Miss Wonderful (The Dressmakers 1)

“You have calculated the number of days correctly,” Gordy said. “I rejoice to find your brain damage has not affected the simple arithmetic functions.”

“Brain damage.” It took Alistair no time at all to put two and two together. “I see,” he said calmly, though his voice dropped a full octave. “What other interesting news was Miss Oldridge so good as to communicate?”

THE two men adjourned to Alistair’s private parlor. There Gordy handed him the latest urgent missive from Oldridge Hall.

Alistair read it while his lordship ate a much-belated breakfast.

Though Mr. Oldridge had signed the letter, the loopy swirls covering both sides of the paper were no more his than was the prose style. Alistair was certain both writing and contents were solely Miss Oldridge’s.

Judging by the penmanship alone, one would guess her nature to be fanciful and her brain to be as feathery light and undisciplined as her hair.

The penmanship was sadly deceptive. Miss Oldridge’s nature was candid to a shocking degree, down-to-earth, practical…and fiercely passionate. The brain under that fiery cloud of wild, silken hair was as soft and fuzzy as the average rapier.

She translated Dr. Woodfrey’s “fatigue of the nerves” as “nervous collapse.” The bump on the head became a brain injury. Citing Alistair’s sunken, shadowed eyes, she hinted at his sinking into a decline. She compared his sleeplessness to Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking and Hamlet’s restlessness—implying, in short, that Alistair was declining into insanity. Adding insult to injury, she made good use of his implying Dr. Woodfrey was an incompetent country quack. She recommended Mr. Carsington be examined in London by “medical practitioners better versed in diseases of the mind.”

She modestly declared herself no expert in these cases. Perhaps she was mistaken. Indeed, she hoped she was, for Lord Gordmor’s sake. Naturally, he knew best, but she would hesitate to leave her business affairs in the hands of a man who was not right in the head.

Long after Alistair had read it, twice—first in outraged disbelief and then with a grudging admiration—he continued to gaze at the series of whirls and swirls with which she’d covered the pages. Had he been alone, he would have traced those loops and twirls with his finger.

He had enough self-command not to do that, but not enough to remember to return the letter to Gordy. Instead, Alistair folded it up and tucked it inside his waistcoat next to his heart.

By the time he realized what he’d done, it was too late. He found Gordy regarding him quizzically over the rim of his ale tankard.

“Doubtless Oldridge—or his daughter—exaggerates the case,” said his lordship. “Still, you must have a competent London physician look at you. The fall into the mountain stream cannot have done you any good, and—not to put too fine a point on it—we both know your brain box was not in perfect order after Waterloo.”

“I had a fever then,” Alistair said tightly. “I was delirious. The two conditions often go together.”

“But when the fever passed, you didn’t remember the battle,” his friend said. “You didn’t know how you’d hurt your leg. You didn’t remember fighting. You wouldn’t have believed me if I hadn’t brought in all those fellows to talk about what you did.”

“You knew,” Alistair said.

“Of course I knew,” Gordy said. “I’ve known you since we were children. I know when something’s wrong. Hasn’t it occurred to you that the recent bump on the head might have further damaged a place already fragile?”

“I had amnesia,” Alistair said. Gordy looked dubious.

“Amnesia,” Alistair repeated. He almost added you idiot, but he recalled it was Miss Oldridge who’d first put a name to the ailment, so he was as much an idiot as Gordy—and everyone else who’d noticed and failed to mention it—for not grasping the obvious.

“Amnesia,” Gordy said.

“Yes. The recent bump on the head restored my memory.”

“But you look ill, Car. Almost as bad as you did when Zorah and I carried you out of the surgeon’s tent.”

“That’s because of the insomnia,” Alistair said.

“I see. Amnesia and insomnia. Anything else?”

“I’m not insane,” Alistair said.

“I did not say you were. Nonetheless—”

“Mental disease wouldn’t have occurred to you if Miss Oldridge’s letter didn’t suggest it,” Alistair said impatiently. “She’s manipulating you, don’t you see? She’s trying to get rid of me.”

