Miss Wonderful (6 page)

WHILE
Alistair made no pretense to intellectual brilliance, he was usually
capable of putting two and two together, and fairly quickly.

Circumstances
this day, however, conspired against him. By Miss Oldridge's abysmal
standards he might seem dressed elegantly enough for a country
dinner. He knew better.

Thanks
to conscientious servants and a good fire, his clothes were brushed
and dry. But the clothes were for afternoon wear and could not be
transformed into acceptable dinner attire by even the most diligent
servants.

Furthermore,
the staff could not instantly launder and starch his linen. His
neckcloth was limp, and creases had formed in the wrong places, which
made him wild.

Meanwhile
his leg, which hated damp and ought to have lived in Morocco, was
punishing him for the ramble in the icy mist by tying itself into
throbbing knots.

These
annoyances contributed to his failure to realize what any idiot would
have divined hours ago.

Miss
Oldridge had spoken of stamens and pistils and asked if he was
botanical. Alistair had seen the conservatory, the notebooks, the
acres of hothouses.

But
when he wasn't in a fit over his clothes or being tortured by his
leg, he was completely distracted by her. As a result, it wasn't
until they met in the drawing room before dinner, and Mr. Oldridge
acquainted him with Hedwig's observations on the reproductive organs
of mosses, that the truth finally dawned: The man was in the grip of
a monomania.

Alistair
was familiar with the malady. He had an evangelical sister-in-law and
a cousin obsessed with deciphering the Rosetta stone. Since such
people rarely, of their own accord, abandoned their chosen place of
mental residence, one must take them firmly by the elbow,
figuratively speaking, and lead them elsewhere.

Accordingly,
at the start of the second course, when his host ceased lecturing to
concentrate on carving the goose, Alistair charged into the gap.

"I
envy your having so many facts at your command," he said. "I
wish you had been able to advise us before we first presented our
canal proposal. I do hope you will advise us now."

Mr.
Oldridge continued dismantling the fowl, but his mouth pursed and his
brows knit.

"We
will gladly alter the route, if that is the primary concern,"
Alistair persisted.

"Can
you alter it to another county?" Miss Oldridge asked.
"Somersetshire, for instance, where they have already despoiled
the countryside with slag heaps?"

Alistair
looked across the table at her, which he'd been trying not to do
since first clapping eyes on her dinner attire.

Her
dress was a cool lavender, when she ought to wear only warm, rich
colors. It had a high neck and a lace ruffle to conceal the narrow
bit of shoulder and neck the bodice left uncovered. Her glorious hair
was stuffed any which way into a clumsy roll at the back of her head.
For jewelry she wore a plain silver locket and chain.

Alistair
wondered how she could look in her mirror without seeing the obvious:
Every article with which she'd chosen to adorn her person was
completely, absolutely, and irredeemably wrong. She must lack a
faculty every other woman in the world possessed. He wondered if hers
was a disorder akin to tone deafness, and his irritation with her was
what a music lover would feel on hearing an instrument out of tune or
a singer off-key.

He
wanted to order her back to her room to dress properly, but he
couldn't, which was maddening.

This
perhaps explained why he answered her in the tone and manner he
usually reserved for irritating younger brothers.

He
said, "Miss Oldridge, I hope you will permit me to correct a
slight misapprehension. Canals do not produce slag heaps. Collieries
produce slag heaps. At present, only Lord Gordmor is mining coal in
your vicinity, and his collieries are nearly fifteen miles from here.
The only landscape he is despoiling is his own, because the property
is good for nothing else."

"I
should think he might graze sheep with less trouble and noise, and do
as well," she said.

"You
are certainly entitled to entertain any fanciful notions you like,"
Alistair said. "I should not wish to stifle an active
imagination."

Her
eyes sparked, but Alistair smoothly addressed his host before she
could retort. "We freely admit our motives to be selfish and
practical," he said. "The primary aim is a more efficient
and cheaper means of transporting coal."

Oldridge,
engaged in distributing choice bits of fowl to daughter and guest,
merely nodded.

"Lord
Gordmor will then be able to bring the coal to more customers,"
Alistair went on, "and sell it at a lower price. However, he and
his customers aren't the only ones who'll profit. The canal will
provide you and your neighbors easier access to more goods. Fragile
items, traveling smoothly on water rather than bumping along rutted
roads, will reach their destinations in one piece. You will have an
economical means of conveying manure and agricultural produce to and
from the various markets. In short, all in the Longledge environs,
from landowner to laborer, will reap its benefits."

"Lord
Hargate has not spent much time at his country place of late, even
when Parliament is not sitting," Mr. Oldridge said. "Politics
can be acutely demanding of the physical and mental faculties and
wearing to the spirit. I hope he is well."

"My
father is quite well," Alistair said. "I should make clear,
however, that he is in no way involved in Lord Gordmor's project."

"I
well remember the canal mania of the last century," Oldridge
said. "They built the Cromford Canal then, and commenced the
Peak Forest. Mr. Carsington, may I press you to try a morsel of
curry?"

Alistair
was prepared to extol the benefits of Gordmor's canal at length.
Still, he was at dinner where, normally, one did not discuss
business. He'd introduced the topic only because Miss Oldridge had
suggested this would be his best opportunity to make his case.

It
was not so hard to set aside business temporarily, however. Alistair
was glad of the reminder to savor the food, which was far superior,
in both variety and quality of preparation, to what one might
reasonably expect so far from civilization.

