Miss Wonderful (55 page)

THE
day of the wedding dawned bright, and the groom was wide awake,
dressed, and pacing his bedchamber at Hargate House well before the
appointed hour.

Crewe
had had a Premonition.

"Why
did you not have one the day Mr. Oldridge went missing?"
Alistair said. "Why must you have one now?"

"I
apologize, sir," his valet said. "Perhaps it does not
signify. Perhaps it is merely prenuptial nerves."

"You
are not getting married, Crewe. I am."

"Indeed,
sir, but we are changing our circumstances. Ours is no longer a
bachelor household." The manservant gave a small, anxious cough.
"My mind is most uneasy about the linen. Mr. Oldridge and you
have different views regarding the starch. He prefers his linen a
degree less stiff. And the chief laundress at Oldridge Hall is a
singularly forbidding female."

Alistair
ceased pacing to stare at his valet. "You are afraid of the
laundress?"

Crewe
coughed an affirmative.

"We
shan't be at Oldridge Hall all the time," Alistair said. "We
shall have our own townhouse here, as soon as we find a suitable
place. Then I give you leave to choose our London laundress and
demand all the starch you wish. I am sure it will not matter to Miss
Oldridge one way or another. Perhaps, in Derbyshire, on the other
hand, we might be a degree less—er—starched, than in
London."

"Are
you sure, sir? It will be—" A very small, deprecating
cough intervened. "—an adjustment."

"I
am told that married life requires a great number of adjustments,
Crewe. And bear in mind that Miss Oldridge must also make certain
changes to accommodate a husband. She has been accustomed, these ten
years and more, to arrange all matters as she sees fit. Now she will
have both a parent and a spouse putting their oars in."

Not,
Alistair thought, that her father had not already put an oar in. He
had a growing suspicion that some sort of communication had passed
between Oldridge Hall and Hargate House prior to his arrival in
Derbyshire last month. Lord Hargate had not seemed the least
surprised at the news of the impending marriage. He had looked, in
fact, smug—and most especially so when the marriage settlements
were being signed.

Alistair
was marrying an heiress, just as his father had recommended in
November.

"But
it was impossible for them to conspire," he said, half to
himself as he studied his reflection in the mirror for the
seventeenth time. "Mirabel opened all her father's letters. It
was the merest accident that she did not see mine."

Crewe
coughed.

"Yes,
what is it?" Alistair said.

"I
only wished to observe, sir, that certain letters have been known to
make their way directly into Mr. Oldridge's hands. They would be
enclosed in one addressed to the head gardener. Lady Sherfield used
this method from time to time."

Lady
Sherfield, his mother's bosom bow.

Alistair
had left his letter to Oldridge in the tray with the others, for his
father to frank.

His
father must have enclosed it in one addressed to the gardener.

That
was how Mr. Oldridge had received it.

He'd
sent a positive, encouraging answer to Alistair, though the botanist
had not wanted a canal through his property any more than his
daughter did.

Why?

"Matchmaking,"
Alistair told his reflection.

"Sir?"

"I
was lured there," Alistair said. "On purpose. They set a
trap, the two of them. My father saw the opportunity, and he took
advantage. It was Machiavellian." He turned away from the mirror
and smiled. "And exceedingly good of him. I might not have
discovered her otherwise."

Someone
tapped on the door.

Crewe
went across and opened it.

He
came back to Alistair bearing a small tray on which rested a note
bearing Lord Sherfield's seal.

Heart
pounding, Alistair opened and read it.

Then
he ran from the room.

THE
wedding was to take place at Hargate House at eleven o'clock.

It
was a quarter past ten, and the bride, at Sherfield House, had chased
out her maid and locked herself in her room at a quarter to, saying
the wedding must be called off.

"I
have tried to speak to her," Mr. Oldridge told Alistair when he
arrived. "My sister assured her—through the door—that
it is only a last-minute attack of nerves, which happens to
everybody. But neither Clothilde nor I, nor even Mrs. Entwhistle
could obtain any sort of response. Lord Sherfield fears she is ill
and wishes to break the door down. I confess I am anxious on that
head, though Mirabel never takes ill. But she is never so
unreasonable, either."

Oldridge
frowned. "At least, I'd always supposed she was not given to
irrational or temperamental behavior. But I had not paid close
attention, as you know."

"She
is not unreasonable or temperamental," Alistair said. "Very
likely she has qualms. Perfectly reasonable, in the circumstances."

He
recalled what he'd told Crewe, about two men putting their oar in,
when she was accustomed to being in command. Her life was about to
change dramatically. She needed more time to get used to the idea.
Alistair should not have rushed her. But he was worried that she was
pregnant. And yes, he was in a fever to be wed and be rid of all the
dratted chaperons. Selfish brute. He should have been reassuring her
yesterday, instead of reassuring himself with Gordy.

All
this was passing through his mind as Mr. Oldridge led him to the
staircase. Lord Sherfield was pacing at the foot of it. Lady
Sherfield was talking to Mrs. Entwhistle. She broke off as Alistair
approached.

"I
do not understand," Lady Sherfield said. "She was so
cheerful when I went up earlier. And Mirabel is not given to
moodiness."

