Miss Wonderful (5 page)

Alistair's
face heated. He'd become so agitated about smiles and skin and scent
that he'd forgotten she was wet and probably chilled. He'd kept her
standing about all this time when she must be longing to be free of
her damp attire.

He
absolutely would not think about what getting her free of it
involved… the buttons and tapes and corset strings to be
undone…

No.

He
fixed his mind on canals, coal mines, and steam engines, and
apologized for his thoughtlessness.

She
coolly dismissed the apology, asked him to make himself comfortable
and take some refreshment, and still wearing the smile that wasn't
one, exited the room.

THE
conservatory to which Miss Oldridge—wearing a different but no
more attractive frock—took Alistair rivaled the Prince Regent's
at Carlton House. The Regent's, however, was used primarily for
entertaining, and plants were moved in and out as necessary. Mr.
Oldridge's plants were far more numerous and less mobile.

This
was not quite an indoor garden, either. It was more like a museum or
library of plants.

Each
specimen was carefully labeled, with extensive notes and
cross-references to others. At intervals, notebooks lay open in the
dirt, containing further notes in Latin in the hand Alistair
recognized as Mr. Oldridge's.

Neither
the flesh-and-blood hand, however, nor the gentleman attached to it
appeared in the conservatory. The same held true outside of the
house, in the greenhouses and gardens.

At
last one of the gardeners told them Mr. Oldridge had been absorbed in
studying moss life in the higher elevations. The gardener was fairly
certain his master would be found upon the Heights of Abraham, one of
his favorite spots of late.

Alistair
was well aware that the Heights of Abraham rose in Matlock Bath. Even
had he somehow failed to notice the wooded slope with the great mass
of rock jutting up from it directly behind his hotel, he could not
help knowing, because the place abounded in signs and cards
advertising the fact.

He
could not believe he'd come all this way on the damnable road, while
the man he sought was back in the village he'd come from, possibly
falling off a cliff and breaking his neck at this very moment.

He
looked at Miss Oldridge, who was gazing into the distance. He
wondered what she was thinking.

He
told himself her thoughts were irrelevant. He was here on business.
It was her father's views that mattered.

"Your
father must be unusually dedicated to his—er— hobby,"
he said. "Not many people will climb mountains at this time of
year. Don't mosses go into hibernation or whatever it is most plants
do in winter?"

"I
have no idea," she said.

An
icy mist was falling, and Alistair's bad leg was taking note of the
fact in the form of spasms and shooting pains. She, however,
continued walking away from the house, and Alistair limped along
beside her.

"You
do not share his enthusiasm," he said.

"It
is beyond me," she said. "I am so ignorant as to imagine he
could find mosses and lichen enough on his own property, instead of
tramping all the way over to the Derwent River to look for them.
Still, he always contrives to be home in time for his dinner, and I
daresay the walking and climbing keep him limber, and at least he
isn't— Ah, there he is."

A
man of medium height and slender build emerged from an opening in the
shrubbery and ambled toward them. He was well protected from the
elements in a hat and overcoat of oilcloth, and his battered boots
were sturdily made.

As
the man drew near, Alistair discerned the family resemblance. Most of
Miss Oldridge's features came, he surmised, from the maternal side,
but her hair and eyes seemed to be a younger and more vivid version
of her father's. Age had dulled rather than greyed his hair and faded
his eyes to a paler blue, though his gaze seemed sharp enough.

His
countenance offered no sign of recognition, however, when
introductions were made.

"Mr.
Carsington wrote you a letter, Papa," Miss Oldridge said. "About
Lord Gordmor's canal. You made an appointment to meet with Mr.
Carsington today."

Mr.
Oldridge frowned. "Did I, indeed?" He thought for a moment.
"Ah, yes. The canal. That was how Smith made his observations,
you know. Fascinating, fascinating. Fossils, too. Most enlightening.
Well, sir, you will stay to dinner, I hope."

And
away he went, leaving Alistair staring after him.

"He
must visit his new specimens," came the cool, whispery voice
beside him. "Then he will dress for dinner. In the winter months
we dine early. In summer we dine fashionably late. The one place you
can be sure to find my father is in the dining room, punctual to the
minute. Wherever he may ramble, whatever botanical riddles might
fascinate him, he always contrives to be home in good time for
dinner. I recommend you accept his invitation. You'll have at least
two hours to make your case."

"I
should be honored," Alistair said, "but I came unprepared,
and have no suitable attire for dinner."

"You
are more elegantly dressed than anyone we have dined with in the last
decade," Miss Oldridge said. "Not that Papa will notice
what you are wearing. And I don't care in the least."

