Miss Wonderful

by Loretta Chase

  She told him hot water was on the way, and he’d soon be able to wash. “But I’m afraid we must cut off your boot.”

  He took the news calmly, merely staring at the floor. Water dripped from his hair, which fell into his face.

  “It’s wet,” he said. “Who’d have thought a man could spill so much—” He dragged his wet hair back and peered closer. “Oh. Water. My boots. Crewe will be in fits.”

  His head came up suddenly, and his feverish golden gaze met hers. “I have to take off my clothes.” He yanked at his sodden neckcloth.

  Mirabel stopped his hand. “The cloth is soaked and difficult to manage. You’re shivering. Let me help.”

  He frowned, then let go of the linen and lifted his chin.

  Mirabel bent and started working at the knot, keeping her hands steady through sheer will. “Papa doesn’t have a valet,” she said, “or I’d send him to you.” She got the knot loosened enough to draw the ends of the cloth through. Once the boots were off, she could let the servants finish undressing him and help him bathe.

  “The Duke of Wellington doesn’t keep a manservant, either,” Mr. Carsington said. “His Grace does for himself. I could do without. But Crewe’s looked after me forever. He goes with me everywhere. Here. There.” He let out a shuddering sigh, and his gaze became distant. “I’ll get up in a moment. Have to help. Can’t lie here. Gad, what a waste. What will they put on the gravestone?”

  He subsided into the odd murmuring again. Mirabel didn’t want to think about what caused it. She was certain sprained ankles didn’t set off delirium.

  She remembered her mother’s feverish babbling in those last days—and hastily put it out of her mind. She told herself to concentrate on getting this man clean and warm as quickly as possible.

  “Mr. Carsington, we must cut off your boots,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “They’re ruined anyway.”

  He nodded, and she started to unwind the neckcloth.

  Thomas entered with the knife she’d asked for. Mr. Carsington looked up at the servant and stiffened. “No cutting,” he said. “It’s only a flesh wound.”

  Mirabel let go of the neckcloth and lightly touched his forehead. His skin was hot.

  “Your boots are wet through,” she said gently. “Your ankle is tender and probably swollen. Pulling off the boot might worsen the injury.”

  He blinked up at her, and his gaze seemed to clear. “Yes. The boots. Of course. I’ll do it.”

  “You’re chilled,” she said. “Your hands are unsteady. Please be sensible and let Joseph do it.”

  Mr. Carsington looked at his own long hands, which he couldn’t keep quite still. “Not Joseph.” He looked up at her. “You. Cool, steady hands. We have to keep our heads, don’t we? Slice ’em both up good and proper, Miss Oldridge. The boots, I mean. And pay no mind if I sob while you do it. These boots were so very dear.” He grinned at her like a mischievous boy. “I made that vile pun just for you. It made you smile, too. You’ve a soft spot for puns, I know.”

  He did make Mirabel smile in spite of her alarm. She took the knife from Thomas, knelt by the patient’s chair, and began the operation.

  ONCE the boots were off, the servants proceeded with their usual smooth efficiency. In a very short time, Mr. Carsington was clean, warm, and dry. He let them put him to bed with his foot propped up on pillows and an oilcloth bag of ice tucked about his ankle. He seemed comfortable enough when Mirabel came in later and found him dozing.

  He slept for a time, then grew restless and mumbled the way he’d done when she’d examined him in the brook. She tried to quiet him, but he only grew more agitated.

  “I can’t lie here,” he said, struggling up onto the pillows. The front of his nightshirt opened to a wide V, exposing a portion of his chest and the curling, dark gold hair lightly covering it. The hair was damp, as was the edge of the shirt opening. A muscle throbbed in his neck. “Where are my clothes?”

  Mirabel reminded him that his clothes were wet, and the servants were taking care of them.

  “Oh,” he said, and fell back upon the pillows.

  She rose and drew the bedclothes over him. “You’re worn out,” she said. “You’ve sprained your ankle, and I think you’ve taken a chill. Please rest.”

  “Gad, I’m so muddled,” he said. “Did I fall on my head?” He closed his eyes, and she commenced pacing the room, wishing the doctor would hurry.

