Miss Wonderful (54 page)

He
smiled.

"I
have said something amusing?" she said.

He
leaned toward her. "I was thinking of you naked," he
whispered.

"A
thousand pardons for interrupting, Car," came a familiar voice
nearby. "I do regret it, but there is only so much suspense a
fellow's nerves can stand."

MIRABEL,
who'd become oblivious to her surroundings, started. Alistair did
not. Instead, he went rigid and slowly, stiffly, drew away from her.

"Gordmor,"
he said coldly.

A
dull reddish color suffused the viscount's previously pale
countenance. "Miss Oldridge," he said, doffing his hat.

She
nodded politely,

"I
beg you will forgive the intrusion," Lord Gordmor said.

The
atmosphere, already thickening, grew thunderous.

Mirabel
looked about her. The park was all but de-serted. Moments ago, she'd
been thrilled to have a moment alone with Alistair at last. Now she
regretted the isolation.

There
was no one about to intervene or to interrupt the confrontation now
threatening.

"Your
effrontery passes all bounds," Alistair said to his friend, his
voice dangerously low. "Even if you are without any sense of
shame, you might consider the distress your presence must cause Miss
Oldridge."

"I
do consider it, Car," said his lordship, "and that is why I
have come. I could have blown out my brains, or cut my throat, but
I've never been dramatic. Also, I doubt I could do it with the proper
elegance, and would only make a hash of it—"

"Blow
out your brains?" Alistair cut in. "What are you talking
about?"

"I
am not at all sure," Gordmor said. "But I could not bear to
do this through outside parties. If we are to fight, Car, let us do
it without—"

"Fight?"
Mirabel turned to Alistair. "Tell me you have not challenged him
to a duel."

"Certainly
not," Alistair said. "He's a terrible shot, and liable to
kill an innocent bystander."

"Terrible
shot?" Gordmor said. "I am an excellent—"

"His
swordsmanship is even worse," Alistair said.

"You
think so because I let you get the better of me now and again,"
Gordmor said. "Out of pity."

Alistair's
eyes narrowed to golden slits. "Pity," he growled. "For
my infirmity, you mean."

"You
were infirm long before you let those foreigners scratch you up at
Waterloo. I have spent most of my life looking out for you."

"You
were looking out for me to rescue you," said Alistair, "from
the first day of school."

Gordmor
turned to Mirabel. "I cannot count the number of times I have
had to rescue this dolt from one scrape or another. That little
blonde girl—what was her name? When we were at Eton. The
caretaker's girl."

"Clara,"
said Mirabel, recalling her aunt's letter.

"Clara."
Gordmor pointed to his nose. "This used to be straight—until
one of Clara's brutish lovers broke it. Then there was Verena."

"You
did not rescue me from Verena," Alistair said.

"I
warned you. How many times have I warned you?" Gordmor turned
back to Mirabel. "He has never had a particle of sense about
women. He never sees what is obvious to everyone else who is not
deaf, dumb, and blind."

"Gordy,
may I remind you that you are addressing my future wife,"
Alistair said.

"I
was not referring to Miss Oldridge," Lord Gordmor said. "But
you have discomposed me so, I cannot think straight. I came,
intending, as I recollect, to apologize."

"Then
get on with it," said his friend.

"Miss
Oldridge, I behaved very stupidly, and I sincerely regret it,"
his lordship said. "I made so many errors of judgment, it would
take a week to enumerate them. I shall never forgive myself for
placing your father in danger, though I assure you it was not
intentional. I meant only to create a diversion that would keep you
out of London while our canal act was considered. I was about to
offer—before Car cast aspersions on my marksmanship—the
most abject of apologies. I was also about to admit—before he
started quibbling about Verena—that my recent Episode of
Stupidity far surpasses all of his combined."

"Thank
you," Mirabel said.

Gordmor
looked at Alistair.

"If
Miss Oldridge is satisfied, I suppose I must be," Alistair said
stonily. "I collect I must invite you to the wedding now."

"It
would be the nobly forgiving thing to do," Gordmor said.

"I
am not that noble," Alistair said. "The trouble is, if you
don't come, one of my brothers will stand up for me. You are a
fraction less tedious than the older ones and a degree less annoying
than the younger ones."

THE
following morning found Alistair in Lord Gord-mor's dressing room as
the latter was preparing to go out.

