Miss Wonderful (45 page)

"My
dear," he said, "as little as they are worth at present,
those mines are all we have."

Her
eyes widened, and color rose in her cheeks. She sat down abruptly on
the banquette.

Alistair
remained where he was, wishing someone would do him a favor and cut
out his tongue. "I do wish," he said, "my tongue would
consult with my brain now and again. Our financial affairs are not in
the least your concern."

"Not
my concern?" Her expression became exasperated. "No wonder
Lord Gordmor has been so infernally obstinate. What a fool I am! When
I wrote to Aunt Clothilde, I should have enquired about him as well
as about you. It would have been far more useful to have financial
details than the catalogue of your amours, entertaining as that was."

"Entertaining?"

"You
ought to write your memoirs," she said.

"My
memoirs?" He had grown so used to being clubbed in the head that
he didn't even blink.

"It
will bring in more money than those paltry mines."

Alistair
walked to the fire and watched the tiny tongues of flame licking the
coals while he debated how much to tell her. At length he turned back
to her. She watched him intently.

"Mirabel,
there isn't time," he said.

"You
are not yet thirty," she said. "As exciting as your life
has been, the tale is relatively short. If you applied yourself, you
could easily write your memoirs in a matter of months, for you do
have a way with words."

"There
isn't time," he said. "I've only seven weeks."

In
a few crisp words, he told her: about his meeting in November with
his father and the list of Episodes of Stupidity, and the choice his
father had given him.

She
listened, her head tipped to one side, as though he were a vastly
complicated puzzle. When he was done, she said, "I do not
understand what the problem is."

Alistair
knew he was not as articulate as he wished to be when speaking to
her. Still, he'd told the story in terms so simple, a child could not
misconstrue them. He tried again: "If Gordy and I fail to get
our canal act passed by the first of May, I must marry an heiress."

"But
you've said, several times, that you wish to marry me," she
said.

"I
have never wanted anything so much in my life," he said.

"Well,
then," she said. "Well, then, what?" "I'm an
heiress," she said.

MIRABEL
waited through a short, churning silence.

Then,
"No," he said.

He
paced from the fire to the door and back. He sat in a chair and got
up again. He started toward her, then away again. He returned to
scowl at the fire.

It
was not the reaction she'd expected. She had never dreamt the problem
was so simple. Still, it remained a problem to him, and how could she
expect otherwise?

William
Poynton had loved her, too, but the sacrifice required of him was too
great. He could not give up his dreams and ambitions any more than
she could abandon her home and her amiably oblivious father, whom
every scoundrel and sharper for miles around was busily duping and
defrauding.

"I
would not expect you to turn country squire and stay in Derbyshire
all the time," she said, her heart beating frantically.
"Naturally, you would wish to be in London in the spring, during
the Season."

"If
you think I would leave you alone in Longledge, in the height of the
tourist season, when the place swarms with idle men, I strongly
recommend you think again," he growled at the fire.

The
flickering light deepened the shadows under his eyes and hardened the
lines of his angular features.

"You
cannot imagine I can leave the estate unattended, especially in the
spring and early summer, when there is so much to do," she said,
lifting her chin even as her spirits sank. "We had better settle
this now. Certain points are not negotiable."

He
turned to her, his eyes cold and hard. "There is nothing to
settle," he said. "I shall not come to you penniless. I
have been a parasite upon my father. I refuse to be a parasite upon
my wife."

"A
parasite?" Mirabel stood and faced him, though she wanted
desperately to run away, so mortified she was. "I see. I have
thrown myself at you in every possible way, yet you doubt me. You
have said repeatedly that you wished to marry me—until now,
though it will solve all your problems at once. You find this
intolerable? Why? Your pride won't bear it? Perhaps you imagine I
shall make a lap dog of you, as Judith Gilford tried. If that is what
you imagine, then you cannot know me at all, and this professed love
of yours is like all your other passions: intense, but lacking the
strength to deal with the practicalities of ordinary life."

"I
can deal with them very well, thank you," he said curtly. "And
I mean to prove it."

He
went out, his limp more pronounced than usual. In spite of her shame
and anger and despair, Mirabel winced for him, for the unceasing pain
he lived with and his constant struggle to keep it from showing.

She
told herself it was all pride, and he had more than his share—far
too much. Still, she knew a part of what drove him to behave as he
did was courage. Angry though she was, she knew as well that the same
pride and courage made her love him all the more.

No,
not love. Of course not love. She'd known him only a few weeks.

Yet
it had been more than time enough, she now saw. Somehow, without her
quite realizing, he'd stolen the very last bit of her heart. Then out
he went, with her heart in his keeping—her heart—as
though it were nothing more than a handkerchief embroidered with his
initials.

Let
him go then, with his precious pride and his beastly canal. If he
didn't want her money, that was his problem. She would proceed as
originally planned. Nothing had changed, really, she told herself.
She knew he'd make her wretched. She'd accepted the fact that she'd
pay for a brief happiness with a long misery. It was no more than
she'd bargained for. She was quite resigned.

It
must have been resignation, then, that caused her, when she'd heard
him take his leave of Mrs. Entwhistle and go out, to pick up the
nearest breakable object—a pitcher—and throw it against
the fireplace.

