Miss Wonderful (The Dressmakers 1)

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. Carsington’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 cliché 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.

Two

WHILE Alistair made no pretense to intellectual brilliance, he was usually capable of putting two and two together, and fairly quickly.

Circumstances this day, however, conspired against him. By Miss Oldridge’s abysmal standards he might seem dressed elegantly enough for a country dinner. He knew better.

Thanks to conscientious servants and a good fire, his clothes were brushed and dry. But the clothes were for afternoon wear and could not be transformed into acceptable dinner attire by even the most diligent servants.

Furthermore, the staff could not instantly launder and starch his linen. His neckcloth was limp, and creases had formed in the wrong places, which made him wild.

Meanwhile his leg, which hated damp and ought to have lived in Morocco, was punishing him for the ramble in the icy mist by tying itself into throbbing knots.

These annoyances contributed to his failure to realize what any idiot would have divined hours ago.

Miss Oldridge had spoken of stamens and pistils and asked if he was botanical. Alistair had seen the conservatory, the notebooks, the acres of hothouses.

But when he wasn’t in a fit over his clothes or being tortured by his leg, he was completely distracted by her. As a result, it wasn’t until they met in the drawing room before dinner, and Mr. Oldridge acquainted him with Hedwig’s observations on the reproductive organs of mosses, that the truth finally dawned: The man was in the grip of a monomania.

Alistair was familiar with the malady. He had an evangelical sister-in-law and a cousin obsessed with deciphering the Rosetta stone. Since such people rarely, of their own accord, abandoned their chosen place of mental residence, one must take them firmly by the elbow, figuratively speaking, and lead them elsewhere.

Accordingly, at the start of the second course, when his host ceased lecturing to concentrate on carving the goose, Alistair charged into the gap.

“I envy your having so many facts at your command,” he said. “I wish you had been able to advise us before we first presented our canal proposal. I do hope you will advise us now.”

Mr. Oldridge continued dismantling the fowl, but his mouth pursed and his brows knit.

“We will gladly alter the route, if that is the primary concern,” Alistair persisted.

“Can you alter it to another county?” Miss Oldridge asked. “Somersetshire, for instance, where they have already despoiled the countryside with slag heaps?”

Alistair looked across the table at her, which he’d been trying not to do since first clapping eyes on her dinner attire.

Her dress was a cool lavender, when she ought to wear only warm, rich colors. It had a high neck and a lace ruffle to conceal the narrow bit of shoulder and neck the bodice left uncovered. Her glorious hair was stuffed any which way into a clumsy roll at the back of her head. For jewelry she wore a plain silver locket and chain.

Alistair wondered how she could look in her mirror without seeing the obvious: Every article with which she’d chosen to adorn her person was completely, absolutely, and irredeemably wrong. She must lack a faculty every other woman in the world possessed. He wondered if hers was a disorder akin to tone deafness, and his irritation with her was what a music lover

would feel on hearing an instrument out of tune or a singer off-key.

He wanted to order her back to her room to dress properly, but he couldn’t, which was maddening.

This perhaps explained why he answered her in the tone and manner he usually reserved for irritating younger brothers.

He said, “Miss Oldridge, I hope you will permit me to correct a slight misapprehension. Canals do not produce slag heaps. Collieries produce slag heaps. At present, only Lord Gordmor is mining coal in your vicinity, and his collieries are nearly fifteen miles from here. The only landscape he is despoiling is his own, because the property is good for nothing else.”

“I should think he might graze sheep with less trouble and noise, and do as well,” she said.

“You are certainly entitled to entertain any fanciful notions you like,” Alistair said. “I should not wish to stifle an active imagination.”

Her eyes sparked, but Alistair smoothly addressed his host before she could retort. “We freely admit our motives to be selfish and practical,” he said. “The primary aim is a more efficient and cheaper means of transporting coal.”

Oldridge, engaged in distributing choice bits of fowl to daughter and guest, merely nodded.

“Lord Gordmor will then be able to bring the coal to more customers,” Alistair went on, “and sell it at a lower price. However, he and his customers aren’t the only ones who’ll profit. The canal will provide you and your neighbors easier access to more goods. Fragile items, traveling smoothly on water rather than bumping along rutted roads, will reach their destinations in one piece. You will have an economical means of conveying manure and agricultural produce to and from the various markets. In short, all in the Longledge environs, from landowner to laborer, will reap its benefits.”

“Lord Hargate has not spent much time at his country place of late, even when Parliament is not sitting,” Mr. Oldridge said. “Politics can be acutely demanding of the physical and mental faculties and wearing to the spirit. I hope he is well.”