they sat in Mrs. Entwhistle’s parlor, which was scrupulously neat, attractively decorated, and comfortably upholstered, like its mistress.

  The lady, who was ten years older, had married and moved to Cromford shortly after her then-nineteen-yearold charge set out for London and her first season. Mr. Entwhistle had succumbed to a lung fever three years ago. He had provided well enough for his widow, though, to spare her having to return to her old occupation.

  “If only I did have a piece of ammunition,” Mirabel was telling Mrs. Entwhistle. “But Mr. Carsington will soon discover the main objection. All the Longledge landowners believe the canal will cause too much disruption for too little benefit. Otherwise we should have built our own canal decades ago, when it would have cost far less.”

  “Men who spend their lives in London cannot conceive of the impact these schemes have on rural communities,” Mrs. Entwhistle said. “Even if anyone had explained the problem to Lord Gordmor, he would probably disregard it as provincial prejudice against change and progress.”

  “I cannot blame him entirely,” Mirabel said. “We are at least partly to blame. Had all the landowners made their sentiments clear to his agent, I doubt we should be in this predicament. But none of us took any more notice of him than we have of the others.”

  The agent’s status and power was merely the dim reflection of his employer’s, and Lord Gordmor’s prestige, as Mirabel had pointed out to Mr. Carsington, was of a dim variety to begin with. To the denizens of Longledge Hill, his representative was merely one in a long line of agents constantly coming and going, trying to promote one speculation or another.

  The gentry hereabouts were conservative folk, however. Even at the height of the canal mania, they had considered Mr. Arkwright’s Cromford Canal a dubious venture, and the Peak Forest Canal downright risky. So far, events—at least from a financial standpoint—had not proved them wrong. While these canals had
greatly improved transportation for the businesses along their routes, neither had yet made substantial profits for the shareholders.

  Beyond question the waterways had radically altered both the landscape and the communities through which they passed.

  Reaction was even more negative to Lord Gordmor’s canal, which would amount to a public highway through Mirabel’s and her neighbors’ own property.

  “You had no way of knowing Lord Gordmor would prove more persistent than the others,” Mrs. Entwhistle said.

  “It is not the persistence but his choice of representative that disturbs me,” Mirabel said. “I wish someone had warned me Mr. Carsington was coming. He cannot have written to the other landowners in advance, or everyone would have been talking about it. But I cannot credit his applying only to Papa, the last man in the world to take an interest in a canal—or anything else not possessing roots.”

  “I suspect Mr. Carsington and Lord Gordmor were not aware of your father’s preoccupations,” Mrs. Entwhistle said. “They were only aware of his owning the largest property.”

  “And Papa has done nothing to enlighten them,” Mirabel said. “Can you credit his answering Mr. Carsington’s letter?”

  Mrs. Entwhistle shook her head and agreed it was inexplicable.

  “If even my father agreed to meet with Mr. Carsington, you can imagine what the others will do,” Mirabel said. “They will wine and dine the famous Waterloo hero, and say yes to everything he proposes, without question. They will accept whatever negligible financial compensation he offers for use of the land, and nod happily to any route he suggests. If anyone proves so bold as to ask for a bridge to get the cows back from the meadows or a curve to take the canal around a plantation instead of straight through it, I shall be much amazed. Meanwhile, we can be sure they will push their daughters and sisters at him, even though he is merely a younger son.”

  “I imagine he is well-spoken and handsome,” Mrs. Entwhistle said as she refilled Mirabel’s teacup.

  “Exceedingly,” Mirabel said grimly. “Tall and broad-shouldered, and you would think, since he is so point-perfect in his dress, that he would be stiff, but he is not. He has even accommodated his injury, and contrives to make a limp both manly and graceful and somehow…gallant.”

  “Gallant,” Mrs. Entwhistle repeated.

  “It is dreadful.” Mirabel scowled at her teacup. “He makes me want to cry. In the next moment I want to throw something at him. Besides which, he is impossibly idealistic—or else he is a magnificent actor. I hardly had the heart to tell him no one cares about his noble intentions.”

  “Dark or fair?” Mrs. Entwhistle asked.

  “His hair is thick and brown, but when the light catches it, golden glints appear,” Mirabel said. “His eyes are a changeable light brown. They are sleepy-looking,” she added. “I could not always be sure he was listening. Or perhaps he was merely bored. Or perhaps my hair offended him so much that he opened his eyes as little as possible.”

  “Why on earth do you imagine your hair offended him?” Mrs. Entwhistle said. “It is beautiful.”

  Mirabel shrugged. “Red hair isn’t fashionable, especially this odd color, and he must have everything up to the mark. Anyway, my coiffure is never elegant, even at the best of times.”

  “Because you will not sit still for your maid to do it properly.” A lacy cap did not fully conceal Mrs. Entwhistle’s own neatly arranged brunette tresses.

  “Yes, well, I gave Lucy almost no time this morning, and it came down, as you’d expect.”

  Mrs. Entwhistle studied Mirabel’s hair. “It seems to be in good order now.”

  “He fixed it,” Mirabel said. “It is pinned so tight, you would want a pitchfork to dislodge it. I should like to know who taught him to pin up hair. I should have asked—”

  “Really, Mirabel.”

  “—but I was too startled to think of it.” Startled wasn’t the half of what she’d felt. He’d stood so close, she could smell the starch in his neckcloth. And the elusive scent she might have only imagined. But she had not imagined the sudden thumping of her heart and the confusing mix of sensations, of which surprise was the mildest.