CREWE
carried in a supper tray shortly after Alistair returned from his
tumultuous encounter with Mirabel.

He
picked at his food, then, weary and sick at heart, undressed and went
to bed. It was only to rest his limbs after the afternoon's hard
traveling. The hour was far too early for sleep—not that he
expected to sleep, given the recent encounter with Mirabel and its
stunning revelations.

An
heiress! Why hadn't Gordy told him?

He
must have assumed Alistair knew this, along with everything else he
should have known but didn't. Given the size and prosperity of the
estate, he'd assumed, naturally, that she must have a respectable
portion. He'd also assumed, however, that the property must be
entailed, as his father's was, upon the nearest male in the paternal
line.

But
the way she'd offered herself as the solution to all his problems
told him that her funds must be substantial. She knew he was
expensive. She'd probably estimated the cost accurately to the
nearest shilling. Unlike most other women, she'd had to learn what
everything cost and how to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of
buying this or that, how to decide whether repairing or replacing was
the sounder economic choice. She would not have suggested he marry
her to solve his problems if she hadn't been certain she could afford
him.

But
he didn't want another—any other, but most especially her—to
buy him out of his present difficulty.

If
he could not solve this problem himself, he would lose the last scrap
of self-respect he had remaining. He would not deserve her love or
his father's respect or Gordy's friendship.

All
the same, he felt like a beast for rejecting what she offered. He'd
hurt her. Again. His brain had shrunk while his masculine pride
swelled to monstrous proportions. He should have explained. But it
was not until he was alone in his bedchamber that matters sorted
themselves out. While with her, all he'd known was frustration and
shock and anger. He couldn't think, let alone speak clearly.

Despite
all this turmoil, however, he fell into a deep enough slumber to
dream the Waterloo dream again, in more detail and length than the
previous night. Every night it started a moment earlier in the battle
and shed light in places previously dark. Every night he saw the
carnage more vividly and relived his feelings more intensely. Every
night he woke himself or his valet with his ravings.

This
night Crewe stood over him, gently shaking him. "Wake up, sir.
You're dreaming again."

Alistair
struggled up to a sitting position. "What time is it?"

"Close
to midnight, sir."

"Has
Lord Gordmor come?"

No,
his lordship had not yet come, and Crewe thought it unlikely he'd
arrive this night. The weather had turned very bad since the master
had gone to bed.

Alistair
got up and looked out the window. He could see nothing. He could hear
the pounding rain and roaring wind, however, which sufficed to make
him agree with Crewe. As great a hurry as Gordmor was in, he would
not risk either his people or his horses. He'd have stopped at the
nearest inn as soon as the weather took a turn for the worse.

In
any case, there wasn't room for everyone here. Miss Oldridge and her
entourage had left only a few rooms unoccupied. These were the
smallest and darkest, overlooking a narrow alley at the back of the
building.

Still,
when he heard the knock at the door, Alistair assumed Gordy's panic
had overcome his caution. Expecting his friend, he did not hurry to
throw his dressing gown on over his nightshirt when Crewe answered
the door.

Alistair
heard a whisper.

Crewe
said softly, "Yes, he's awake, but—"

He
was unceremoniously thrust aside, and Mirabel flew in, in a flutter
of delicate ruffles and… lace?

She
came halfway across the narrow room, then stopped short. "Oh. I
didn't realize. I thought Crewe meant you hadn't yet gone to bed."
She flushed and looked away.

Alistair
looked wildly about. Crewe hurried to a chair, snatched up the
dressing gown, and swiftly stuffed his master into it. He mumbled
something about a hot drink, and vanished.

When
he had gone, Mirabel turned back to Alistair. She wore a dressing
gown of fine, oyster white lawn, trimmed with exquisite silk lace,
over a matching nightgown with a ruffled hem. She looked like a
princess in a fairy tale. His gaze moved slowly, disbelievingly, from
the dainty silk slippers up over the deliciously feminine confection
to her face.

Her
cheeks were a very deep pink, and the candlelight made twin stars in
the twilight blue of her eyes. Her red-gold hair tumbled over her
shoulders, and a fiery froth of curls danced about her face.

She
clasped her hands at her waist.

"I
withdraw my opposition," she said.

OUT
of doors, the storm continued unabated. The wind whistled and wailed,
and rain beat against the windows. Within, the fire crackled and
hissed in the grate.

Mirabel
would have felt safer outside, in the middle of the storm, than here
in this small room.

She
stood where she was, as she was, barely dressed, her hair undone. She
wore the frothy concoction Aunt Clothilde had sent, without
explanation, along with the letter describing Mr. Carsington's
indiscretions.

The
nightclothes were provocative. It was an unscrupulous tactic, but
Mirabel didn't care. She would do whatever was necessary to win him
over. She was in love, truly, deeply, hopelessly in love this time,
and this time she would not give it up.

"I
should not have let you go before," she said. "I should
have tried harder to understand. But I was too mortified and angry to
think clearly."

She'd
had hours since then to calm down and sort it out and make up her
mind what was most important: a house and a piece of land or the love
of a lifetime.