  Not half an hour later, Mr. Carsington was flinging off the bedclothes and—apparently oblivious to the fact that he was baring his long, muscled legs to her view—shouting for his manservant.

  Joseph, who was in attendance, hurried to him, but the patient thrust him aside and leapt from the bed, only to let out a ferocious oath and grab the back of Mirabel’s vacated chair for balance.

  “It’s supposed to walk!” he raged. “This leg is supposed to walk! What the devil is wrong with it?”

  “Sir!” came a firm masculine voice from the doorway. “Compose yourself.”

  Mr. Carsington stilled, his gaze riveted on the figure in the doorway.

  Captain Hughes strode into the room. “What is the meaning of this uproar, sir?”

  Mr. Carsington sank into the chair and shook his head, as though trying to clear it.

  “Mr. Carsington is not quite himself,” Mirabel said calmly while her heart pounded and her insides worked themselves into knots. “He’s sprained his ankle and…”

  She took a steadying breath. “I don’t know whether he has sustained a concussion or taken a chill, but he is unwell.”

  “I heard about the accident,” the captain said. “I was on my way from Matlock when I met up with the lad you sent for Dr. Woodfrey. The doctor will be a while, I’m afraid. He’s up to his elbows in emergencies.”

  “I never take ill,” Mr. Carsington said. He sat sideways, his right arm draped over the back of the chair. “Never. All the same. That great, reeking heap. You wouldn’t have left it there, either. I’ve a strong stomach, but it was sickening. And they were in such an infernal hurry. You know what they’re like.” He addressed the last sentence to Captain Hughes, who couldn’t have had any more idea what he meant than Mirabel did.

  But the captain nodded and said, “I daresay I do.”

  “Or maybe not,” said Mr. Carsington. “I seem to be talking gibberish. I fell on my head, didn’t I? Yes, of course. Exactly what I needed about now: brain damage.”

  Seven

  CALM down, Alistair told himself. Be a man, damn you.

  At the moment, if he was a man, it was no one he recognized. He wasn’t certain he could move without vomiting. He wasn’t sure what had happened, whether the butchering was done or not. He told himself to think about something else, anything else.

  Crewe. His premonition. Ridiculous. This was war. The odds of being wounded, maimed, killed, were high. Better than fifty-fifty. Still, Alistair hadn’t been fully prepared for the extent of the carnage. Acres of corpses, so many of his friends about him. The dead and dying who fell into the muck, never to rise again.

  He became aware of a woman’s voice nearby. And a man’s. Not Gordy’s. Whose? He wished he could unscrew his head from his neck, take it apart, and fix it.

  “Not feeling quite the thing, I daresay?” the male voice said.

  “There’s an understatement,” Alistair said.

  “You said you were unwell,” the voice said. “Something sickened you. Do you recollect? A reeking heap, you said.”

  Had he spoken aloud? They were mere thoughts, unworthy ones. And anyway, it was a dream. It couldn’t be true. He scarcely knew what fear was. He would never behave so disgracefully, become sick over a bit of unpleasantness, like a girl. His father would be ashamed if he found out. But he wouldn’t. It wasn’t true, couldn’t be.

  “Did I?” Alistair said. “How odd. I don’t recall.” He took a shallow breath. “Are they done with the leg yet?”

  Was it gone, tossed onto the heap with the other limbs?


  “Do you know where you are, sir?” came the voice again in the clearly recognizable accents of authority. A man used to command. An officer, of course.

  “Do you know where you are, sir?” the voice repeated. “Do you know me?”

  Alistair opened his eyes. The world about him spun at first, then gradually slowed and settled down. He realized he was in a room, not a surgeon’s tent. The man standing before him was familiar.

  “Captain Hughes,” he said, keeping his voice steady while he tried to untangle nightmare from reality.

  “You had a fall,” the captain said. “You sprained your ankle, and by the sounds of it, got your brain knocked about your skull. Happened to me once. Rigging fell on me, knocked me bung upwards. But it’s nothing to worry about. Your brain box will sort itself out in time.”

  Alistair rubbed his forehead. It ached, but the pain was nothing to the pounding misery of the left side of his body. “A fall. Yes, of course. Hit my head, no doubt. Temporarily unhinged. That explains.”