  She had an idea what those sensations were. She was an old maid now, but she’d been young once, and attractive men had vied to stir her interest. They had not all been unsuccessful. It would have been easier for her, perhaps, if one had not succeeded.

  But that was long ago, and she’d had a decade to recover. She could remember the wonderful season in London, and William, without pain. That didn’t mean she wished to relive the experience. She knew that any attachment must end the same way, and she was not a glutton for punishment.

  Not that she was in the least danger at present. Mr. Carsington wanted only one thing from the unfashionable and disheveled Mirabel Oldridge. It wasn’t her money and most certainly wasn’t her person. He only wanted a piece of information, which he could easily obtain without her help.

  Mrs. Entwhistle broke into these meditations. “You said Mr. Carsington was point-perfect in his dress.”

  “He would put Beau Brummell to shame.” Mirabel proceeded to relate the “nothing to wear” conversation in the ice storm.

  “That explains a great deal,” said Mrs. Entwhistle.

  “You know how dandies are,” Mirabel said. “Every detail must be precisely so. You would not believe the degree to which my hair upset him. His displeasure set the very air athrob. Finally he told me outright: My hair coming down was distracting.”

  “Then you are better equipped than you thought,” Mrs. Entwhistle said. “You have discovered a weakness in your adversary.”

  Mirabel stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I suggest a diversionary movement,” said her former governess. “Distract him.”

  Four

  “A dinner party,” Alistair repeated expressionlessly.

  “Friday. Only three days hence. Deuced short notice, I know.” Sir Roger Tolbert spoke between mouthfuls of the heavy meal Wilkerson’s cook had provided.

  The two men sat in the dining parlor Miss Oldridge had vacated a short time before.

  “Nothing so grand as you’re used to, daresay,” the baronet went on. “Told my lady so. Told her you’d have more pressing engagements. But you know how women are. Get their minds fixed on something.”

  Alistair nodded sympathetically, while Miss Oldridge’s prediction played in his mind: Sir Roger Tolbert and Captain Hughes…will likely call on you and invite you to dine with them.

  At the time, she had upset him, but after she’d gone, Alistair decided the scenario she painted was most unlikely, given the chilly reception with which Gordy’s agent had met. Alistair had for this reason written in advance only to Mr. Oldridge, and citing the agent’s experience, asked the gentleman not to mention the visit to anybody.

  Once Alistair was here, the news was bound to spread quickly, he knew. But he’d braced himself for a cool reception, if not outright hostility; he was not prepared for a welcoming committee. Even after Miss Oldridge had told him how important he was in the locals’ eyes, he’d wanted to believe she’d exaggerated.

  He’d expected difficulty and had come prepared to deal with it. He’d seen himself winning over the landowners by dealing fairly with them, listening with an open mind to their objections, and working with them to devise acceptable solutions and compromises. His intentions were good and his heart honest. He was cultivated, tactful, and his manners were faultless—except toward Miss Oldridge. He’d trusted these assets to see him through a difficult battle.

  He was not prepared for the entire opposition to surrender the instant he arrived.

  Sir Roger had called about half an hour after Miss Oldridge left Wilkerson’s, and greeted Alistair like a long-lost son.

  The baronet, a man near his father’s age, was plump about the middle and bald about the head. At the moment he was laying waste to the spread he’d ordered to sustain him until dinner: mutton, potatoes, a
loaf of bread, about a pound each of cheese and butter, and a tankard of ale.

  Alistair had a glass of wine. Even if he’d been hungry—unlikely at this hour—he would have lost his appetite as soon as he realized Miss Oldridge had not exaggerated. No one would wait for him to prove his worth or the value of his project. He was Lord Hargate’s son, the papers had made a hero of him, and that was enough.

  “It is most kind of Lady Tolbert to think of me,” Alistair said. “However, as you may have heard, I am here on business.”

  “Important, daresay.”

  “Yes, rather.” After a pause, while the baronet chewed his mutton, Alistair added, “Lord Gordmor’s canal.”

  Sir Roger’s eyebrows went up, but he finished chewing and swallowing calmly enough. “Indeed.”

  “In fact, I should like to talk to you about it. At a mutually convenient time, that is.”

  Sir Roger nodded. “Business. Pleasure. Keep separate. Understand.”

  “Or I could talk to your bailiff, if you prefer,” Alistair said.

  “Bailiff? Certainly not.” The man went on eating.

  “But you see, Sir Roger, I should consider it the greatest favor if you—if everyone—would regard me simply as Lord Gordmor’s representative. As one in his employ.”

  The baronet mulled this over while he speared the last of the potatoes onto his plate. “See your point,” he said. “Scruples. Do you credit.”

  “I must make it clear that my father is in no way involved with this project.”

  “Understand,” said Sir Roger. “But my lady won’t. All she understands is, your father’s Lord Hargate, and you’re the famous Waterloo hero. Told her you weren’t the lion in the menagerie. Not here to entertain her and the other females.” He scowled. “Tears. Buckets of ’em. Women.”

  Alistair need only recall Judith Gilford’s teary temper tantrums to understand how miserable an unhappy woman could make a man. Alistair at least had not been shackled to her and hadn’t had to endure it the livelong day and night. A married man must live with it or let himself be driven from his own home.