Miss Wonderful (38 page)

"I
am not in love with you," she said. "It is an infatuation.
I have heard of such derangements happening to elderly spinsters."

"You
are neither elderly nor deranged," he said. "Perhaps you
are merely infatuated with me, but I am over head and ears in love
with you, Mirabel."

She
turned away. "I advise you to conquer the passion," she
said in a voice as cold and brittle as ice, "because absolutely
nothing will come of it."

Whatever
Alistair might have expected, it wasn't this.

All
the glow had gone out of her in an instant, and all the warmth and
trust and affection.

He
stood, chilled and uncomprehending, staring after her as she hurried
away.

IN
case her frigid leave-taking failed to discourage him from following,
Mirabel made a quick detour and hurried down a well-concealed bypath.

She
would not cry. She could not cry. In a few minutes, she would be back
upon the South Parade, and people must not see her with red eyes and
nose. If they did, the news would be all over Matlock in an hour, and
traveling over the surrounding hills and dales in two.

She
would have plenty of time to cry later, she told herself.

Alistair
Carsington would soon be gone.

Still,
at least this would be a clean break. If she had broken off cleanly
with William Poynton in London eleven years ago, he would have stayed
away. He would not have followed her here, and tried to change her
mind, and made her more miserable than she was already—though
he never meant to—and she would not have added to his
unhappiness.

That
was what came of trying to break off with someone kindly and gently:
You only made it drag on longer and made everyone involved more
wretched.

No,
this way was better, Mirabel told herself. It would have been far
better had she turned cold and cruel before Mr. Carsington declared
his feelings. But she had been weak, wanting another minute with him
before they separated forever, then another minute and another.

Still,
she would have hurt him no matter when she did it, and perhaps it was
only fair he wound her, too.

I
am over head and ears in love with you, Mirabel.

Who
would have thought those words—the sweetest any woman could
wish to hear—could hurt so very much?

Still,
she knew they would both heal. In time.

Meanwhile,
something far more important than her heart was at stake.

She
had no choice. She must get rid of him.

IT
took Alistair only a minute or so to absorb the blow and set out
after her, but it was a minute too long.

Though
he went as fast as his leg would let him, he caught no glimpse of the
grey bonnet.

Not
until he came out of the walkway into the main road at Wilkerson's
did he see her. It was the back of her, however, upon the curricle,
with a smallish groom perched behind. The vehicle was fast
disappearing from view.

He
hurried into the hotel to order a horse and narrowly missed colliding
with a servant hurrying out at the same moment.

"There
you are, sir," said the servant. "There is a—"

"I
want a horse," Alistair cut in. "Pray make haste."

"Yes,
sir, but—"

"A
horse, with a saddle upon it, quickly," Alistair snapped. "If
it is not too terribly inconvenient."

The
servant scurried out.

"And
where were you thinking of going in such a lather, Car, if a fellow
may be so impertinent as to ask?"

Alistair
turned toward the familiar voice.

Lord
Gordmor stood in the doorway leading to the private rooms. He wore a
mud-spattered overcoat, and his boots looked as though they'd been
dragged through a swamp and chewed on by crocodiles.

Alistair
quickly collected himself. He was growing used to shocks. "You
look like the devil," he told his friend. "I should ask
what brings you here, but I am in rather a hurry. Why don't you have
a bath or something? We'll talk when I get back."

"Ah,
no, dear heart. I think we must talk now."

"Later,"
said Alistair. "There is something I must take care of first."

"Car,
I have come a hundred fifty miles by post chaise." said his
lordship. "A drunken idiot driving a phaeton four-in-hand ran us
into a ditch late on Saturday, ten miles from anywhere in every
direction. We spent most of the following day trying to find a soul
willing to break the Sabbath to repair our vehicle. I have had not a
wink of sleep since Oldridge's express came—which, by the way,
it seems his daughter wrote. It broke my repose hours before any cock
thought of crowing on Saturday."

Alistair
had started to turn away, planning to run to the stables and saddle a
horse himself if necessary. Gordy's last sentence brought him back
sharply.

The
only express messages Miss Oldridge had mentioned to him had gone out
more than a week earlier.

"An
express?" he said. "From Oldridge Hall? On Saturday last ?
Only three days ago?"

"You
have calculated the number of days correctly," Gordy said. "I
rejoice to find your brain damage has not affected the simple
arithmetic functions."

"Brain
damage." It took Alistair no time at all to put two and two
together. "I see," he said calmly, though his voice dropped
a full octave. "What other interesting news was Miss Oldridge so
good as to communicate?"

THE
two men adjourned to Alistair's private parlor. There Gordy handed
him the latest urgent missive from Oldridge Hall.

Alistair
read it while his lordship ate a much-belated breakfast.

Though
Mr. Oldridge had signed the letter, the loopy swirls covering both
sides of the paper were no more his than was the prose style.
Alistair was certain both writing and contents were solely Miss
Oldridge's.

Judging
by the penmanship alone, one would guess her nature to be fanciful
and her brain to be as feathery light and undisciplined as her hair.

The
penmanship was sadly deceptive. Miss Oldridge's nature was candid to
a shocking degree, down-to-earth, practical… and fiercely
passionate. The brain under that fiery cloud of wild, silken hair was
as soft and fuzzy as the average rapier.

