Miss Wonderful (39 page)

"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."

Chapter
15

MIRAB
E L' S mother was not buried in the Longledge churchyard but in the
family's mausoleum.

Built
early in the previous century, the circular, Palla-dian-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 blew 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.

His
gold eyes sparked, and his color was up. The air thickened and
crackled as though a storm brewed nearby.

She
knew he was the storm and what she felt was the force of his anger.
It was as palpable as the charm that made even practiced courtesans
fall helplessly in love with him. She wanted to back away, out of
range of that compelling force, but pride wouldn't let her retreat.

She
lifted her chin a degree higher. "It is nothing to me what you
think of me," she said. "You are nothing to me at all."

"You
are the worst of liars." He advanced.

She
was an instant too slow to react, and he caught her and pulled her
into his arms. She twisted and ducked her head. If he kissed her, she
would go to pieces.

He
didn't kiss her. He only crashed her to him and held her while he
rambled into her bonnet, "Woodfrey's a quack, is he? I walk in
my sleep and talk to myself, do I? I ought to be examined by
practitioners familiar with diseases of the mind, ought I? And you
would not put your business affairs in the hands of a man who was not
right in the head. Oh, no, indeed. But then, you will not put your
affairs in anyone's hands. Your body is another matter, I believe."

Mirabel
could have fought until he let her go. He was too chivalrous not to
let go if she struggled. But she didn't want to be let go.

He'd
been stealing her heart, bit by bit, since the day she'd met him.
Soon she'd have no part left to call her own. She knew that this time
the heartache would be worse, much worse than what she'd endured when
she'd given up William. Yet she'd bear it in order to have this
moment.

"I'm
sorry," she said, her voice muffled against his coat.

Mr.
Carsington had no difficulty hearing the apology, apparently, for he
detached her from his coat and stepped back a pace to hold her at
arm's length and look at her. "The letter to Gordmor was
monstrous underhand, Mirabel. If I didn't know you better, it would
make me think you had seduced me on purpose to make me insane."

"Oh,
no," she said. "What I told you then was the truth, I vow."

"You
said you had strong feelings for me."

"Yes,
and what good do they do anybody?" she cried. "They won't
make that troublesome canal of yours vanish, will they? And there is
where it will go." She nodded in the direction of the canal
route through the landscape. "You will spoil Mama's view—and
all her work as well as mine—and every time I come here I will
see it and it will h-hurt me."

Her
eyes filled, and her throat tightened.

"Your
mother's work," he repeated after a moment. Mirabel nodded. The
intensity of her grief took her by sur-prise, and she couldn't yet
trust herself to speak. She had not cried in front of anyone since
her mother died. Tears should be private. And anyway, they made men
cross or uneasy or confused or, more usually, all three at once.

He
let go of her and moved away. He stood for a time looking where she'd
indicated. Then he came back and took her hand.

"The
landscape design is hers, I take it?" he said.

He
had given Mirabel the moment she needed to regain her composure.

"My
mother was an artist," she said, her voice steady now. "In
other circumstances, if she'd been a man, she might have become
another Capability Brown."

SHE
didn't need to say more.

Alistair
had understood from the moment she spoke of the canal's spoiling her
mother's view. But once begun, Mirabel continued smoothly enough.
Talking seemed to calm her.

She
told the story, both hers and that of the land. In her mind,
evidently, these were one and the same thing.

She
told him how the estate had evolved over the years, and how the
greatest change occurred nearly a century ago, when the mausoleum was
built and the grounds redesigned. It was an attempt at the
naturalistic style of which Lancelot "Capability" Brown had
been the master.

The
result, however, had never been entirely satisfactory, and over time,
various elements had been let to deteriorate either because they were
undesirable or had proved impractical.

It
was Alicia Oldridge who had begun transforming the place, over the
course of the nearly twenty years she had been married. She had died
without completing her plans. Mirabel knew every detail, however. Her
mother had shared her ideas and enthusiasm from the time her daughter
was old enough to comprehend them.

"She
made this view," the daughter was saying now.

"There
used to be a summerhouse halfway down the hill, above the bridge. She
had it moved and tucked away among those trees, so that you come
across it unexpectedly when you follow the winding path along the
river."

She
pointed to another place, where she had made changes according to her
mother's plans. She described so vividly what had been there before
that Alistair could see clearly, in his mind's eye, both the extent
of the transformation and its artistry and subtlety.

When
she had taken him fully round the colonnade encircling the mausoleum
and given him the history of the corresponding views, she fell
silent.

Something
in the quiet, and in her stance, made him wonder if she was
regretting the revelations.

He
studied her profile. Then he bent his head slightly, trying
discreetly for a better look.

She
did not seem aware of him. Though her gaze was fixed upon a distant
spot, he doubted she saw that, either. Her eyes held the faraway
expression he'd observed more than once in her father's. She looked
at the distant place exactly as Mr. Oldridge had gazed at the
chandelier on the evening when Alistair first tried to enlist him on
the side of the canal.

Then,
slowly, the corner of her mouth began to turn up a very, very little.

Alistair
directed his own gaze straight ahead. "I should give anything,"
he said, "to know what is going through that busy mind of
yours."

"I
was trying to think of ways to get rid of you, but my brain won't
cooperate," she said. "Or my heart. Or whatever it is. I
try to think, but then I see you… naked."