His
lordship, who was working on his neckcloth, did not look away from
the mirror when his friend entered. "I am trying to invent a new
style," he said. "Primarily because I have such an
infernally difficult time arranging the ones that have already been
invented. I am not sure I shall be able to concentrate properly,
however. I am all agog to learn what tore you from your bed at this
early hour. The noon bells have hardly ceased tolling."

"I
want to talk to you about a railway," Alistair said.

Gordy
gave up on his neckcloth, turned away from the mirror, and looked at
him. "A railway," he said.

Alistair
explained the plan he'd discussed with Mr. Oldridge. when he'd sought
his blessing for the marriage. Mr. Oldridge had approved of both
tramroad and wedding plans.

Instead
of building a canal, they'd lay down rails directly from the mines to
the lime burners and others to the north. They could install
stationary steam engines to draw the carts up steep inclines. They
wouldn't need to follow level ground. They wouldn't need locks or
aqueducts. They would need only enough water to run the steam
engines. It would cost less than building a canal, and take less
time. It would carry the coal, cheaply and speedily, from their stony
piece of Longledge Hill to the nearest customers. They wouldn't need
to go through the Oldridge property, or any of their neighbors'
lands.

"A
tramroad," Gordy said when Alistair had finished. "Why
didn't we think of that in the first place?"

"Because
Finch, your trusty overseer, suggested a canal, and we got the idea
fixed in our heads," Alistair said. "And because I failed
to exercise my imagination sufficiently."

Gordy
considered. "I take it Miss Oldridge approves of this plan?"

"It's
to be a surprise. A wedding gift. I did not want to tell her about it
until I was certain you would cooperate." He'd promised Mirabel
he'd solve the problem, and he had.

"Of
course I'll cooperate. I'm grateful that she didn't hold my idiotish
behavior against you." Gordmor tore off his neckcloth, tossed it
aside, and picked up another from the stack of neatly folded linen
placed on a table near the mirror. Then he put it down again and
turned to Alistair. "Car, I must beg your pardon," he said.

"You
already did. Yesterday, in Hyde Park."

"No,
I begged Miss Oldridge's pardon. But all the trouble began because I
did not believe in you. My sister harped ceaselessly on how much
you'd changed since Waterloo, and had me half-convinced you were non
compos mentis. She was prating about pernicious melancholia, and I
didn't know how to argue with her. You seemed to have lost all your
passion and energy since Waterloo. You hardly noticed women, though
they were throwing themselves at you, left and right."

"Perhaps
she was not far wrong," Alistair said. "It was a
melancholia of some kind, apparently, though I have never heard it
called 'pernicious.' And it did come upon me after Waterloo. I am
told that such things are not unheard of among former soldiers and
sailors. Some don't recover. But my case could not have been so very
pernicious."

Gordy
studied him for a moment. "No, today you are like the Car I
always knew, not the stranger who came home from the Continent."

"I
don't understand how I came to be that way, or why, exactly,"
Alistair said.

"I
should think that time in the surgeons' tent would be enough to
disorder any man's mind," Gordy said.

"I
was terrified," Alistair said. It was the first time he'd
admitted it, aloud, to anybody. He had not even told Mirabel yet. He
would, though.

Gordy
did not even blink. "You covered it well," he said. "I
had no idea. But then, I was too terrified myself to pay close
attention to you. I knew I must stand by you, Car, and I should have
done it, too, but I should have disgraced us both, and been sick—and
probably swooned dead away. I know it will sound mad and inexcusably
selfish, but I was vastly relieved when you declined the surgeon's
kind offer to amputate."

"You
were sick? Really?"

"It
was worse, infinitely worse, than the actual fighting. Then, at
least, one is caught up in the heat of battle. Gad, I couldn't wait
to get us both away from that ghastly place."

"That
saw," Alistair said, "caked with blood."

"The
surgeons," Gordy said, "covered with blood and God knows
what else. And the stink of the place."

"If
I could have run, I'd have run away screaming, like a girl,"
Alistair said, his heart lightening.

"I
would have been right behind you," Gordy said, "screaming
louder and at much higher pitch. I have not your manly basso, you
know."

And
in another moment they were laughing at their so very non-nonchalant
reaction to that glorious, horrendous day, and Alistair had no
trouble remembering why Gordy had always been his dearest friend.

Chapter
21