"I
think she has retreated to the dressing room," said Mrs.
Entwhistle. "You will have to shout at the top of your voice to
make her hear."

Alistair
paused on the first step. "I am not going to shout at my bride
on our wedding day," he said.

He
considered. Then the idea came.

THE
dressing room door shut out the voices. It could not shut out
everything, however.

Mirabel
sat well away from the dressing table on a footstool at the far end
of the room, out of the window's light. She did not need the voices
to make her aware she was behaving badly. Abominably. But she could
not go through with it. And she could not explain. They would not
understand. They would tell her she was being silly, that it was
merely a case of last-minute anxiety, which everyone experienced.
They would assure her that nothing was wrong and gently remind her
that she would embarrass Alistair's family and inconvenience the
guests. Alistair would be humiliated. She shut her eyes. She could
not do that to him. She must go through with it.

She
rose, but her courage instantly failed, and she sank onto the
footstool again, her head in her hands.

A
loud clattering, as of hailstones against the window, shot her
upright again.

Heart
pumping, she went to the window and looked out. The sky was still
blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds.

Then
she looked down.

And
blinked.

And
opened the window.

From
the bottom rung of a ladder, Alistair gazed up at her.

"What
are you doing?" she said.

He
put his index finger to his lip and swiftly ascended. "I've come
to rescue you," he said. "I shall carry you away on my
snowy white charger, to wherever you wish. Or rather, behind a pair
of greys, as I was obliged to borrow Rupert's curricle again. I
thought the carriage would be more comfortable for a longish flight."
While he spoke, he was climbing onto the ledge, then over it, into
the room. "You've had second thoughts about marrying me,"
he said. "I don't blame you. I was insufferably arrogant. I told
you to marry me. I never asked you properly."

"That
is not the problem," she said, backing away.

"I
am not the hero you imagine me to be," he said. "I should
have told you the real reason I refused to be amputated. The truth
is, I was far more frightened of the surgeons than of the enemy."

"It
was sensible to be alarmed," she said. "You would not have
survived an amputation. That is not the problem."

"I
haven't told you the worst," he said. "I was frightened
witless when I went down into that hole after your father."

"But
you did it anyway," she said. "That is true courage: to act
in spite of fear. And it was a rational fear. I had never been so
frightened in all my life as I was then. That is not the problem."

"I've
kept things from you." He walked to the looking glass, made a
small adjustment to his neckcloth, then came back to her. "Your
father and I have been plotting behind your back. I have a new
scheme. Instead of a canal, Gordy and I will build a railway from the
mines to our customers. Your father approves the idea, and Gordy is
delighted. I should have told you first, but I wanted it to be a
wedding gift. I imagined you would swoon with admiration of my
brilliance."

A
railway. She had searched and searched for a solution, but always
she'd assumed they must have a canal. A railway had not even occurred
to her.

She
pressed her fist to her bosom. "It is brilliant, and I should
swoon if I knew how. Perhaps I learnt the art but it was long ago,
and I've forgotten. It is merely one of a number of feminine skills I
lack." Her eyes itched. "You told me you would find a
solution, and you did. It is a wonderful surprise. It is a perfect
gift. It is certainly not a problem."

He
came to her then and gently grasped her shoulders. He gazed at her in
that way of his, making her look up, straight into his golden eyes,
making it impossible to pretend anything.

"It
does not matter that I was not the first," he said gently. "I
have had a twinge of jealousy now and again, I admit. It is absurd,
of course. It is not as though I have lived like a monk. But my
nature is somewhat possessive, and I did not wish to share you with
anyone, even if the sharing happened in the distant past, practically
before I was born. But that is all—pride and possessiveness. It
does not alter my feelings for you a whit."

"Not
the first?" she said, bewildered. "Not the first what? To
be jilted by me? But I am not jilting you. That is, not—"

"I
know I am not your first lover," he said. "It does not
matter. You were not obliged to tell me. It is ancient history, no
more relevant than my own episodes. Merely because men are
customarily allowed more latitude in these matters does not make it
right or just."

Mirabel
drew back, stunned. Had someone in London who knew her in the past
whispered slander in his ear? William Poynton had been very popular.
A great many ladies had been jealous of Mirabel. Some may have blamed
her for his leaving England and never returning. Could they still be
holding a grudge, after all this time?

"I
don't know who told you this," she began.

"No
one told me," he said. "I saw the evidence. Or rather, the
lack of evidence. After we made love, at the inn. The sheets. Not a
spot."

"Not
a spot," she repeated. Then, finally, she realized what he was
saying, and in spite of her misery, she smiled. "My love, I am
one and thirty," she said. "Did it not occur to you that my
hymen might have shriveled up«and died—of despair, most
likely."

"Of
course it didn't occur to me," he said. "To me you are a
girl." He let her go and stepped back, his expression perplexed.
"My dear, I am at a complete loss now as to what troubles you.
But I don't need to know. All that matters is that you are in
difficulties of some kind and want to call off the wedding. I shall
not attempt to force—"

"I
can't do it!" she cried. "I cannot." Her shoulders
sagged. "Look at me."

"You
look beautiful," he said. The gown was a warm, oyster-shell
white, trimmed with fine lace, rather like the fetching nightgown
she'd worn that night at the inn.