Miss Wonderful (25 page)

"You
asked about Zorah." His voice had dropped so low it seemed to
vibrate inside her.

"It
doesn't matter," Mirabel said. "It's none of my business.
She's one of the seven or eight, I suppose."

"No,
a camp follower," he said, frowning. "She was at Waterloo.
When they found me. I…" He paused. "I couldn't
remember."

ALI
STAIR had never said it aloud before, in plain words, and almost
wished he hadn't now. But it was very late, and the household was
asleep, and he seemed to be still half-dreaming.

He'd
come out of a nightmare to a warm armful of woman. He'd come to
consciousness inhaling her scent while her hair tickled his cheek.

In
the next moment he was being swept this way and that in emotional
crosscurrents.

She
was, he'd recollected, the wrong woman—the one he mustn't
have—and he wondered if this was some hellish trial he must
endure to pay for his youthful misdeeds.

And
then, watching her struggle not to weep—with exhaustion, no
doubt—he'd remembered he was a trial to her, one more burden in
an already overburdened life.

He
could not pretend, not to her.

"I
don't—didn't—remember," he repeated. "It's
driven me wild. It was not even three years ago. A battle, perhaps
the most famous since Trafalgar—I was there—and I
can't—couldn't—remember."

"Good
heavens," she said, "that is the last thing on earth I
would have…" She frowned. "Amnesia. So that is what
Papa—" She broke off and looked up at him. "You were
very much knocked about. It is perfectly understandable. And then,
yesterday, when you fell into the Briar Brook—"

"On
my head," he said wryly.

"It
must have jarred the memories loose."

"It's
still only bits and pieces," he said. "The battle itself
remains hazy—an infernal din amid clouds of smoke. Perhaps
that's how it was. Every so often the smoke clears, and I have a
moment of clarity. But not the important moments, the times when…"
He hesitated. "The heroic feats you read about. I still can't
remember those. Only the aftermath, when the din has stopped and the
smoke has cleared and the quiet seems unearthly. I come to, and it's
dark. I'm pinned down. And there's a smell, indescribably vile."

Alistair
paused and shut his eyes. She didn't need to hear about this. What
was the matter with him?

He'd
said far too much and was on the brink of revealing more: about the
dream that had felt so real, true, familiar. Those endless hours
spent trapped under a corpse, in the muck, suffocating in that
stench.

"So
many hurt," she said softly. "So many dead. Two soldiers
died on top of you. There were wounded and dead everywhere. I've sat
by deathbeds, but I cannot imagine what a battlefield must be like."

A
charnel house. A hellish mire. He'd thought they would never find
him, that they'd already given up on him. He didn't know how long
he'd lain there. It seemed like years passed while he was sinking
into the ooze, rotting to death by slow degrees.

"Don't
try to imagine it," he said.

She
met his gaze. "To us at home, war is made out to be grand and
glorious. But I don't see how it could be anything but filthy and
horrible beyond imagining." He heard her breath catch as she
added, "And heartbreaking."

Someone
dear to her must have died there, he thought. That would help explain
why she buried herself in this out-of-the-way place.

"You
lost a loved one?" he said. "At Waterloo?"

"A
loved one?" She shook her head. "It is the end of so many
young lives that makes me sick at heart."

He
decided not to probe further. "Lives lost, yes—that's the
hard price," he said. "But there's honor in fighting and
dying that way. It is a great chance for a man to do something truly
worthwhile. And a battle is glorious, in a way. Especially such a
battle, against a monster like Napoleon. It is the nearest one can
come to being like the knights in legend, slaying dragons and ogres
and evil magicians."

As
soon as he said it, he regretted it. He sounded like a boy prating of
fairy tales.

Miss
Oldridge was looking at him, her expression impossible to read.

He'd
revealed far too much. He searched for some witty, ironic remark, but
before his sluggish brain could respond, she spoke.

"You
are so complicated," she said. "No sooner do I believe I've
sorted you out than you do or say something to overthrow my neat
theories."

"You
have theories about me?" he said lightly, snatching at the
chance to redirect the conversation. "Can it be, Miss Oldridge,
that there is time in your busy, responsible life for thoughts of
me?"

"I
make the time," she said, "much as the Duke of Wellington
made time to think about Napoleon."

It
was a douse of cold water, and Alistair told himself he needed it and
ought to be grateful to her for stopping him before he opened his
heart to her.

He
was her enemy, because of Gordy's canal. She did not forget it. He
should not, either.

He
should remember what he'd come here for.

He
should never forget that not only his best friend's but his brothers'
future depended on it, and it was his last chance to redeem himself
in his father's eyes.

"I
haven't come to conquer the Peak and make its inhabitants my
subjects," he said. "I am not your enemy. Furthermore, I
must tell you that on any number of grounds I must take issue with
your comparing me to Bonaparte. Have you any idea what the man wore
to his coronation? A toga!"

She
smiled and shook her head. "It would be so much easier if you
were more monsterlike. I wish you could contrive to be more
disagreeable, or boring, at least."

He
wanted to ask how unmonsterlike, how undisagree-able she found him.
He wanted to know how he could make it harder for her to hate him.
But he'd already said too much, felt too much. He'd already gone
farther than was sensible in the circumstances, the curst
circumstances.

