Miss Wonderful (The Dressmakers 1)

Prologue

London, late autumn, 1817

THE Right Honorable Edward Junius Carsington, Earl of Hargate, had five sons, which was three more than he needed. Since Providence—with some help from his wife—had early blessed him with a robust heir and an equally healthy spare, he’d rather the last three infants had been daughters.

This was because his lordship, unlike many of his peers, had a morbid aversion to accumulating debt, and everyone knows that sons, especially a nobleman’s sons, are beastly expensive.

The modest schooling aristocratic girls require can be provided well enough at home, while boys must be sent away to public school, then university.

In the course of growing up, properly looked after girls do not get into scrapes their father must pay enormous sums to get them out of. Boys do little else, unless kept in cages, which is impractical.

This, at least, was true of Lord Hargate’s boys. Having inherited their parents’ good looks, abundant vitality, and strong will, they tumbled into trouble with depressing regularity.

Let us also note that a daughter might be married off quite young at relatively small cost, after which she becomes her husband’s problem.

Sons…Well, the long and short of it was, their noble father must either buy them places—in government, the church, or the military—or find them wealthy wives.

In the last five years, Lord Hargate’s two eldest had done their duty in the matrimonial department. This left the earl free to turn his thoughts to that twenty-nine-year-old Baffle to All Human Understanding, the Honorable Alistair Carsington, his third son.

This was not to say that Alistair was ever far from his father’s thoughts. No, indeed, he was present day after day in the form of tradesmen’s bills.

“For what he spends on his tailor, bootmaker, hatter, glovemaker, and assorted haberdashers—not to mention the laundresses, wine and spirit merchants, pastry cooks, etc.—I might furnish a naval fleet,” his lordship complained to his wife one night as he climbed into bed beside her.

Lady Hargate laid aside the book she’d been reading and gave her full attention to her husband. The countess was dark-haired and statuesque, handsome rather than beautiful, with sparkling black eyes, an intimidating nose, and a strong jaw. Two of her sons had inherited her looks.

The son in question had inherited his father’s. They were both tall men built along lean lines, the earl not much thicker about the middle now than he’d been at Alistair’s age. They owned the same hawklike profile and the same heavy-lidded eyes, though the earl’s were more brown than gold and more deeply lined. Likewise, the father’s dark brown hair bore lines of silver. They had the same deep Carsington voice, which emotion—whether positive or negative—roughened into a growl.

Lord Hargate was growling at present.

“You must put a stop to it, Ned,” Lady Hargate said.

He turned his gaze full upon her, his eyebrows aloft.

“Yes, I recollect what I told you last year,” she said. “I said Alistair fusses overmuch about his appearance because he is self-conscious about being lame. I told you we must be patient. But it is two years and more since he returned from the Continent, and matters do not improve. He is indifferent to everything, it seems, but his clothes.”

Lord Hargate frowned. “I never thought I’d see the day we’d be fretting because he wasn’t in trouble with a woman.”

“You must do something, Ned.”

“I would, had I the least idea what to do.”

“What nonsense!” she said. “If you can manage the royal offspring—not to mention those unruly fellows in the House of Commons—you most certainly can manage your son. You will think of something, I have not the smallest doubt. But I urge you to think of it soon, sir.”

A week later, in response to Lord Hargate’s summons, Alistair Carsington stood by a window in the latter’s study, perusing a lengthy document. It contained a list of what his father titled “Episodes of Stupidity,” and their cost in pounds, shillings, and pence.

The list of Alistair’s indiscretions was short, by some men’s standards. The degree of folly and notoriety involved, however, was well above the norm, as he was most unhappily aware.

He did not need the list to remind him: He fell in love quickly, deeply, and disastrously.

For example:

When he was fourteen, it was Clara, the golden-haired, rosy-cheeked daughter of an Eton caretaker. Alistair followed her about like a puppy and spent all his allowance on offerings of sweets and pretty trinkets. One day a jealous rival, a local youth, made provocative remarks. The dispute soon escalated from exchanging insults to exchanging blows. The fight drew a crowd. The ensuing brawl between a group of Alistair’s schoolmates and some village boys resulted in two broken noses, six missing teeth, one minor concussion, and considerable property damage. Clara wept over the battered rival and called Alistair a brute. His heart broken, he didn’t care that he faced expulsion as well as charges of assault, disturbing the King’s peace, inciting a riot, and destruction of property. Lord Hargate was obliged to care, and it cost him a pretty penny.

