Miss Wonderful (8 page)

IT
took Alistair the full two hours Miss Oldridge had predicted to
traverse the "few miles" from Oldridge Hall to Wilkerson's
Hotel, where he was staying.

He
arrived soaked to the bone, a condition to which his leg objected in
the most strenuous terms, refusing to assist him in any way in
climbing the stairs.

But
he was used to the leg's tantrums and made it to his bedchamber.
There his manservant Crewe expressed his disapproval with a mildly
censuring cough and the recommendation of a hot bath.

"It's
too late to make the servants haul water up the stairs,"
Alistair said.

He
dropped into a chair near the fire, set his foot on the fender, and
started massaging his outraged leg. While doing so, he told his valet
about the day's vicissitudes, discreetly excluding his deranged
reaction to Miss Oldridge.

"I
am sorry, sir, you had a lengthy journey in bad weather to no
purpose," Crewe said. "Perhaps I might fetch you a bottle
of wine and something to eat?"

"I've
been more than amply fed," Alistair said. "Mr. Oldridge
appears to have two great passions: botany and dinner."

"Indeed,
sir. The servants here all solemnly swear that he has never once been
late to dinner, though he is late or absent in every other
circumstance."

"I
should have stayed here and listened to servants' gossip,"
Alistair said, staring into the fire. "As it was, I was
ill-prepared for the encounter." The glowing coals brought to
mind Miss Oldridge's hair, and the way the candlelight caught it,
making it a soft gold at times, a fiery red at others. "His
daughter…" He hesitated. "She holds amazingly strong
opinions for one so young."

"A
lady of uncommon character, they say, sir. She would have to be, to
manage so large an estate and all her father's business interests."

Alistair
looked up from the fire to his servant's face. "Miss Oldridge
manages the property?"

"She
manages everything. I was told that her bailiff hardly dares draw a
breath without her approval. Sir, are you ill? Perhaps I had better
fetch that wine. Or a hot posset—indeed, you will not wish to
risk a chill at this time, when you have so much to do."

Though
he was not ill, Alistair let his valet go to concoct one of his
possets.

The
master used the time to digest what he'd just heard.

The
ill-dressed, inquisitive girl with the fire-colored hair ran one of
the largest estates in Derbyshire.

"Well,
someone must," he muttered a while later, when he'd finally
found a relatively clear perspective on the situation. "He
doesn't attend to anything else, that's plain enough. As she told me:
If it wasn't botanical, he wouldn't attend."

He
became aware of Crewe hovering nearby with the hot drink. "I beg
your pardon, sir?"

"How
old is she?" Alistair demanded. "Not a girl, I'm sure. No
girl could possibly—Gad, why didn't I see?" he shook his
head and accepted the cup from his valet. "Did the gossips by
any chance mention how old Miss Oldridge is?"

"One
and thirty," said Crewe.

The
sip of posset Alistair had taken went down his windpipe. When he
stopped choking and coughing, he laughed. He might as well. It was a
fine joke on him.

"One
and thirty," he repeated.

"Last
month, sir."

"I
thought she was a girl," Alistair said. "As anyone would. A
slimmish lass, with a mass of coppery hair and great blue eyes and
such a smile…" He looked down at the drink in his hand,
his own smile fading. "God help us. The canal—everything—depends
on her."

Chapter
3

THE
following morning, Mirabel and two servants set out under overcast
skies to find Mr. Carsington's body.

They
reached Matlock Bath without encountering any corpses, however, and
learned from the postmistress that the gentleman had arrived safely
the previous night and was staying in Wilkerson's Hotel.

The
choice of hotel was surprising. Mirabel had thought he'd be staying
up the hill, at the Old Bath Hotel, Matlock Bath's grandest. Instead
he'd chosen Wilkerson's, which stood on the South Parade, exposed to
all the dirt and noise of coaches coming and going.