  Then he remembered leaping from bed, half-naked…a pale, startled face nearby…blue eyes, wide with alarm.

  He looked about the room and found her standing by the fire, her hands folded at her waist.

  Oh, delightful. He’d been carrying on like a lunatic in front of her. “Miss Oldridge,” he said.

  “You know me,” she said.

  “For the moment, yes. It seems I’ve made a thorough spectacle of myself.”

  “It was nothing so very dreadful,” she said. “You did not at any time make any less sense than Papa does. Nonetheless, we should all feel easier in our minds if you would return to bed.”

  At that minute Alistair recalled that he was still half-naked, clad only in a shirt that didn’t belong to him. The fabric was coarser than what he was accustomed to. Looking on the bright side, however, it was large enough to conceal the ugly network of scars on his thigh.

  He waved off the captain’s offer of assistance and started toward the bed, which was only a few paces away.

  Miss Oldridge walked to a window and looked out, tactfully allowing him to complete the clumsy transfer of his mangled body to the bed.

  The room was quiet but for the rain beating against the windows. The sound was soothing. The bedclothes emitted a faint lavender scent. Everything surrounding him was immaculate, well-ordered, and peaceful.

  He could not believe he’d confused this place with a world belonging to nightmares.

  “You look in better trim already,” Captain Hughes said. “Not the wild-eyed fellow I found when I burst in so unceremoniously.” He turned his attention to the figure by the window. “I hope you will forgive my lapse of manners, Miss Oldridge. I was downstairs in the hall, waiting to learn if you’d any orders for me, when I got wind of the. disturbance on the upper decks.”

  “You’ve nothing to apologize for,” she said. “For all you knew, my father might have set a room on fire again.”

  Alistair was brooding about brain damage, having discovered no other way of accounting for his outrageous behavior. Her words tore him out of his self-absorption and brought him bolt upright in bed, setting the entire left side of his damaged body athrob. He ignored the pain.

  “Again?” he said. “Is Mr. Oldridge in the habit of setting rooms ablaze?”

  “It was only the once, some nine or ten years ago,” Miss Oldridge said. “While looking at a letter from my Aunt Clothilde he had a sudden insight about Egyptian date palms. They plague him from time to time, for reasons no one else but he and perhaps three other botanical persons in the world understand. As best he recollected afterward, this was such a time. He jumped up from the writing desk, upsetting a candle, which he was too excited to notice.”

  She came away from the window. “Luckily, a servant did notice soon after Papa hurried out. The only damage was some charring of the writing desk, a partly singed rug, and a lingering smell of smoke.”

  “I feel much better,” Alistair said. “At least I did not burn down the house.”

  She approached the bed and studied him critically. “Your color is healthier than it was a short while ago. Not so feverish. All the same, we ought to put more ice on your ankle. Would you like some for your head as well?”

  Alistair had almost forgotten his aching head. The violent throbbing along his left leg had claimed center stage. “Indeed, I would,” he said. “You are most kind to think of it. For my part, I shall attempt to await the doctor quietly, if not rationally.”

  She smiled, and the room seemed to grow brighter, though rain continued beating at the darkened windows. “I’m vastly relieved to hear it,” she said.

  DR. Woodfrey did not arrive until very late in the day. He was young—barely thirty—small, wiry, and energetic, and accustomed to traveling in every kind of weather. Still, there was only one of him, and the storm’s suddenness and violence had caused numerous mishaps in addition to making the roads all but impassable.

  In spite of this, Dr. Woodfrey was his usual brisk, lively self when he reached Oldridge Hall. After briefly conferring with Mirabel and Captain Hughes, he went straight up to Mr. Carsington. Mirabel and the captain retired to the library to await the medical verdict.

  The doctor joined them about half an hour later and was commencing his diagnosis when Mr. Oldridge hurried in, his countenance troubled. Arriving home in good time for dinner, he had seen Dr. Woodfrey’s carriage and was greatly alarmed, believing Mirabel had been taken ill.

  Concealing her amazement at his (a) noticing so un-botanical an object as a carriage, (b) recognizing whose it was, and (c) worrying about her, Mirabel explained about Mr. Carsington’s fall and strange behavior thereafter.