If
only…

No.
None of those worthless if onlys.

"Given
a choice, I'd rather be thought loathsome," he said. "I can
think of few worse fates than being deemed boring. An incorrectly
starched neckcloth, perhaps. Hessians worn with breeches. Waistcoat
buttons left undone with a plain shirt." He shuddered
theatrically.

She
laughed softly and rose. "How can I hate a man who does not take
himself seriously?"

She
did not hate him.

His
heart gave a thump of relief, but he played his part. With a shocked
look he said, "Miss Oldridge, I assure you I could not be more
serious, especially about the matter of wearing one's upper waistcoat
buttons undone with a plain shirt—or wearing them fully
buttoned with a frilled one."

…
unless
she was the one who did the unbuttoning, he could have added. Then he
wouldn't care what kind of shirt he wore.

He
remembered the hurried thudding of her heart against his chest, and
his own heart banging against his ribs.

He
remembered the sweet curve of her hips under his hands.

He
remembered the warm fragrance of her skin.

No,
he must forget these things. Otherwise, he would make more mistakes,
do something irreparably stupid.

Remember
Gordy instead, he told himself. Remember the man who refused to
believe, as everyone else did, that you were dead, the man who, near
dead himself with fatigue, searched the filthy, reeking battlefield
for you.

He
told himself to remember his younger brothers, who would be robbed to
support their feckless brother.

He
told himself to remember their sire, whose third son had disappointed
him time and time again.

He
came out of these unhappy reflections to find his tormentor anxiously
searching his countenance. He wondered how long he'd been silent,
fighting with himself.

She
rose and said, "I have kept you up talking too long. If you are
ill tomorrow, it will be my fault, and Crewe will never trust me
again. I solemnly promised not to do you any harm."

"You
did me no harm," Alistair said. "The opposite, rather. I'm
grateful to be rescued from that dream." He could not resist
adding, "Thank you for jumping on me." "Pray don't
mention it," she said, heading for the door. "The pleasure
was mine, Mr. Carsington."

ONLY
a few ill-natured persons believed Mirabel would go so far as to push
Lord Hargate's son into the Briar Brook. This did not mean the rest
were not exchanging other theories, very like the sort of damaging
gossip Captain Hughes had predicted.

The
vicar's wife, Mrs. Dunnet, who was partial to Mirabel, paid a call on
Monday. In the drawing room, over tea and cakes, she tactfully made
Mirabel and Mrs. Entwhistle aware of the local mood, as ascertained
from conversations heard after church the previous day and in the
course of this morning's calls.

"I
am sure Mr. Dunnet has preached more than once about idle rumors and
bearing false witness," the vicar's wife said. "The trouble
is, most of his listeners assume his words apply to everyone else but
them."

"I
daresay most of the talk reflects discontent and vexation rather than
true malice," said Mrs. Entwhistle. "And we mustn't forget
Caleb Finch's friends. They've never forgiven Mirabel for dismissing
him."

At
the mention of her former bailiff, Mirabel got up from her chair and
walked to the French doors. The day was overcast. That was like Caleb
Finch, she thought. She had not seen him in years, yet he hung over
her world and darkened it.

She
had only herself to blame.

She
should have brought charges against him; she knew that now. But at
the time she'd been scarcely twenty years old, unsure of her
evidence, unsure of herself, and sadly naive about business.

As
well, William had arrived in the midst of it, and she'd been trying
to make him understand why the wed-ding must be put off, why she
couldn't go away with him, not then, while the estate was falling to
pieces.

"My
dear."

Mirabel
turned at the sound of her governess's voice and mustered a smile.
"How I should like to forget Caleb Finch. Is he back again?"

How
she wished she'd had the courage years ago to bring him before the
law. He might have been transported—along with some of the
friends who'd connived with him to take advantage of her father.

"He
is not in Longledge," said Mrs. Entwhistle.

"He
could hardly wish to show his face here," said Mrs. Dunnet. "I
have not heard him mentioned this age. Even his friends don't speak
openly of him."

"Caleb
Finch's allies are a minor irritation," Mrs. Entwhistle said.
"My great concern is the respectable people of Longledge. If we
do not soon quiet them, your reputation will be in tatters."

Mirabel
wished she didn't need to worry about her reputation and the effect
of rumors on it. But she couldn't afford any smirch on her character.
She would lose all the influence she had worked so hard to win. No
one would pay any attention to her objections to the canal.

"I
am not at all sure how one goes about stopping such talk," she
said. "Denial only makes matters worse."

"One
needs to understand the causes," said Mrs. Entwhistle. "I
believe we may blame envy."

"Envy?"
Mirabel returned to her chair. Mrs. Entwhistle had a remarkable grasp
of human nature.

"You
have a celebrated person under your roof," that lady explained.
"But at present, your neighbors are forbidden to visit him.
Everyone, naturally, wants to be made an exception to the rule. They
see that Captain Hughes is an exception, as am I, and do not
understand why they should not be as well."

"I
will not turn you out, or turn Captain Hughes away, merely so as to
offend nobody," Mirabel said. "They will only find
something else to be vexed about."

"You
need not turn anybody out," said Mrs. Entwhistle. "It is
simple enough to quiet such talk."