She
translated Dr. Woodfrey's "fatigue of the nerves" as
"nervous collapse." The bump on the head became a brain
injury. Citing Alistair's sunken, shadowed eyes, she hinted at his
sinking into a decline. She compared his sleeplessness to Lady
Macbeth's sleepwalking and Hamlet's restlessness—implying, in
short, that Alistair was declining into insanity. Adding insult to
injury, she made good use of his implying Dr. Woodfrey was an
incompetent country quack. She recommended Mr. Carsington be examined
in London by "medical practitioners better versed in diseases of
the mind."

She
modestly declared herself no expert in these cases. Perhaps she was
mistaken. Indeed, she hoped she was, for Lord Gordmor's sake.
Naturally, he knew best, but she would hesitate to leave her business
affairs in the hands of a man who was not right in the head.

Long
after Alistair had read it, twice—first in outraged disbelief
and then with a grudging admiration—he continued to gaze at the
series of whirls and swirls with which she'd covered the pages. Had
he been alone, he would have traced those loops and twirls with his
finger.

He
had enough self-command not to do that, but not enough to remember to
return the letter to Gordy. Instead, Alistair folded it up and tucked
it inside his waistcoat next to his heart.

By
the time he realized what he'd done, it was too late. He found Gordy
regarding him quizzically over the rim of his ale tankard.

"Doubtless
Oldridge—or his daughter—exaggerates the case," said
his lordship. "Still, you must have a competent London physician
look at you. The fall into the mountain stream cannot have done you
any good, and—not to put too fine a point on it—we both
know your brain box was not in perfect order after Waterloo."

"I
had a fever then," Alistair said tightly. "I was delirious.
The two conditions often go together."

"But
when the fever passed, you didn't remember the battle," his
friend said. "You didn't know how you'd hurt your leg. You
didn't remember fighting. You wouldn't have believed me if I hadn't
brought in all those fellows to talk about what you did."

"You
knew," Alistair said.

"Of
course I knew," Gordy said. "I've known you since we were
children. I know when something's wrong. Hasn't it occurred to you
that the recent bump on the head might have further damaged a place
already fragile?"

"I
had amnesia," Alistair said. Gordy looked dubious.

"Amnesia,"
Alistair repeated. He almost added you idiot, but he recalled it was
Miss Oldridge who'd first put a name to the ailment, so he was as
much an idiot as Gordy—and everyone else who'd noticed and
failed to mention it—for not grasping the obvious.

"Amnesia,"
Gordy said.

"Yes.
The recent bump on the head restored my memory."

"But
you look ill, Car. Almost as bad as you did when Zorah and I carried
you out of the surgeon's tent."

"That's
because of the insomnia," Alistair said.

"I
see. Amnesia and insomnia. Anything else?"

"I'm
not insane," Alistair said.

"I
did not say you were. Nonetheless—"

"Mental
disease wouldn't have occurred to you if Miss Oldridge's letter
didn't suggest it," Alistair said impatiently. "She's
manipulating you, don't you see? She's trying to get rid of me."

Gordy's
pale eyebrows climbed upward. "Really? This is novel. More often
than not, one is obliged to peel the women off you. Even Judith
Gilford would have taken you back—especially after Waterloo—if
only you had gone back to her and groveled a little."

"I
used her abominably," Alistair muttered. "I am ashamed to
think of it."

"Car,
we both know she was impossible."

"That
is no excuse for betraying her with another woman—and worse,
humiliating her by doing so publicly," Alistair said. "Small
wonder Miss Oldridge doesn't trust me to represent her interests
fairly."

Lord
Gordmor set down his tankard. "I beg your pardon. I am not sure
I heard aright. Her interests?"

"Everyone's
interests," Alistair said. "She speaks for the others on
Longledge Hill, because they are too overawed by my father and my
so-called heroics to speak for themselves."

After
a short, stunned silence, his lordship spoke: "In other words,
Miss Oldridge is the only one who has raised any objections to the
canal. Our only opposition is a woman. Who cannot vote. Who controls
not a single seat in the House of Commons."

"She
isn't the only opposition," Alistair said. "She is the only
one who dares to voice her objections."

"My
dear fellow, it is not our job to encourage the timid to speak up,"
Gordmor said patiently. "It is our job to build a canal. At
present, our only opposition is a woman—which is the same as no
opposition at all. We must strike while the iron is hot."

"We
aren't ready to strike," Alistair said. "For two weeks I've
been shut away. That old hen Woodfrey forbade me to see anyone or
even read a letter. I haven't so much as begun discussing the canal
with the landowners."

"You
don't need to discuss it."

"Gordy,
these people are not the enemy. We need to come to an agreement, not
mow them down."

Lord
Gordmor rose. "You are my dearest friend in all the world, Car,
but I cannot let your conscience or brain injury or whatever it is
ruin a great opportunity. Too much is at stake. If you were more
composed in your mind, you would realize it. I wish I could wait for
you to become composed, but I cannot. I am going out now to place a
notice in the papers for the canal committee meeting."

"Now?"
Alistair said, aghast. "For when?"