IT
was true that Mirabel Oldridge cared little about the minutiae of
dress. She rarely took any notice of what others wore and found life
simpler when they treated her the same way. She dressed plainly to
encourage the many men she dealt with to take her seriously: to
listen rather than look, and keep their minds on business.

To
her great discomfort, however, she had taken excessive and repeated
notice of Mr. Carsington, from the crown of his sleek hat to his
gleaming boots.

He
had not been wearing the hat when she first saw him. As a result she
was aware that his hair was a rich brown with golden glints his
deep-set eyes seemed to re-flect. His face was angular, the profile
patrician to the last degree. He was handsome in a brooding sort of
way, tall, broad-shouldered, and long-limbed. Even his hands were
long. When he had offered to help with the knotted bonnet strings,
she had looked at his hands and felt giddy.

Matters
did not improve when he'd stood so near to work on the ribbons. She'd
caught a whiff of shaving soap or cologne; it was so faint that she
couldn't be sure what it was or whether she'd simply imagined it.

But
she'd become confused because she was nervous, she told herself,
which was perfectly reasonable. She'd been uneasy because she'd been
caught unprepared, which was as unpleasant as it was unusual.

One
near catastrophe years ago had taught her to keep informed of
everything having to do with her father. That way, no one could take
advantage of him, or confuse, manipulate, or bully her. That way she
would never be at a loss. She would know exactly what to do at all
times.

For
instance, she read all her father's correspondence and dealt with it.
All he ever had to do was read what she'd written and sign his name.
In any event, he appeared to read. There was no way to be sure his
mind was engaged. He was too busy trying to unlock the secrets of
plant reproduction to pay attention to his relatives' letters, or his
solicitor's—or any other materials unconnected with botanical
pursuits.

Not
having opened any letters from Mr. Carsington, Mirabel had no idea
what he'd written and couldn't begin to guess how Papa had answered.

If
she wished not to be caught unprepared at dinner, she had better fill
the gap in her knowledge.

This
was why she wasted no time in turning Mr. Carsington over to the
servants, who'd see to drying and brushing his "unsuitable"
attire and provide whatever else he needed for his toilette.

Yet
Mirabel stood for a moment, watching him limp away, only to wish she
hadn't, because her heart squeezed, as though it winced for him,
which was foolish.

She'd
seen and even helped nurse men with worse injuries. She knew men and
women who'd suffered as much or more than he had done. She knew of
some who'd acted bravely, too, and received not a fraction of the
admiration showered upon him. And anyway, she told herself, he was
far too elegant and self-assured to need anybody's sympathy.

Mirabel
thrust the limp to the back of her mind and hurried to her father's
study.

As
Joseph had reported, his master's diary lay open to this date, and
the appointment was duly noted.

She
ransacked the desk but found no trace of Mr. Car-sington's letter.
Most likely Papa had stuffed it in his pocket and scribbled field
notes on it or lost it. The copy of his reply had survived, however,
because he'd written it in his memorandum book instead of on a loose
sheet of paper.

The
letter, dated ten days ago, was as Mr. Carsington described: her
father expressed interest, clearly grasped the implications, and
seemed most willing to discuss the canal further.

The
words made Mirabel's throat hurt.

In
the letter she saw the father she'd known once, who took an interest
in so many things, so many people. How he'd loved to talk—and
listen, too, even to a little girl's prattle. She remembered sitting
on the stairs, listening to the voices below, during the frequent
dinners and card parties and other social gatherings. How many times
had she heard him and her mother in conversation at table, in the
library, the sitting room, this study?

But
after her mother's death fifteen years ago, he had grown increasingly
preoccupied with plant rather than human life. On the rare occasions
he did emerge from the realms of botany, it was only for a short
time.

Mirabel
had missed the most recent occasion. He must have taken notice of the
everyday world during the few days she'd spent visiting her former
governess in Cromford.

During
the visit Mirabel had bought the bonnet with which she'd nearly
choked herself this afternoon.

She
could not believe she'd let the man unnerve her so completely. It was
not as though she'd never encountered his kind before.

During
her two London seasons—a lifetime ago, it seemed—she'd
met countless men like him: elegant in dress, polished in all the
social graces, never at a loss as to what to do or say.

She'd
heard the cultivated voices, the drawls and lisps some fashionables
affected, the laughter, gossip, and flirtation.

Surely
she'd heard voices like his, so low-pitched as to make every
commonplace utterance seem of the deepest intimacy, every cliche a
delicious secret.

"I
have heard and seen them all," she muttered. "He is nothing
remarkable, merely another London sophisticate who sees us as
provincials and bumpkins. We are all ignorant country folk who don't
know what's good for us."

Mr.
Carsington would soon discover his error.

Meanwhile,
his dinner conversation with Papa should prove vastly entertaining.

Chapter
2