Miss Wonderful (44 page)

"You'd
better make sure he does come back, in the same condition he left,"
Jackson warned. "His lordship reminded me several times that the
gentleman was not to be harmed in any way. I recommend you be careful
with your cordials, Finch. If you give him too much and it kills him,
I'll see you swing for it."

Chapter
17

THOUGH
they were ladies, encumbered with all the baggage, servants, and
outriders deemed necessary for a long journey, Mirabel and Mrs.
Entwhistle had covered some sixty miles by the time they stopped for
the night at an inn in Market Loughborough.

Following
a fine dinner Mirabel mainly played with, they adjourned to a sitting
room to await their tea.

When
the inn servant carried in the tea tray, she informed the ladies that
a Mr. Carsington wished to speak to them.

"Heavens,
he has lost no time," said Mrs. Entwhistle.

Mirabel
said nothing, merely sat straighter, while her heart performed noisy
calisthenics within her bosom.

"Pray
show him in," Mrs. Entwhistle told the servant.

He
entered a moment later, his countenance marked with lines of
weariness and his eyes dark. He was otherwise point-perfect, as
usual: every hair neatly arranged to appear romantically windblown,
every neckcloth fold precisely in place, and not a crease or wrinkle
in sight.

Mirabel
experienced a mad urge to leap up and rumple him. She reminded
herself that it would be fatal to soften. He would wrap her about his
finger. She must pretend he was her worst enemy. Otherwise, she would
be lost, and all she'd done these last ten years and more would have
been done for nothing.

She
gave a cold nod in response to his bow and greetings and kept her
hands tightly folded in her lap.

She
invited him to join them for tea.

"I
didn't come for tea," he growled. He threw his hat down and
advanced upon her. "I added five miles to my canal, solely to
please you, though it inconveniences my partner and increases our
costs. I came to find out why you insist upon being so thoroughly
unreasonable."

"I
should ask the same question," she said. "I fail to
understand why you and Lord Gordmor persist, when I have promised to
do everything in my power to thwart you."

"If
you no longer care for me, you had better say so," he said. "In
ordinary circumstances, it would be unsporting to trifle with my
affections in this way, but—"

"I,
trifle with a man whose affairs have become the stuff of legend?"
she said. "Don't be absurd."

"In
this case, my affections are of no consequence," he went on as
though she hadn't spoken. "You are welcome to break my heart, if
this is what you wish. But you must find another way. You cannot know
the harm your actions will cause others."

"Break
your heart?" She went cold inside. Even William had not accused
her of toying with him, though everyone else did. After she broke off
with him, half her acquaintance became cold and aloof, and those who
didn't snub her held back only so that they could tell her what the
rest were whispering behind her back.

She
was a jilt, people said. She'd used William Poynton shamefully. The
letters followed her home. People who saw him in Venice claimed he
was going into a decline, dying of disappointed hopes. They said he'd
scarcely the heart to lift a paintbrush… collapsed after
completing the mural… traveled to Egypt… would never
survive the journey… vowed he'd never return to England.

All
her fault.

For
a moment memories from those first two dreary years after she'd given
up William engulfed her, and she felt the old despair, that her life
would never come right again.

She
wanted to sink to the floor and weep.

And
the wish to give up and weep made her angry—with this man, for
making her so weak, and with herself, for letting him reduce her to
this state.

She
stood up, trembling with indignation. "I have been playing with
you, have I? So this is your opinion of me."

"That
is not what I meant. It is your opinion of me—"

"I
should have realized my forward behavior would lower me in your
esteem," she said. "Yet never in my worst imaginings did I
see you casting my errors in my teeth."

"My
esteem? I am not—"

"You
believe I oppose your canal merely to torment you? You think me so
petty, so contemptible?"

"Of
course not. Why do you twist my meaning out of all recognition?"

Mirabel
looked at Mrs. Entwhistle. "Am I off the mark?" she said.
"How would you interpret his words?"

"I
haven't the least idea," Mrs. Entwhistle said, calmly serving
herself a slice of cake. "It has been a long day, and I am far
too weary to sort out such complicated matters. If you must dispute,
kindly take your quarrel to the dining parlor and let me have my tea
in peace."

MRS.
Entwhistle might have been a stick of furniture for all the notice
Alistair had taken of her. All he'd seen when he entered the sitting
room was Mirabel. He hadn't noticed whether the servant had lingered.
For all he knew, a crowd of them had gathered upon the stairs to
eavesdrop. Typical, he thought bitterly. Nine and twenty years old,
and he still had no notion of discretion.

Furious
with himself, he followed Mirabel into the adjoining room and pulled
the door closed behind him. She crossed to the farthest corner, by
the banquette under the windows overlooking the street, as though she
could not get far enough away from him.

He
hardly blamed her. He could not believe how clumsily and offensively
he'd spoken. He'd been articulate enough at the canal meeting. Why
must his brain shrink to pea size when he was with her?

"I
didn't mean…" he began. Yet even now, he could not string
intelligible words together. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to
hold her, beg her pardon, bring the warmth and trust back. She was
pale and stiff. He'd hurt her.

"Forgive
me," he said. "I had wanted so much to please you with the
new canal plan, and I failed, and so I was beside myself."

"You
did not fail." Her voice was brittle. "You have won the
first battle. We must see who will win the last."

"Can
you not tell me what I've done wrong?" he said. "I want to
make it right, but I am all at sea. Perhaps I was overhasty, assuming
we would wed could I but bridge this one gap between us. You have
told me no, but I assumed only the canal stood in the way. Was I
arrogant to suppose this? Are your feelings…" He searched
for words. "I have cast lures. I have seduced you. It was not
honorable of me to try to win you that way, but I did not care very
much how I did it. Perhaps I have merely seduced you, not won your
heart, after all. If that is the case, I beg you will do me a
kindness and tell me so, and I shall stop plaguing you."

He
would do it, too, and it would kill him.

Her
hair glowed like burnished copper in the candlelight. He remembered
it tumbled upon the pillows and his fingers tangling in it. He
remembered tearing the bonnet from her head and dragging his hands
through the unruly curls, and her laughter when she knocked the hat
from his head. He remembered the way she'd kissed the top of his
head, the tenderness, the utter trust.

He
remembered what she'd said.

You
make me happy. You make me feel like a girl again.

But
he'd made her unhappy. She stood stiffly, her gaze so dark and
solemn, her hands clasped tightly at her waist.

"That
is all I need do?" she said finally. "Tell you I do not
care for you? How easy it sounds. How impossible it is. I have told
you so, many times, but each time it becomes a bigger lie, and you
always know I am lying."

"My
love." He started across the room.

She
put up her hand. "If you truly care for me, you will keep a
distance. If you touch me, I shall become irrational. That is taking
unfair advantage."

He
wanted to take every unfair advantage.

He
made himself retreat.

"You
are not to speak sweetly to me, either," she said. "You are
too persuasive. This morning, you had me almost convinced that
Providence could bestow no greater blessing upon Longledge than your
canal."

"Only
'almost,'" he said. "That is the trouble. That's why I
came." He gave a short laugh. "No, that isn't why I came.
It's the reason I gave Gordmor for hurrying on ahead: to find out
where my new plan failed you. I still don't know. What would you have
us do?"

"Go
away," she said. "Give it up. I cannot believe you are both
so foolish or obstinate as to persist. I am not a stranger to
business or politics. I know how these matters are conducted. You may
win in the end, but it will cost you more than you bargained for,
perhaps more than you can afford. Certainly, it will be more than
what those mines are worth."