Miss Wonderful (24 page)

MIRABEL
woke at two o'clock in the morning—the same time she'd awoken
yesterday—and couldn't get back to sleep. She lit a candle,
flung on a dressing gown and slippers, and paced her bedroom for a
while. This accomplished nothing.

At
last she took up the candle, left her bedroom, and padded along to
the guest wing.

The
door to Mr. Carsington's chamber was left ajar in case Crewe needed
to summon help quickly. In a chair by the door a footman slumped,
snoring steadily.

Mirabel
crept past him into the bedroom, where a single candle burned.

Crewe
rose as she entered. She set her candle on the mantel of the
fireplace. The valet approached her.

"He's
all right, miss," he murmured.

"You're
not," she said in the same low tones.

Though
the light was dim and wavering, she easily discerned the worry and
weariness etched in the loyal ser-vant's countenance. She wondered
how many nights, after Waterloo, he had kept watch over his master.

"I'm
sure you've been worried to death about him," she said. "I'll
wager you haven't had a moment's rest since getting word of the
accident."

Crewe
denied feeling any fatigue or undue worry.

"You
will be of little help to Mr. Carsington if you get no sleep this
night," she said. "An hour or two's rest will do you good.
I'll keep watch in the meantime."

The
valet protested. Mirabel's very sensible arguments—about his
needing rest to be of full use to his master, and his being within
easy call should any difficulties arise—fell on deaf ears. But
when she gave her word of honor not to kill his master in his sleep,
Crewe looked very shocked, stammered an apology—he never meant
to imply any such thing and never dreamt it, for a minute—and
meekly took himself into the adjoining room.

He
left the connecting door open.

Mirabel
settled into the chair by the bed and studied Crewe's master.

During
her discussion with his manservant, Mr. Carsington had got himself
turned about. He now lay partly on his stomach, and the shape of the
bedclothes outlining his body told her his injured foot had slipped
from its pillow. She debated whether to waken the footman to help her
turn the patient onto his back again. Before she could decide, she
found herself recalling her father's remarks about laudanum,
Egyptians, and Captain Hughes.

What
had led Papa to that sequence of thoughts?

He
said Mr. Carsington's sleep was not restful.

Mirabel
rose and came nearer to the bed to study his face. It seemed peaceful
enough, and strangely youthful, with his tousled hair falling over
his brow. She could see the boy he must have been. He snored softly,
rather like a lion purring, but it was uneven.

She
linked her hands behind her back because she was dreadfully tempted
to smooth his hair back from his face, as though he were that young
boy, as though the gesture would be enough to soothe him.

The
soft snoring stopped, and he shuddered.

Mirabel's
hands would not remain sensibly behind her back. She reached out and
lightly brushed his hair back. She stroked his cheek.

He
stirred and began to mumble. At first it was only incomprehensible
strings of sounds. Then came a hoarse whisper: "Zorah. We must
find her."

More
muttering. By degrees, Mirabel began to distinguish phrases here and
there. Something about being sick. Something about butchers.

He
began to toss and turn. "Get away… no… can't look
at it… vultures… I knew him… No, don't talk.
Never say. Didn't see. Make a joke. Ha. Ha. Attached to it. Getting
on so well together. Gordy, find her. Flesh wound. Zorah. She said.
Get me away. Don't let them."

His
voice scarcely rose above a murmur, but he was flailing about. She
must stop him, or he'd tumble out of bed or otherwise harm himself.

She
touched his shoulder. "Mr. Carsington," she said gently,
"please wake up."

He
jerked away and kicked at the bedclothes. "Can't breathe. Get
them off. Sick. Sick. God help us." He threw himself toward the
edge of the bed.

Mirabel
flung herself across his chest.

He
shuddered briefly, then stilled.

Mirabel
waited, uncertain what to do. Had she truly calmed him, turned his
sleeping mind elsewhere, or was it only a pause? Should she let him
sleep or wake him? If he slept, he might return to the nightmare.

She
listened to his breathing. Not slow. Not like peaceful sleep. She
remembered what her father had said, how sure he'd been that Mr.
Carsington had suffered a head injury at Waterloo. She recalled what
she'd read of his actions in battle, and of what he'd endured
afterward. He'd been believed dead and might have died in fact, if
his friend Lord Gordmor hadn't scoured the battlefield for him,
through the night, among acres of corpses. Was this what the famous
hero dreamt of?

He
didn't want to talk about the battle or hear about it. Perhaps in his
place, she would feel the same. He could not wish to be reminded of
what must have been the most horrendous experience of his life.

Everyone
said it was a miracle he'd survived until he was found, many hours
after the battle. It must have taken unimaginable courage and a will
of iron. Not to mention a remarkably strong and resilient body.

It
was this thought that brought her back to the present, to where she
was, lying across the famously indestructible body.

His
chest rose and fell under her, but now she became aware of more than
its unsteady rise and fall.

He'd
pushed away the bedclothes. His nightshirt had fallen open. She
hadn't thought about his state of undress. She'd simply acted to
quiet him. Now she was conscious of the faint friction of her
nightgown against his shirt, of the place where the flannel of her
gown brushed his bare skin, of the edge of the shirt opening touching
her cheek. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, and she was
acutely aware now of the hardness and warmth under her, of the
hurried, irregular rise and fall, a countertempo to the quickened,
unsteady beat of her heart.