At age sixteen, it was Verena, whom Alistair met during summer holiday. Because her parents were pious and strict, she read lurid novels in secret and communicated with Alistair in hurried whispers and clandestine letters. One night, as prearranged, he sneaked to her house and threw pebbles at her bedroom window. He’d assumed they would enact some variation of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Verena had other ideas. She threw down a valise, then climbed down a rope of knotted sheets. She would be her parents’ prisoner no longer, she said. She would run away with Alistair. Thrilled to rescue a damsel in distress, he didn’t worry about money, transportation, lodging, or other such trifles, but instantly agreed. They were caught before they reached the next parish. Her outraged parents wanted him tried for kidnapping and transported to New South Wales. After settling matters, Lord Hargate told his son to find a trollop and stop mooning after gently bred virgins.

At age seventeen, it was Kitty. She was a dressmaker’s assistant with enormous blue eyes. From her Alistair learnt, among other things, the finer points of women’s fashion. When a jealous, high-born customer’s complaints cost Kitty her position, the outraged Alistair published a pamphlet about the injustice. The customer sued for libel, and the dressmaker sought redress for defamation and loss of trade. Lord Hargate did the usual.

At age nineteen it was Gemma, a fashionable milliner. One day, thief-takers stopped their carriage en route to a romantic rural idyll and found in Gemma’s boxes some stolen property. She claimed jealous rivals had planted false evidence, and Alistair believed her. His impassioned speech about conspiracies and corrupt officials drew a crowd, which grew disorderly, as crowds often do. The Riot Act was read, and he was taken into custody along with his light-fingered lover. Lord Hargate came to the rescue once more.

At age twenty-one, it was Aimée, a French ballet dancer who transformed Alistair’s modest bachelor lodgings into an elegant abode. They gave parties that soon became famous in London’s demimonde. Since Aimée’s tastes rivaled those of the late Marie Antoinette, and Alistair wouldn’t dream of denying her anything, he ended up in a sponging house—last stop before debtors’ prison. The earl paid the astronomical debt, found Aimée a position with a touring ballet company, and told Alistair it was time to take up with respectable people and stop making a spectacle of himself.

At age twenty-three, it was Lady Thurlow, Alistair’s first and only married paramour. In the haut ton, one pursues an adulterous liaison discreetly, to protect the lady’s reputation and spare her husband tedious duels and legal actions. But Alistair couldn’t hide his feelings, and she had to end the relationship. Unfortunately, a servant stole Alistair’s love letters and threatened to publish them. To protect his beloved from scandal and an outraged husband, Alistair, who had no way of raising the enormous ransom demanded, had to ask his father’s help.

At twenty-seven came his worst folly. Judith Gilford was the only child of a wealthy, newly knighted widower. She entered Alistair’s life early in the new year of 1815. He soon vanquished all rivals, and in February the engagement was announced. By March he was in purgatory.

In public she was lovely to look at and charming to talk to. In private she fell into sulks or threw tantrums when she didn’t get exactly what she wanted the instant she wanted it. She expected all attention, always, to focus on her. Her feelings were easily hurt, but she had no regard for anyone else’s. She was unkind to family and friends, abusive to servants, and fell into hysterics when anyone tried to soften her temper or language.

And so by March, Alistair was in despair, because a gentleman must not break off an engagement. Since Judith wouldn’t, he could only wish he’d be trampled by runaway horses or thrown into the Thames or stabbed to death by footpads. One night, en route to a seamy neighborhood where a violent death was a strong possibility, he stumbled somehow—and he still wasn’t sure how—into the comforting arms of a voluptuous courtesan named Helen Waters.

Alistair once again fell madly in love, and once again was indiscreet. Judith found out, made appalling scenes in public, and threatened lawsuits. The scandalmongers loved it. Lord Hargate did not. The next Alistair knew, he was being hustled onto a ship bound for the Continent.

Just in time for Waterloo.

That was the end of the list.