Gordy’s pale eyebrows climbed upward. “Really? This is novel. More often than not, one is obliged to peel the women off you. Even Judith Gilford would have taken you back—especially after Waterloo—if only you had gone back to her and groveled a little.”

“I used her abominably,” Alistair muttered. “I am ashamed to think of it.”

“Car, we both know she was impossible.”

“That is no excuse for betraying her with another woman—and worse, humiliating her by doing so publicly,” Alistair said. “Small wonder Miss Oldridge doesn’t trust me to represent her interests fairly.”

Lord Gordmor set down his tankard. “I beg your pardon. I am not sure I heard aright. Her interests?”

“Everyone’s interests,” Alistair said. “She speaks for the others on Longledge Hill, because they are too overawed by my father and my so-called heroics to speak for themselves.”

After a short, stunned silence, his lordship spoke: “In other words, Miss Oldridge is the only one who has raised any objections to the canal. Our only opposition is a woman. Who cannot vote. Who controls not a single seat in the House of Commons.”

“She isn’t the only opposition,” Alistair said. “She is the only one who dares to voice her objections.”

“My dear fellow, it is not our job to encourage the timid to speak up,” Gordmor said patiently. “It is our job to build a canal. At present, our only opposition is a woman—which is the same as no opposition at all. We must strike while the iron is hot.”

“We aren’t ready to strike,” Alistair said. “For two weeks I’ve been shut away. That old hen Woodfrey forbade me to see anyone or even read a letter. I haven’t so much as begun discussing the canal with the landowners.”

“You don’t need to discuss it.”

“Gordy, these people are not the enemy. We need to come to an agreement, not mow them down.”

Lord Gordmor rose. “You are my dearest friend in all the world, Car, but I cannot let your conscience or brain injury or whatever it is ruin a great opportunity. Too much is at stake. If you were more composed in your mind, you would realize it. I wish I could wait for you to become composed, but I cannot. I am going out now to place a notice in the papers for the canal committee meeting.”

“Now?” Alistair said, aghast. “For when?”

“A week from Wednesday. The local announcement will appear in Wednesday’s Derby Mercury. That will prevent anyone’s complaining of insufficient notice—though all of Derbyshire knows of our plans by now. I can only pray Wednesday is not too late.”

Fifteen

MIRABEL’S mother was not buried in the Longledge churchyard but in the family’s mausoleum.

Built early in the previous century, the circular, Palladian-style structure stood on a rise at some distance from the house, past the bridge spanning a man-made river created at about the same time.

Two hours after leaving Matlock Bath, Mirabel stood there, drinking in the view whose beauty never failed to bring her a degree of peace, no matter how bleak or impossible her life might seem at the time.

“Oh, Mama, what on earth am I to do?” she said.

No answer was forthcoming. Mirabel had not spoken aloud expecting one. She’d spoken only because there was no one alive to whom she could fully open her heart.

She continued walking from one pillar to the next while telling her mother—and any other entombed ancestors who cared to listen—all about the last few weeks.

The March wind b

lew strong this day, and its whistles and moans as it swept round and through the edifice easily drowned out her voice as well as the hoofbeats upon the bridge below.

At one point, she caught a faint whinny, but the wind blew it away, and she assumed it was Sophy, who was in one of her moods. Today the mare had taken a dislike to the bridge and could barely be got across it. Once across, she refused to go anywhere but downhill and would not take her mistress up toward the mausoleum.

Every now and again, Sophy developed one of these inexplicable aversions. In no humor for a war of wills with an animal many times her size and weight, Mirabel simply gave in. She tethered the mare near the bridge and walked the rest of the way.

At the moment, she stood on the other side of the building, gazing at the place where Lord Gordmor’s canal would cut through the landscape. Consequently, she didn’t see the tall figure dismount, tether his horse near Sophy, and begin limping determinedly up the hill.

Mirabel was still staring in frustration at the invisible canal when she heard the footsteps upon the stone floor. She turned that way, and felt her heart leap, most painfully.

She lifted her chin and donned her haughtiest, coldest expression. “Mr. Carsington,” she said curtly.

“You wicked, wicked girl,” he said.