Miss Wonderful (12 page)

The
captain was regarding Miss Oldridge with amusement. "I take it
the fellows were not using bathing machines."

Miss
Curry turned scarlet. Miss Earnshaw, beside her, tittered. But they
were ridiculously young, barely out of the schoolroom.

"It
is most inconsiderate behavior," said Lady Tolbert. "Only
think of the shock to a maiden's sensibilities, should she come upon
the men unexpectedly. She might be taken seriously ill as a
consequence. I will not dispute that bathing is a healthful
exercise—but in the proper time and place. Bathing in a canal."
She shook her head. "What next? Roman orgies, I suppose."

"I
don't believe I've ever heard of orgiastic swimming in canals,"
Alistair said.

"A
gentleman wrote an angry letter to the Times about the swimmers not
long ago," said Miss Oldridge. "He said nothing about
orgies. But he did mention moral decay."

"The
fellows must have been drunk," said the captain.

"Or
perhaps it was a very hot day," said Miss Oldridge. "The
writer blamed it on the bargemen. He said they were a corrupting
influence. I understand they swear shockingly."

"But
they would not use bad language on Mr. Carsing-ton's canal,"
said Miss Earnshaw, throwing a worshipful look Alistair's way. "I
am sure he would not permit it."

Before
Alistair could invent a response to this fantastically vacuous
statement, Miss Oldridge said, "No doubt Mr. Carsington will add
that condition to any others the landowners require."

"Since
we hope to have many, if not all, of the landowners as canal
committee members and shareholders, they will no doubt act vigilantly
against the corruption of public morals, Miss Oldridge," he
said.

"You
will leave the responsibility to them?" she said. She directed a
dazzling smile his way, as if he had said something desperately
romantic rather than sarcastic. "Well, I know my mind is
relieved."

Leaving
him vexed and dizzy, she turned the smile upon her hostess. "Do
you not feel the same, Lady Tolbert?"

"Yes,
I suppose," Lady Tolbert said fretfully. "But I had not
thought of so very many strangers coming, and Sir Roger did not
mention it."

"I
should think we'd be used to strangers, if anyone was," said
Captain Hughes.

"But
this is not at all like the tourists," said Lady Tol-bert. "They
at least are respectable persons."

"I
am sure the bargemen are respectable in their way," said Miss
Oldridge. "And certainly they will seem altogether elegant,
after the navigators."

Lady
Tolbert put a hand to her throat. "Merciful heaven! Navigators?"

"Miss
Oldridge refers to experienced canal diggers," Alistair said.
"Skilled laborers." Not riffraff and vagabonds, he wanted
to add, but didn't. He'd rather not plant any more unpleasant images
in Lady Tolbert's head. Miss Oldridge was doing that all too
effectively.

"You
will not hire local men?" Captain Hughes asked.

"There
will be plenty of work for local brickmakers, quarriers, and
carpenters," Alistair said. "Still, the contractors must
bring in skilled canal diggers—'cutters' they're called."

"No
doubt Lord Gordmor will hire only the most respectable contractors,"
said Miss Oldridge. "In which case, their gangs of workers will
not all be ruffians. Furthermore, it is possible that the stories of
drunken disorder and riots are exaggerated."

"Ruffians?"
said Lady Tolbert, turning pale. "Riots?"

"Disorder
and riots sometimes occur in places where men are poorly treated and
ill-paid," Alistair said quickly. "I can assure you that
Lord Gordmor and I will insist upon fair treatment and wages."

"I
am confident you will not allow any cutthroats to work for you,
either," Miss Oldridge said. "At least not intentionally.
Naturally you will demand references for each and every person
involved in the canal building, even if the work requires many
hundreds."

This
was impossible, and she knew it. She might as well expect Captain
Hughes to demand references for the men the press gangs forced into
naval service. Alistair wanted to point this out, but he doubted Lady
Tolbert would find the thought comforting.

Thanks
to Miss Oldridge, the lady no doubt envisioned gangs of ruffians
roaming at large—raping and pillaging as they went—through
the pastoral hamlets and villages and private estates of the Peak.

Unfortunately,
the image was not so very farfetched. Only the previous year, right
here in Derbyshire, unemployed textile workers had banded together to
capture Nottingham Castle. Though troops prevented the threatened
mass revolt from materializing, fears of unrest lingered.

"I
do hope you will bear in mind, ladies, how many hundreds of miles of
canal have been built in this country without incident,"
Alistair said. "Among them, Derbyshire's Peak Forest and
Cromford canals."

"That
is an excellent point, Mr. Carsington," said Miss Oldridge. "We
should consider another important one: the men will be less inclined
to break out in rampages, because the work is less arduous than it
was in the old days."

"Indeed,
it is," Alistair said. "Much of the backbreaking work is
done these days with machinery."

"Quite
so," Miss Oldridge said. "Now I think of it, the din of the
steam engines and other machines must drown out any swearing, and the
smoke will obliterate any disagreeable sights." She beamed at
the company.

"Din?"
said Lady Tolbert. "Smoke? Sir Roger said nothing about noisy,
nasty machines."

Alistair
did his best to soothe her while he imagined himself leaping across
the table, scooping Miss Oldridge out of her chair, and tossing her
out of the nearest window.

Certain
inconveniences attended any great building project, he reminded his
hostess. While noise and smoke were drawbacks of modern methods, they
did greatly shorten the process. Instead of having canal diggers
taking up residence for long periods of time—many months,
perhaps years—they would come and go in a matter of weeks.

