Miss Wonderful (The Dressmakers 1)

“But they would not use bad language on Mr. Carsington’s canal,” said Miss Earnshaw, throwing a worshipful look Alistair’s way. “I am sure he would not permit it.”

Before Alistair could invent a response to this fantastically vacuous statement, Miss Oldridge said, “No doubt Mr. Carsington will add that condition to any others the landowners require.”

“Since we hope to have many, if not all, of the landowners as canal committee members and shareholders, they will no doubt act vigilantly against the corruption of public morals, Miss Oldridge,” he said.

“You will leave the responsibility to them?” she said. She directed a dazzling smile his way, as if he had said something desperately romantic rather than sarcastic. “Well, I know my mind is relieved.”

Leaving him vexed and dizzy, she turned the smile upon her hostess. “Do you not feel the same, Lady Tolbert?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Lady Tolbert said fretfully. “But I had not thought of so very many strangers coming, and Sir Roger did not mention it.”

“I should think we’d be used to strangers, if anyone was,” said Captain Hughes.

“But this is not at all like the tourists,” said Lady Tolbert. “They at least are respectable persons.”

“I am sure the bargemen are respectable in their way,” said Miss Oldridge. “And certainly they will seem altogether elegant, after the navigators.”

Lady Tolbert put a hand to her throat. “Merciful heaven! Navigators?”

“Miss Oldridge refers to experienced canal diggers,” Alistair said. “Skilled laborers.” Not riffraff and vagabonds, he wanted to add, but didn’t. He’d rather not plant any more unpleasant images in Lady Tolbert’s head. Miss Oldridge was doing that all too effectively.

“You will not hire local men?” Captain Hughes asked.

“There will be plenty of work for local brickmakers, quarriers, and carpenters,” Alistair said. “Still, the contractors must bring in skilled canal diggers—‘cutters’ they’re called.”

“No doubt Lord Gordmor will hire only the most respectable contractors,” said Miss Oldridge. “In which case, their gangs of workers will not all be ruffians. Furthermore, it is possible that the stories of drunken disorder and riots are exaggerated.”

“Ruffians?” said Lady Tolbert, turning pale. “Riots?”

“Disorder and riots sometimes occur in places where men are poorly treated and ill-paid,” Alistair said quickly. “I can assure you that Lord Gordmor and I will insist upon fair treatment and wages.”

“I am confident you will not allow any cutthroats to work for you, either,” Miss Oldridge said. “At least not intentionally. Naturally you will demand references for each and every person involved in the canal building, even if the work requires many hundreds.”

This was impossible, and she knew it. She might as well expect Captain Hughes to demand references for the men the press gangs forced into naval service. Alistair wanted to point this out, but he doubted Lady Tolbert would find the thought comforting.

Thanks to Miss Oldridge, the lady no doubt envisioned gangs of ruffians roaming at large—raping and pillaging as they went—through the pastoral hamlets and villages and private estates of the Peak.

Unfortunately, the image was not so very farfetched. Only the previous year, right here in Derbyshire, unemployed textile workers had banded together to capture Nottingham Castle. Though troops prevented the threatened mass revolt from materializing, fears of unrest lingered.

“I do hope you will bear in mind, ladies, how many hundreds of miles of canal have been built in this country without incident,” Alistair said. “Among them, Derbyshire’s Peak Forest and Cromford canals.”

“That is an excellent point, Mr. Carsington,” said Miss Oldridge. “We should consider another important one: the men will be less inclined to break out in rampages, because the work is less arduous than it was in the old days.”

“Indeed, it is,” Alistair said. “Much of the backbreaking work is done these days with machinery.”

“Quite so,” Miss Oldridge said. “Now I think of it, the din of the steam engines and other machines must drown out any swearing, and the smoke will obliterate any disagreeable sights.” She beamed at the company.

“Din?” said Lady Tolbert. “Smoke? Sir Roger said nothing about noisy, nasty machines.”

Alistair did his best to soothe her while he imagined himself leaping across the table, scooping Miss Oldridge out of her chair, and tossing her out of the nearest window.

