Miss Wonderful (53 page)

He
now knew as well that he'd been terrified of the surgeons'
instruments—he, who'd always believed fear was for women and
the weakest of men.

Mr.
Oldridge's voice called him out of the reverie.

"Perhaps
I recognized your difficulty because it was something like my own,"
the older man said. "I did not retreat from the world on purpose
after my wife's death. The thing came upon me, like a sickness or a
pernicious habit, and I could not break its hold upon me. I found
myself wondering if your grievous experience at Waterloo had a
similar effect upon you. I retreated into botany, and you…"
He smiled. "And you into the arcane science of dress."

"Good
heavens," Mirabel said, eyes wide as she regarded Alistair. She
rose from the sofa and crossed the room and looked him up and down,
as though she'd never seen him before. "I had too much on my
mind to take proper notice. But now that I do notice, I am
astonished. My dear, you are all—" She flung her hands up,
clearly at a loss. "Your neckcloth. Words fail me."

Alistair
looked down and blinked. He had tied the thing any which way. How had
Crewe let him out of the room looking like this?

He
looked at Mr. Oldridge, who was smiling. Alistair grinned. "If
your theory is correct, it would appear that I'm recovering, sir,"
he said.

"I'm
relieved to hear it," said the older man. "And to see it."
He walked to a set of bookshelves and plucked out a volume. "Since
you've shown signs of returning to sanity, I shall await a private
interview in my study. I believe you have something particular to say
to me regarding my daughter." He walked out.

London

HAVING
received yet another express letter from Oldridge Hall on Saturday
night, and not long thereafter a report in person from a greatly
distressed Jackson, Lord Gordmor was unhappily aware of all that had
transpired in the previous two days.

He
sent Jackson to Northumberland to survey the devastation there and
untangle matters as best he could. Meanwhile, his lordship stoically
awaited public disgrace and possible private dismemberment.

He
had a long wait.

The
message from Carsington arrived ten days later. It requested his
lordship appoint a time and place for a meeting.

Lady
Wallantree was visiting her brother when the curt note arrived, and
as usual had no scruples about snatching it from his hands.

"He
is challenging you to a duel?" she cried. "But you must not
fight him, Douglas. He is not in his senses. And he always was the
better shot, as well as the better swordsman. I am not at all
confident that his crippled leg will give you much advantage."

Lord
Gordmor gave her a mildly puzzled look. "Since when have you
become an expert in affairs of honor, Henrietta? But why do I ask?
What is between Carsington and me is none of your affair, and never
has been. You always prophesy catastrophe, always discern the
thundercloud within the shiniest silver lining. You make Cassandra
seem jolly by comparison."

"No
one heeded her, did they?" she shrieked. "That was the
curse of her gift. It is my curse as well. You mock me. You refuse to
hear the truth."

"It
is truth distorted out of all recognition," he said. "I
have allowed your hysterias to disrupt the peaceful tenor of my life
once too often. The last time constitutes a mistake I shall regret to
the end of my days. However, if your clairvoyant powers prove
accurate for once, those days may be mercifully few."

Lady
Wallantree promptly fell into a fainting fit.

Lord
Gordmor summoned a servant to attend to her, called for his hat and
cane, left the house, and went in search of the man who'd been his
closest friend for twenty years.

ON
the same day, the Monday following Easter, Alistair was pacing the
richly carpeted floor of London's most sought-after and expensive
modiste.

At
length his bride-to-be emerged from the dressing room. She paused
before him. He shut his eyes.

"Lavender,"
he said in martyred tones. "It is a gift, a veritable gift, I
vow. A rare knack for finding—among a collection of gowns so
elegant that even Parisians must weep with envy—the one that
turns your complexion grey."

"Alistair,"
Lady Hargate said reproachfully.

He
opened his eyes and stoically regarded his mother. She sat with Lady
Sherfield, a handsome woman bearing a strong resemblance to her
niece. They were looking over fashion books.

How
he missed Mrs. Entwhistle's lackadaisical chaper-onage! His mother
and Lady Sherfield were always about. He had not had one moment alone
with Mirabel since they'd arrived in London the previous Thursday.

"If
you are bored with this business," his mother went on, "kindly
take your ill humor elsewhere. Otherwise, Miss Oldridge might have
second thoughts about marrying such a tactless, sarcastic brute."

"I
am never to wear lavender?" Mirabel said.

"No,"
he said. "You must keep to warm, rich colors. That is a cool,
pale color. It is not for you. And anyway, it looks as though you are
in half mourning, when you are supposed to be a deliriously happy
bride-to-be."

"I
like cool, pale colors," she said. "They are so soothing."

"Leave
it to me to soothe you," he said. "Leave it to your
clothes, I beg, to become you."

"You
have not been soothing company this morning," she said.

He
cast his gaze meaningfully toward his mother and her aunt, both again
engrossed in the fashion plates, and made a pantomime of tearing out
his hair.

"Yes,
shopping is very tedious," she said. "But you were the one
who insisted on my replacing every stitch of my wardrobe."

"You
were also the one, Alistair, who insisted upon par-ticipating in
these tiresome proceedings," said his mother, without looking
up.

"I
did not insist she do it all at once," Alistair said. "I
had hoped to show my betrothed something of London. I had thought we
might at least take a turn in the park. If we do not appear, people
will wonder what we are hiding."

