Miss Wonderful (16 page)

He
found her looking at him questioningly. "It isn't only my
clothes," he said.

"No,
certainly not," she said. "There are the expensive ballet
dancers."

"Yes,
that sort of thing. And the lawsuits. And the sponging houses.
And—Oh, the list is immensely long."

"Lawsuits,"
she repeated. "Sponging houses. Well, well. You grow more
complicated by the moment."

"But
I am mending my ways," Alistair said. "The canal is
completely respectable."

"Yet
your valet has forebodings, you said."

"Not
about the canal. About me. Crewe often has them. He believes his
dreams predict the future."

Allistair
told her about the cliff dream, and the odd light, and how Crewe had
had the same dream before Waterloo.

When
he was done, she said, "If you do happen to fall, you may well
break your neck. Drowning, on the other hand, would be difficult. The
largest body of water nearby is the Briar Brook, which isn't deep
enough."

"Then
it should be safe enough for me to continue up the hillside with
you," he said.

"You
mean dangerous enough. If it were safe, you would be as bored with
the prospect as you have been with everything else."

"You
thought I was bored?" It was his turn to smile. "Well,
then, perhaps you're not as clever as I'd supposed."

Chapter
6

MR.
Carsington's golden eyes danced, and the smile—the complete
article, not a crooked bit of one—was devastating.

Mirabel
quickly looked away and started up the path while mentally
flagellating herself.

She
should not have let the conversation become personal.

She
had thought him possessed of the unshakable aristocratic
self-assurance she'd encountered so often in London and found as
unfathomable as her father did the mating habits of lichen. But Mr.
Carsington had a chink in his armor. He wasn't as sure of himself as
it seemed.

This
wasn't the only way she'd mistaken him. His discomfort with mention
of his wartime heroics wasn't the usual becoming modesty, false or
otherwise. He was truly uneasy, and she found herself wondering what
troubled him so much about it, and wishing he'd tell her so that she
could set him right.

She'd
found out, too, that for all his vanity about his appearance, he was
far from happy with himself.

She
hadn't reached this conclusion because he spoke of reforming. After
all, men—especially rakes and other ne'er-do-wells—commonly
pacified women by promising to reform. Even Papa did it, about twice
a year, with most sincere intentions—which he'd forget the
instant the next botanical riddle happened along.

No,
it wasn't the talk of mending his ways. It was the troubled
expression in Mr. Carsington's eyes and the change in his tone when
he spoke of his father. That note in his voice struck a painful chord
within her. She recognized the frustration: the sense of failure no
matter what one did, the awareness of a vast, unbridgeable gap.

"I
can walk and talk at the same time," came Mr. Carsington's deep
rumble from behind her.

He
was very close behind her, she discovered as she glanced back. "I'm
thinking," she said.

"But
women are much more complicated beings than men," he said. "I
believe you can even hold more than one thought in your mind at once.
Surely you must be able to think and walk and talk simultaneously."

"I
was wondering if you practice the bored look in the mirror," she
said. "You are so very good at it. I feared you would fall
asleep and tumble from your horse. Since you've already read Mr.
Farey's book, what I've had to say about Longledge Hill must seem
tedious repetition."

"It
wasn't what you had to say about farming," he said. "I'd
already read enough about Derbyshire agriculture to make me want to
hang myself. It's you I find interesting."

Mirabel's
heart twisted about again. "I'm a farmer," she said. "It
isn't in the least exciting."

"Why
don't you leave managing the estate to Higgins?" he said. "Why
don't you let him do what he was hired for, while you go to London
and enjoy yourself? If the social whirl proves too frivolous, you
might find scores of other intellectual ladies to talk to and attend
lectures with."

She
remembered, rather wistfully, the joys of London.

Aunt
Clothilde never gave up urging her to visit. One day, perhaps,
Mirabel would. But not yet, not now, certainly, when everything she
loved was threatened.

"You
are so kind," she said. "I wish you as far as Calcutta. You
only wish me as far as London."

"You've
evaded the question twice and thus doubled my curiosity. Have you a
lover here?"

A
lover? She? Was he serious?

Mirabel
stopped short. He trod on her heel, and her foot supped. Then she was
toppling backward, flailing for balance. He caught hold of her waist
and righted her. It was done in an instant. But he didn't let go.

She
heard his quick intake of breath and looked up to meet his strangely
intent golden gaze. Her own breath came quicker, and her heart
skittered against her rib cage.

His
hands were big and warm, his grip firm, and she thought he must sense
the commotion within her. She ought to pull away, but she didn't want
to. She only wanted to look up into his eyes, trying to read them and
daring to hope she wasn't the only one in a commotion.

He
bent a hairsbreadth closer. "What a little waist you have,"
he said in a soft, puzzled voice. "I should never have guessed."

She
was not little, but he was so much larger. Her head came only to his
immaculately shaven chin. She stood near enough to feel his breath on
her face, near enough to detect the elusive scent she still had no
name for. She saw the faint network of scars on the underside of his
jaw and wanted to put her hand up and lay it against his cheek. She
didn't know why or what it would achieve, only that she wanted to.

It
took nearly all her willpower not to do it, to gather her composure
and say, so very casually, "If you are done measuring me, Mr.
Carsington, I believe I can contrive to walk on unaided."

He
took his time straightening and was slow and deliberate releasing
her. Even after he'd fully let go, she could feel the pressure and
warmth of his hands. She knew a boundary had been crossed, and if she
did not take very great care, she would soon have no boundaries left.

"You
gave me a fright," he said. "I had a vision of you tumbling
down the rocky hillside. My heart still pounds." Mirabel's did,
too, with everything but fear. "Perhaps if you would not follow
so closely, we should be less likely to stumble into each other,"
she said while hoping she would not be tempted to do so accidentally
on purpose.

"A
good point," he agreed. "I should have paid more attention
to where I was walking as well. But I was caught up in admiring the
view, you see."

To
the right, the left, and straight ahead the view consisted of trees,
limestone rocks, scraggy bushes, and dirt. A smattering of evergreens
provided the only bright color in the dreary landscape.

"The
scenery here is hardly worth the climb, I should say," she said.

"Not
from my perspective," he said.

Heat
washed through her. She understood his meaning. She had not spent two
seasons in London without learning how to detect innuendo. She
pretended not to understand, though she could not pretend it dismayed
her. It had been a very long time since an attractive man had made
improper remarks about her person. She'd forgotten how agreeable it
was.

A
small, insistent voice in the back of her head made warning noises,
and she remembered how agreeable he'd made himself to all the men
last night.

"For
the present, you would be wiser to watch the path," she said.

"I
shall try to be wise, Miss Oldridge."

Mirabel
walked on.

"About
your lover," he began after a moment.

She
did not mind flirtation and a bit of impropriety. She had never been
missish. But she could not let herself fall victim to his charm. And
she most certainly would not explain private matters to him. "I
cannot believe you think I've undertaken all that I have, merely to
be near a man," she said quellingly.

"What
a pity. I was picturing clandestine meetings, perhaps on that ledge
overlooking the romantic moors."

"You
are certainly entitled to entertain any fanciful notions you like,"
she said, repeating his patronizing retort of a few days earlier. "I
should not wish to stifle an active imagination."