  “Good heavens!” said Mr. Oldridge. “His head is not broken, I hope. The ground can be deceiving in certain places, especially near the old mines. I have tumbled more than once. Luckily, we Oldridges have strong skulls.”

  “His head is not broken,” Dr. Woodfrey assured him.

  “Is it fever, then?” Mirabel said. “Is that what makes him delirious?”

  “He is not feverish at present,” the doctor said. “He was fully rational the entire time I was with him.”

  Nonetheless, he went on to say, the patient might have sustained a concussion, albeit a mild one. By all accounts, he had lost consciousness for no more than a minute or two—perhaps merely seconds—and did not display symptoms associated with severe brain injury: he was not sleepy and dull-witted or vomiting or taking fits. Still, he must be watched carefully for the next eight and forty hours.

  Dr. Woodfrey was concerned as well that a cold or affection of the lungs might manifest themselves during this interval. These concerns, combined with the sprained ankle, argued strongly against the gentleman’s expressed wish to return immediately to his hotel.

  Having rendered this verdict, the doctor took Mirabel aside to give her specific instructions.

  “It is of sovereign importance that our patient remain where he is,” Dr. Woodfrey told her. “In addition to his brain and ankle, which need rest in order to heal properly, he displays symptoms of a fatigue of the nerves. This may prove even more worrisome. Acute fatigue has been known to set off hallucinations and other irrational behavior, which would explain what you took to be delirium.”

  Mirabel could not believe Mr. Carsington suffered from any sort of fatigue or nervous condition.

  True, he had mastered the fashionable appearance of boredom and lassitude, but he was far from feeble. On the contrary, he was dangerously compelling.

  She recalled his hands on her waist, and her physical awareness of his strength, and her heated, nearly demented reaction. She could not remember when the mere proximity of a man had disturbed her so profoundly. Even William, whom she’d loved so fiercely, had not made her feel so much with so little effort.

  William, too, had been abundantly masculine, forceful, and dashing. But he had not made her feel, palpably, every change of mood as she did in Mr. Carsington’s vicinity: the displea
sure that set the very air athrob—and more troubling, the easy charm, as palpable as a caress, she found nigh impossible to withstand.

  She recalled the pun about his expensive boots—“so very dear”—and the lighthearted boy’s grin, and said, “He is the last man on earth I should have thought weary and worn out.”

  “I agree he looks healthy enough,” said Dr. Woodfrey. “But today’s shock has disrupted a delicate balance. The best medicine is rest. I shall leave it to you how to accomplish this. You are a resourceful young woman.”

  He gave a few simple instructions about diet and treatment, regretfully declined her invitation to dinner, and departed to attend the next patient, leaving Mirabel to devise a means of managing a man even the Earl of Hargate found troublesome.

  “WOODFREY is wrong.” Alistair made this pronouncement in the imperious accents his father employed to stifle all argument. It wasn’t easy to appear magisterial while sitting in bed, wearing only a nightshirt, and propped up with pillows, but he was not about to be bullied by an elfin doctor and a disheveled young woman.

  The latter was regarding him with an anxious expression that made him uneasy.

  “I am not sure you are in a condition to judge with any accuracy what is best for you,” Miss Oldridge said.

  “I can judge better than he,” Alistair said. “Woodfrey doesn’t know me. I have inherited my paternal grandmother’s constitution. She is four score and two, goes out at least three nights a week, and is a terror at whist. She is in full possession of her wits and in complete command of everyone else, for time has only honed the deadly fine edge of her tongue. She would never allow herself to be confined to bed for a mere sprained ankle and a bump on the head.”

  Miss Oldridge did not immediately respond. She nodded at the footman, and he took away Alistair’s dinner tray.

  Since she had kept him company while he ate, she must have seen that his appetite was in fine order. He’d left not a crumb behind.

  When the servant was gone, she walked from the fire to the window at the opposite end of the room. It wasn’t her first such journey. Even while inhaling his dinner, Alistair had watched the rhythmic sway of her hips as she came and went. Now the food was gone, he could give her his undivided attention.