His face hot, Alistair limped away from the window and set the documents on the great desk behind which his father sat watching him.

Affecting a lightness he didn’t feel, Alistair said, “Do I receive any credit for not having had an episode since the spring of 1815?”

“You stayed out of trouble only because you were incapacitated for most of that time,” Lord Hargate said. “Meanwhile, the tradesmen’s bills arrive by the cartload. I cannot decide which is worse. For what you spend on waistcoats you might keep a harem of French whores.”

Alistair couldn’t deny it. He’d always been particular about his clothes. Perhaps, of late, he devoted more time and thought to his appearance than previously. Perhaps it kept his mind off other things. The fifteenth of June, for instance, the day and night he couldn’t remember. Waterloo remained a blur in his mind. He pretended he did remember, as he pretended he didn’t notice the difference since he’d come home: the idolatry that made him squirm inwardly, the pity that infuriated him.

He pushed these thoughts away, and frowned at a speck of lint on his coat sleeve. He resisted the urge to brush at it. That would seem a nervous gesture. He was beginning to perspire, but that didn’t show. Yet. He prayed his father would finish before his neckcloth wilted.

“I detest talking about money,” his father said. “It is vulgar. Unfortunately, the subject can no longer be avoided. If you wish to cheat your younger brothers of what they’re entitled to, then so be it.”

“My brothers?” Alistair met his father’s narrow gaze. “Why should I…” He trailed off, because Lord Hargate’s mouth was turning up, into the barest hint of a smile.

Oh, that little smile never boded well.

“Let me explain,” Lord Hargate said.

“HE gives me until the first of May,” Alistair told his friend Lord Gordmor that afternoon. “Have you ever heard anything so diabolical?”

He had arrived while his former comrade-in-arms was dressing. Gordmor had glanced but once at Alistair’s face, and sent his manservant away. Once they were private, Alistair described this morning’s meeting with his sire.

Unlike the majority of noblemen, the viscount was perfectly capable of dressing himself, and did so while his guest talked.

At present his lordship stood before the glass, tying his neckcloth. Since the process involved not merely tying a proper knot but arranging folds with excruciating exactitude, it usually demanded that one spoil at least half a dozen lengths of starched linen before achieving perfection.

Alistair stood by the dressing room window and watched the passing scene, the arrangement of n

eckcloths having lost some of its allure since this morning.

“Your father is an enigma to me,” Gordmor said.

“He tells me to wed an heiress, Gordy. Can you credit it? After the debacle with Judith?”

Gordmor had warned Alistair at the time to be careful: An only child didn’t know what it was like to share parents’ affection and attention with other siblings, and tended to be overindulged and underdisciplined.

Now Gordy said only, “There must be at least one heiress in England who isn’t bracket-faced or ill-natured.”

“It makes no difference,” Alistair said. “I can’t think of marrying until I’m quite elderly and enfeebled: five and forty—no, better, five and fifty. Otherwise, I shall make another catastrophic mistake, and be forced to live with it forever.”

“You’ve merely had bad luck with women,” Gordy said.

Alistair shook his head. “No, it is a fatal flaw of character: I fall in love too easily, and always unwisely, and then disaster follows upon disaster. I wonder why my sire doesn’t simply choose a rich wife for me. His judgment is sure to be better than mine.”

Still, it would rankle, Alistair knew. He would bring his bride nothing. It was hard enough, depending upon his father for funds. To depend upon a wife, to feel beholden to her family…The prospect made his skin crawl. He knew other younger sons wed for wealth and no one thought the less of them. It was perfectly acceptable. But he could not quite bring his pride to this point of view. “I wish he had let me stay in the army,” he growled.

Gordmor took his eyes off his neckcloth long enough to glance at Alistair. “Perhaps, like some of us, he felt you had used up your quota of battlefield luck. Frankly, I’m glad he blocked that route.”

Apparently, Waterloo had tried very hard to kill Alistair. He’d learnt that the foe had shot three horses out from under him, slashed him with sabers, and stuck him with lances. A body of friendly cavalry had ridden over him, a couple of fellows had died on him, and looters had robbed him. Given up for dead, he had lain in the muck among the corpses for hours. He was nearly a corpse when Gordmor found him.