When
they entered the village, though, the Parade was quiet. By this time
the sun had grown bolder, making an occasional dart through the
clouds to sparkle on the river and the whitewashed houses pressed
against the hillside.

Though
the place was as familiar to Mirabel as her own property, she never
grew tired of its beauty.

Here
the hills rose steeply from the Derwent River, the great milestone
crag of the High Tor visible at every turn.

It
might have been a castle, with a garden wall along whose sides
patches of greenery softened the grey rock.

The
spa itself was clean and pretty. Lodging places, shops, and museums
clustered along a short stretch of the Museum Parade, and villas
peeped out from the greenery on the surrounding hillsides. On the
other side of the road, gardens sloped down toward the river. The
road followed the river's route, round the mountain rising behind the
Heights of Abraham.

It
was an easy climb to the Heights, and Mirabel had done it in all
seasons. Whenever her cares threatened to overwhelm her, she went
there and let her surroundings soothe her.

She
had a great deal on her mind this day and experienced more than a
little perturbation of spirit. But she hadn't time to let nature calm
her.

Instead,
having turned over her curricle to the groom and sent her maid Lucy
to carry out some errands, Mirabel proceeded to the entrance of
Wilkerson's Hotel.

Within,
she asked for Mr. Carsington.

Mr.
Wilkerson hurried out to her. "I believe he's still abed, Miss
Oldridge," he said.

"Still
abed?" she repeated. "But it must be noon."

"Just
gone half-past eleven, miss," said the innkeeper.

Then
she remembered: Members of the haut ton rarely rose before noon,
usually on account of going to bed about the time dawn was cracking.

Mr.
Wilkerson offered to send a servant up to ascertain whether Mr.
Carsington was ready to receive visitors.

An
image arose in Mirabel's mind of Mr. Carsington pushing tousled
gold-streaked brown hair out of his face and blinking sleepily up at…
someone.

"No,
there is no need to disturb him," she said quickly. "I
shall be in the village for some hours. I must pay some calls. I can
speak to him later in the day."

She
noticed her hands were trembling. It must be hunger. She'd been so
worried about finding Lord Har-gate's son in broken pieces that she'd
been able to swallow only a sip of tea and a bite of toast for
breakfast. "But first I should like a pot of tea," she
added, "and some toast."

She
was swiftly conveyed to a private dining room, far from the bustle of
the public dining room and tavern. Within minutes the tea and toast
appeared.

After
she'd emptied plate and teapot, Mirabel's spirits revived. When Mr.
Wilkerson came in and asked if she'd like something more—eggs,
perhaps, and a few rashers of bacon—she asked for his most
detailed local map.

He
had any number of such maps, he assured her, as good a selection as
one-might find in any shop in London, including some handsome
hand-tinted ones. He wished the Ordnance Survey map of Derbyshire had
been done by now, but it hadn't. "A pity it is, Miss Oldridge,"
he said. "Very scientifically made, they are, those new maps."

She
asked to see what he had, and he brought them to her. Several seemed
detailed enough to suit her purposes, and she spread these out on the
table, merely to compare. She did not plan a close study until she
returned home.

But
Mirabel was in certain respects more like her father than she
realized. Left to herself—with no interruptions, disturbances,
or servants' calls for help—she could become as caught up in
working out a riddle as he.

As
time passed, she shed by degrees her bonnet and cloak. More than two
hours after she'd come, she was still bent over the maps, looking for
a way out of her difficulty.

ABOUT
this time, Mr. Wilkerson was out in the courtyard, gossiping with a
postilion. Consequently, he was unaware that Mr. Carsington had come
downstairs and was on his way to the private parlor he'd reserved as
his headquarters. Since Mr. Wilkerson was not there to inform him,
and Mr. Carsington did not encounter a servant en route, he had no
idea who was in the small dining room nearby.

The
door happening to be open, Alistair idly glanced inside as he was
passing and discovered directly in his line of vision a small, round,
distinctively feminine bottom.