The
cook, clearly, was a treasure. Even the butler and footmen would have
passed muster in any great London household, including Hargate House.

What
a pity that a woman who otherwise staffed her house so well could not
find a lady's maid capable of preventing fashion atrocities.

"How
did you come to be interested in canals?" Mr. Oldridge asked
him. "Admittedly the engineering feats are fascinating. Yet you
do not strike me as a Cambridge man."

"Oxford,"
Alistair said.

Of
the two ancient universities, Cambridge was deemed to offer somewhat
greater scope to those of a mathematical or scientific bent.

"Smith
was self-taught, I believe," his host said rumi-natively. "What
do you know of fossils?"

"Apart
from the Oxford dons?" Alistair said.

He
heard a strangled giggle and looked across the table, but not quickly
enough.

Miss
Oldridge wore a sober expression in keeping with her sober attire.

Her
gaze shifted from her father to Alistair.

"Papa
refers to Mr. William Smith's Strata Identified by Organized
Fossils," she said. "Are you familiar with the work?"

"It
sounds far too deep for me," Alistair said, and watched her bite
back a smile. She was not immune to feeble puns, then. "I'm no
scholar."

"But
it concerns mineral deposits," she said. "I should have
thought…" Her brow wrinkled, much more prettily than her
father's did. "It must have been Mr. Smith's geological map you
used, then." "For the canal route?" Alistair said. "To
determine whether it was worthwhile to drill for coal in an area that
is all but inaccessible." She tipped her head to one side and
studied Alistair as though he were a fossil in dire need of
organizing. "England has coal nearly everywhere, but in some
places it is difficult and prohibitively expensive either to get to
or to transport," she said. "You must have had good reason
to believe the coal measures on Lord Gordmor's property were worth so
much effort. Or did you simply begin drilling, without considering
the practicalities?"

"The
Peak is known to be rich in mineral wealth," Alistair said.
"Lord Gordmor was bound to find something worth the
trouble—lead, limestone, marble, coal."

"Lord
Gordmor? But did you not say you were a part-ner—'acquainted
with every detail,' were your words, I think."

"We've
been partners since November," he said. "He started the
mining operation earlier, not long after returning from the
Continent."

The
fact was, Gordmor had returned from war to find his finances in
alarming disarray. He could not even afford the upkeep of his
Northumberland estate. His bailiff had advised him to explore the
Derbyshire property, and desperate, Gordy had drilled for coal.

Alistair,
however, had no intention of disclosing his friend's personal affairs
to an inquisitive young lady—or anyone else for that matter.

"I
see." Miss Oldridge lowered her gaze to her plate. "Then
you were both with the Duke of Wellington. But you're the one who's
famous. Even here, in the wilds of Derbyshire, everyone has heard of
you."

Alistair's
face grew hot. He didn't know whether she referred to Waterloo or the
Episodes of Stupidity. Both matters were for the most part public
knowledge, unfortunately. He ought to be indifferent by now to the
spectacle of his past rearing its head, it happened so often. But he
wasn't indifferent, and he did wish the tales had not traveled quite
so far.

"You
bear a strong resemblance to Lord Hargate," Mr. Oldridge said.
"He has a great many sons, has he not?"

Relieved
at the turn of subject, Alistair admitted to having four brothers.

"Some
will say that is not a great many," Mr. Oldridge said. "Our
unfortunate King has sired fifteen children."

King
George III had been for some years completely insane, and thus unfit
to handle affairs of state. As a consequence, his eldest son—who,
while not insane, would not win any prizes for rational
behavior—currently reigned as Prince Regent.

"One
might wish our unfortunate monarch had sired fewer children, of
better quality," Miss Oldridge said. "Lord and Lady Hargate
produced only five boys—yet two are paragons, and one is a
famous Waterloo hero. I daresay your younger brothers will prove
themselves equally remarkable as they mature."

"You
seem to know a great deal about my family, Miss Oldridge,"
Alistair said.

"As
does everyone in Derbyshire," she said. "Yours is one of
the county's oldest families. Your father is reputed to be the real
power in the House of Lords. Your older brothers have involved
themselves in several admirable causes. All the London papers
provided extensive accounts of your battlefield exploits, and the
local ones devoted oceans of ink to the subject. Even had I somehow
contrived to miss your name in print, I could not remain in
ignorance. For a time, you were mentioned in every letter I received
from friends and family members in London."

Alistair
winced inwardly. He'd been involved in barely two days' fighting.
He'd been so raw it was a wonder he hadn't shot his own nose off. Why
the papers chose to lionize him was a mystery, and an infuriating one
at that.

His
leg commenced a set of spasms. "That is old news," he said
in the chilling drawl that always ended discussion of the subject.

"Not
hereabouts," Miss Oldridge said. "I recommend you prepare
to endure the admiration of the population."

His
frigid tone affected her not a whit. Her cheerful one put him on the
alert.

He
knew—better than many men, in fact—that a woman's speech
could be fraught with hidden meanings bearing no discernible
resemblance to the spoken words. He did not always know what a woman
meant, but he was usually aware that she meant more than she said,
and that the "more" was, more often than not, trouble.

He
sensed trouble at present, was aware it might at any moment spring
out at him from the darkness of her mind, but couldn't perceive what
it was.