Miss Wonderful (10 page)

"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 open-ing 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-year-old charge set out for London
and her first season. Mr. Ent-whistle 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 then-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, how-ever. 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. Carsing-ton'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. Entwhis-tle'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."

Chapter
4