Lady
Tolbert listened politely, gave him a sickly smile, and signaled the
other ladies to withdraw from the table. They adjourned to the
drawing room, leaving the men to their port.

And
while the men drank, Lady Tolbert would spread the contagion to the
other wives.

Miss
Oldridge had done her work cleverly, the devious creature. Alistair
hadn't foreseen the attack, and he'd been unforgivably slow to catch
on.

Well,
small wonder.

How
was he to concentrate on anything when she sat for hours directly in
his line of vision, dressed like a fright? How was he to cope with
such a spectacle? He couldn't, and so he'd focused on dressing her
properly in his mind—or undressing her was more like it, and it
would be a public service, really, not to mention economical. That
appalling gown might have covered two women.

While
he'd been busy mentally disrobing her, the foe had crept up behind
him and all but routed him.

He
had sat listening to Miss Oldridge poison her hostess's mind while
scarcely able to muster his thoughts into order, let alone devise an
antidote.

But
the women were gone, Alistair consoled himself as the port went round
the dining table. He had only to deal with men now. They at least
spoke a language one could easily understand. And they played by
simpler, if sometimes more brutal rules. All he had to do was play
skillfully.

THE
men remained in the dining room for nearly an hour, which Mirabel
knew was not a good sign. Sir Roger rarely lingered over his port,
and if her father was the only one of his guests to drift into the
drawing room, it must be because Mr. Carsington had the rest
enthralled.

By
the time the men finally rejoined the ladies, Papa was long gone. He
had wandered out of the drawing room and on to the Tolberts'
conservatory.

Until
now, the girls had been scattered about the room in duos and trios,
some chatting, some looking at picture books. When Mr. Carsington
entered, the chats ended, the books closed, and in a flotilla of pale
muslin the maidens sailed, as if carried on a powerful current,
toward him.

Mirabel
supposed the nautical image arose because she spotted Captain Hughes
making his way through the mass of maidens.

He
came across the room to the window where Mirabel stood. It was the
coldest part of the room, far from the fire. She had retreated there
partly because she'd felt agitated and overwarm after dinner and
partly because the drafty spot was not inviting to the young ladies.
Their innocent joy in the gathering made her feel weary and cross, a
sour old spinster.

As
she'd hoped, they avoided her chilly corner. Goose-flesh was not
attractive, and their current mission was to be as attractive as
possible. Eligible gentlemen did not happen into their lives very
often, and only Miss Earnshaw had any hopes of a London season in
which she'd encounter more. Even that wasn't certain, because Mr.
Earnshaw was balking at the expense.

"I'd
no idea we had so handsome a fleet hereabouts," the captain
said, nodding in the direction from which he'd come. "Or did
Lady Tolbert muster them up from forces abroad?"

"I
take it you refer to the young ladies," Mirabel said. "She's
summoned them from the far corners of the Peak. Now her youngest
daughter is wed, she needs someone else's future to arrange."

She
did not add her private opinion that the girls, while pretty, were
too young and unsophisticated for a man who'd been feted and petted
by London's most fashionable beauties. Too, the girls' gowns must
seem sadly outdated and countrified, far beneath his exacting
standards.

On
the other hand, they were young and fresh, and that was what males
liked, all males, of every species.

"Someone
should tell her to chart them a different course," Captain
Hughes said. "You're the only vessel in his sights."

Mirabel
experienced a spurt of pleasure, which she promptly suppressed. After
all, she'd deliberately set out to distract the guest of honor, she
reminded herself.

The
grey gown was outmoded and graceless to begin with, but in case that
wasn't enough, she'd persuaded Lucy to make a few adjustments,
transforming it from merely dull and unflattering to hideous. The
boring coronet needed only to be stepped on. But the crowning
achievement was the coiffure Lucy had so unwillingly executed,
declaring afterward that she'd never seen anything so frightful and
would never outlive the disgrace.

Mirabel
hadn't been prepared, though, for the great number of beautiful young
women so prettily garbed. They would make it easy to disregard her.

But
Captain Hughes said Mr. Carsington could not ignore her, and the
captain was an acutely observant man.

Apparently,
she looked horrid enough to distract Mr. Carsington even from the
fleet of fresh young beauties.

"I
should like to know what game you're playing at," Captain Hughes
said, his dark eyes twinkling as he cast a swift glance over her. "Is
this rig a part of it? Am I to be treated to an explanation? Or must
I continue to play the unwitting accomplice? By gad, when I told my
anecdote about the Chatsworth Cascade, I never dreamt you'd use it to
launch an attack. You raked the poor fellow from stem to stern. I
think his foredeck is still smoking."

"Someone
must speak up," Mirabel said. "My neighbors are in danger
of forgetting why he is here and what he represents."

The
captain looked again toward Mr. Carsington, now surrounded by
muslin-garbed vessels. "He might be in the same danger."
When he turned back to Mirabel, his expression was more serious.
"After the ladies left, he did not once mention the canal,"
he said.

"Really?"
Mirabel looked down at her ugly gown. She had not dared hope her
costume would continue to disturb him even while she was out of
sight. Mrs. Entwhistle was truly a brilliant strategist.

"I
was much amazed," the captain said. "I thought he'd make
haste to repair the damage you'd done. Even Lady Tolbert looked at
him, for a moment, as though he was the Old Harry himself, and the
fellows in hearing range seemed troubled as well. But when he had all
the men to himself, Mr. Carsington didn't so much as hint at the
subject. Nor did he give anyone else a chance to raise it. Somehow,
he had us all talking about ourselves instead."