She
felt again, as though it were happening now, his hands circling her
waist and saw once more the intent golden gaze, the lurking smile.

If
only…

She
took a deep breath, and let it out, and told herself to get up.
Cautiously, she lifted her head and looked at him… and found
him looking back at her.

His
eyes were open and dark but for the faint gleam of reflected
candlelight.

Mirabel
swallowed. "Bad dream," she said.

"You
had a bad dream?" His voice was a sleepy rumble. He smiled
lazily, and his hands slid up to her hips.

His
hands were so very warm, and as they stole up farther, her mind
slowed.

She
wanted to stop thinking entirely and let those long hands slide over
her. She wanted to touch her lips to that sleepy smile…

Seduction,
a voice called to her from far, far away.

It
was the faint voice of her rapidly disappearing intellect. She didn't
want to call it back, but she'd had years of practice in overcoming
such inclinations, in doing what had to be done, like it or not.

Swallowing
a sigh, she wriggled away from the insidious hands, slid off the bed,
and stood back out of reach. As though she were in any real danger.
As though he would, if wide awake instead of half asleep and thinking
of someone else—by name of Zorah, perhaps—reach for her.

"You
had a bad dream," she said.

"And
you were comforting me," he said.

She
clenched her hands. "I tried to keep you from throwing yourself
on the floor. You were thrashing about. I should have called for
help, but it was quickest to—to—"

"Jump
on me." His mouth quivered.

Mirabel's
face burned, and she reacted instinctively, attacking from an
unexpected quarter, as she'd learnt to do when cornered and made to
defend herself. "Who is Zorah?"

His
amusement vanished, and the atmosphere instantly thickened.

She
knew she wasn't to upset him, but she was too angry with
circumstance, with fate, to behave sensibly. "You spoke her name
more than once," she persisted. "You wanted to find her. I
take it she's important."

He
raised himself up on the pillows. Though he did so without wincing,
Mirabel knew it hurt. She could tell by the way his features
hardened. She cursed her bad temper and self-pity and wayward tongue.

"Never
mind," she said. "It is none of my business. I panicked.
And behaved stupidly. I should have let Crewe stay. He would have
known what to do."

Mr.
Carsington looked about the dimly lit room. "Where is he?"

"I
sent him to bed," Mirabel said. "He looked so tired and
worried."

"Do
you never sleep, Miss Oldridge?"

"No,
I always prowl about the house in the dead of night, looking for
unsuspecting gentlemen to leap upon." She realized her dressing
gown was falling open. Not that there was anything to see. Her
sensible flannel nightgown left everything to the imagination.

Nonetheless,
she drew the dressing gown closed and began tying the ribbons. "Not
that we ever had any unsuspecting gentlemen here before," she
went on into the pulsing silence. "But if we had, I should have
leapt upon them, too. So you are not to think there is anything out
of the way about my behavior."

"You
are tying those ribbons into knots," he said.

She
looked down at her too-busy fingers. "Yes, well, I could be
calmer, I daresay."

"I'm
sorry I gave you a fright," he said.

"Fright,"
she repeated, still gazing at her hands as though she didn't know
what they were. "Yes." She felt a wild urge to laugh and
another to sob and another to fly from the room. She sat down heavily
in the chair by the bed and buried her face in her hands. "Give
me a moment," she mumbled. To her dismay, tears welled. What was
wrong with her? She never cried. Was she hysterical?

"You
have enough to worry about without worrying about me," he said.
"It's a wonder you don't collapse from the weight of your
responsibilities. I am sorry to add to it."

"Oh,
you are nothing." She waved a hand to dismiss the notion but did
not trust herself enough to lift her head.

"Don't
be ridiculous. I am the Earl of Hargate's son, and a famous dratted
hero besides, and now you are saddled with my care. If I should
accidentally do myself a fatal injury, you will be blamed for not
taking proper care of me—or even for hastening my demise,
perhaps. Small wonder you can't sleep. I shouldn't care to be in your
shoes—er—slippers, for the world."

Mirabel
looked up then and found him regarding her with a troubled
expression.

"Not
that I have any idea what it's like," he added. "I've never
had to be responsible for anybody. Nothing—nobody—has
ever depended on me. It makes one feel rather pointless. Well, not
altogether. Certain people rely upon me to set an example in the way
of neckcloth arrangements."

She
smiled in spite of herself. "Oh, more than that, I'll warrant,"
she said. "Your waistcoats are paragons, beautiful without being
showy. You have the knack for not overdoing, which is exceedingly
rare among dandies. Beau Brummell was one of the few who possessed
it. So great a gift is also a great responsibility."

"Yes,
well, there you have it. My great responsibility is to look
beautiful."

And
he carried it out to perfection, Mirabel thought. Even now, with his
hair tousled and night shirt rumpled, he seemed a work of art to her.
It took enormous will to keep her eyes from straying lower than his
bared neck, to the crooked V of the shirt opening.

She
told herself not to think about it, either: the hard muscle of his
upper torso, and how soft and fragile she'd felt… how she'd
longed to touch him… how she'd relished the feel of his long
hands curling over her hips, sliding upward…

She
turned away and stared hard in the direction of the fire, which had
dwindled to glowing embers.