Both
older ladies looked up then.

"I
believe they will also wonder why we need such close chaperonage,"
he went on. "We are betrothed, after all. The notice appeared in
the paper. We are to be wed in two days. We really ought to be
allowed to go out alone in public. Do you not agree, Miss Oldridge?"

"Oh,
yes," she said. "An excellent point. We do not wish to
cause talk. Only let me get this horrid thing off, and I shall be out
in a trice."

THE
whole business took rather longer than "a trice."

They
were obliged to take the chaperons home, and Miss Oldridge must
change while Alistair borrowed his younger brother Rupert's curricle.
As a result it was close to four o'clock before they reached Hyde
Park. In another hour, the place would be crawling with people. He
and she not only would have no privacy but would be interrupted every
few minutes as people came seeking introductions to his affianced
bride, and to offer good wishes while appeasing their curiosity.

A
number of men would be sick with envy as well, Alistair had no doubt.
Mirabel's moss green carriage dress was not only becoming, but au
courant. They'd had it and several other items made up in a hurry.
Though the fittings bored Mirabel witless, she was happy with her
pretty new clothes, and this day she had let the maid take time with
her hair.

"You
are ravishing," he told her after they'd entered the park, and
he no longer needed to give his full attention to negotiating the
congested London streets.

"I
think you are blinded by affection," she said. "But I don't
mind. It is such a relief to have you choose my clothes. I am rarely
indecisive, except when it comes to dress. The choices and all the
vexing details overwhelm me. And recollect that until now, my
situation required me to dress plainly and simply. I had so often to
deal with men in the way of business, and they are so easily
distracted. But it is most agreeable to have pretty things again."

She
had not refused a single pretty item presented to her. When given
three gowns to choose from, she chose all three. The same held for
bonnets and shoes. As to her un-derthings, Alistair had been kept out
of those transactions, but he'd seen the heaps of boxes when she
returned with her aunt from a shopping trip.

"I'm
glad you're pleased," he said. "I had not guessed that you
could be as extravagant in that way as I. But I am changing my ways.
If I forgo my old spending habits, we should have no difficulty
living within our income."

She
tipped her head to one side, studying his profile.

"What
is it?" he said. "What have I said that is so puzzling?"

"My
dear," she said, "did you not read the marriage settlements
before you signed them?"

"Certainly
I read them," he said. They would be wed on Wednesday, by
special license, which would allow them to dispense with banns and
marry when and where they chose. Lord Hargate had wasted not a moment
in procuring the document or in getting the settlements drawn up and
signed.

"Whether
I understood them is another matter," Alistair added. "In
the first place, there is the villainous law hand, which is
indecipherable. In the second, there is the villainous law language,
which is incomprehensible. I do recall a great many noughts in some
of the figures, and an error in computation, to which I called my
father's attention. He laughed heartily about it, and I donned an
expression of heroic resignation and wrote my name where I was told."

"My
dowry is two hundred thousand pounds," Mirabel said. "In
addition, there is—"

"I
beg your pardon," he said. "Something is awry with my
hearing. I thought you said two hundred thousand."

"That
is what I said."

The
club had struck again.

"My
dear, are you unwell?" she asked anxiously. She reached up and
laid her gloved hand against his cheek.

Alistair
stopped the horses and turned his head to press his mouth against the
palm of her… glove. It was not very satisfying. He pressed his
lips to the narrow bit of skin showing at her wrist, then drew away.

"It
doesn't signify," he murmured. "A momentary faint-ness,
that was all. Two. Hundred. Thousand. No wonder my father laughed."

"You
did not know?"

"I
thought someone had misread, and counted too many noughts," he
said. "I assumed twenty thousand or thereabouts." The
daughter of the Duke of Sutherland, one of England's richest men, had
brought twenty thousand to her marriage. "I did not dwell on the
matter, because it is vulgar to speak of money."

"Mama
inherited her family's banking fortune," Mirabel said. "Papa's
inheritance was substantial as well." "I see,"
Alistair said faintly. He looked about him, dimly aware of trees
putting out their new green leaves, and birds twittering, and a few
figures on horseback. In a short time the park would be packed with
Good Society, riding expensive horses or driving elegant vehicles,
dressed in the latest modes and exchanging the latest gossip.

"You
are upset," she said.

"No
wonder my father was so excessively affectionate," Alistair
said. "After I had signed the papers, he actually patted me on
the shoulder."

"Well,
you are very expensive," she said. "He would have worried
about your finding a girl who could afford you."

"I
am not that expensive," he said. "Only the Prince Regent is
that expensive. And may I remind you, dressing him requires a much
greater quantity of material than does dressing me."

The
Prince Regent's figure had grown elephantine with the passing years.

"I
recall what you said about refusing to be a parasite upon your wife,"
she said. "I hope you will not brood about it and make yourself
unhappy. There is nothing out of the way about a younger son's
marrying money."

Alistair
studied the woman who'd soon be his wife. Hair: sunrise. Eyes: dusk.
Voice: night. He'd seen all this at the first glance. That was before
he'd learnt the dizzying changes of her countenance, the quickness of
her mind, the openness of her nature, and the kindness of her heart.
It was before he'd held her in his arms and discovered how
completely, trustingly, and uninhibitedly she could give herself to
him.