Certain inconveniences attended any great building project, he reminded his hostess. While noise and smoke were drawbacks of modern methods, they did greatly shorten the process. Instead of having canal diggers taking up residence for long periods of time—many months, perhaps years—they would come and go in a matter of weeks.

Lady Tolbert listened politely, gave him a sickly smile, and signaled the other ladies to withdraw from the table. They adjourned to the drawing room, leaving the men to their port.

And while the men drank, Lady Tolbert would spread the contagion to the other wives.

Miss Oldridge had done her work cleverly, the devious creature. Alistair hadn’t foreseen the attack, and he’d been unforgivably slow to catch on.

Well, small wonder.

How was he to concentrate on anything when she sat for hours directly in his line of vision, dressed like a fright? How was he to cope with such a spectacle? He couldn’t, and so he’d focused on dressing her properly in his mind—or undressing her was more like it, and it would be a public service, really, not to mention economical. That appalling gown might have covered two women.

While he’d been busy mentally disrobing her, the foe had crept up behind him and all but routed him.

He had sat listening to Miss Oldridge poison her hostess’s mind while scarcely able to muster his thoughts into order, let alone devise an antidote.

But the women were gone, Alistair consoled himself as the port went round the dining table. He had only to deal with men now. They at least spoke a language one could easily understand. And they played by simpler, if sometimes more brutal rules. All he had to do was play skillfully.

THE men remained in the dining room for nearly an hour, which Mirabel knew was not a good sign. Sir Roger rarely lingered over his port, and if her father was the only one of his guests to drift into the drawing room, it must be because Mr. Carsington had the rest enthralled.

By the time the men finally rejoined the ladies, Papa was long gone. He had wandered out of the drawing room and on to the Tolberts’ conservatory.

Until now, the girls had been scattered about the room in duos and trios, some chatting, some looking at picture books. When Mr. Carsington entered, the chats ended, the books closed, and in a flotilla of pale muslin the maidens sailed, as if carried on a powerful current, toward him.

Mirabel supposed the nautical image arose because she spotted Captain Hughes making his way through the mass of maidens.

He came across the room to the window where Mirabel stood. It was the coldest part of the room, far from the fire. She had retreated there partly because she’d felt agitated and overwarm after dinner and partly because the drafty spot was not inviting to the young ladies. Their innocent joy in the gathering made her feel weary and cross, a sour old spinster.

r /> As she’d hoped, they avoided her chilly corner. Goose-flesh was not attractive, and their current mission was to be as attractive as possible. Eligible gentlemen did not happen into their lives very often, and only Miss Earnshaw had any hopes of a London season in which she’d encounter more. Even that wasn’t certain, because Mr. Earnshaw was balking at the expense.

“I’d no idea we had so handsome a fleet hereabouts,” the captain said, nodding in the direction from which he’d come. “Or did Lady Tolbert muster them up from forces abroad?”

“I take it you refer to the young ladies,” Mirabel said. “She’s summoned them from the far corners of the Peak. Now her youngest daughter is wed, she needs someone else’s future to arrange.”

She did not add her private opinion that the girls, while pretty, were too young and unsophisticated for a man who’d been fêted and petted by London’s most fashionable beauties. Too, the girls’ gowns must seem sadly outdated and countrified, far beneath his exacting standards.

On the other hand, they were young and fresh, and that was what males liked, all males, of every species.

“Someone should tell her to chart them a different course,” Captain Hughes said. “You’re the only vessel in his sights.”

Mirabel experienced a spurt of pleasure, which she promptly suppressed. After all, she’d deliberately set out to distract the guest of honor, she reminded herself.

The grey gown was outmoded and graceless to begin with, but in case that wasn’t enough, she’d persuaded Lucy to make a few adjustments, transforming it from merely dull and unflattering to hideous. The boring coronet needed only to be stepped on. But the crowning achievement was the coiffure Lucy had so unwillingly executed, declaring afterward that she’d never seen anything so frightful and would never outlive the disgrace.

Mirabel hadn’t been prepared, though, for the great number of beautiful young women so prettily garbed. They would make it easy to disregard her.

But Captain Hughes said Mr. Carsington could not ignore her, and the captain was an acutely observant man.