“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 ruminatively. “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 partner—‘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.
What he could perceive was her sad excuse for a coiffure coming apart. A cluster of coppery curls had fallen out of the roll and dangled at her neck. Atop her head, curls sprang out singly and in clumps. He watched her push one long tendril out of her face and behind her ear.
It was a gesture a woman might make after she’d undressed and taken down her hair…or upon rising from her pillows in the morning…or after lovemaking.
She wasn’t supposed to do it at the dinner table. She was supposed to arrive there properly coifed and dressed and in perfect order. She wasn’t supposed to be tumbling all to pieces, as though she’d been recently ravished.
Alistair told himself to ignore it and brace for trouble. He tried to attend to his meal, but his appetite was gone. He was too aware of her—the fetching gesture, the disorderly curls—and a tension in the air. Even when he looked or turned his mind elsewhere, he couldn’t shed his consciousness of her.
Clearly, his host discerned nothing amiss but went on steadily eating, a contented if distant look on his face. It was fortunate he did so much walking and climbing, for the botanist ate enough for any two large men.
Mr. Oldridge talked about experiments with tulips durin
g the remainder of the meal. Finally, Miss Oldridge departed, leaving the men to their port and allowing Alistair to put what was out of sight out of mind.
He fixed his mind on business and commenced making his case for the canal.
While he talked, his host contemplated the chandelier. Still, he must have heard something, because at the end of Alistair’s presentation, the botanist said, “Yes, well, I do see your point, but it’s complicated, you see.”
“Canals are rarely simple matters,” Alistair said. “When one is obliged to use other people’s land, one must be prepared to accommodate and compensate them, and each party’s requirements are bound to be different.”
“Yes, yes, but it is very like the tulip experiment,” said his host. “Without you apply the Farina Fecundens, they will not bear seed. It is explained in Bradley’s account, but Miller made similar experiments. You will not find the account in every edition of the Gardener’s Dictionary. I will lend you one of my copies, and you may read it for yourself.”
Following this incomprehensible response, Mr. Oldridge proposed they rejoin Mirabel, who would be awaiting them in the library.
Alistair begged to be excused. It was growing late and he must return to his hotel.
“But you must stay the night,” Mr. Oldridge said. “You cannot travel all that way in the dark. The road, I am sorry to say, can be difficult, even in broad day.”
Yes, and that is why you need a canal! Alistair wanted to shout.
Since he wanted to, a retreat, clearly, was in order.
At any rate, he needed to think rationally, which meant he must get away. Rational thinking was next to impossible in Miss Oldridge’s vicinity.
Matters here were not at all as he and Gordy had supposed. What, precisely, the trouble was, Alistair couldn’t say. At present he knew only that both Mr. and Miss Oldridge had an uncanny ability to rattle him, which, as Gordy had remarked, was exceedingly difficult.
Alistair was not high-strung. He might become emotional about women, but his nerves were steady, perhaps to a fault. A jumpier man, he was sure, could not possibly have landed in so many scrapes, because such a man would have hesitated and thought, at least once if not twice.
At present, Alistair’s nerves showed alarming signs of fraying.
Even if they’d been their usual rocklike selves, he couldn’t stay. He’d worn the same clothes all day—through dinner, no less—which made him a little ill, and no doubt contributed to his prickly mood. To don these same articles of clothing on the morrow was out of the question.
Alistair had borne such privations on the battlefield because he had no choice. Oldridge Hall was not a battlefield—not yet, at any rate.
A short while later, therefore, having also declined his host’s offer of a carriage, Alistair set out on horseback, under steadily falling sleet, for Matlock Bath.
MR. Carsington was already on his way before Mirabel learned of his departure.
Her father relayed the news in a state of bewilderment. “He was in a great hurry to go, and it was quite impossible to dissuade him.”
Mirabel hurried to the window and looked out. She could see only as far as the light of the library reached, but that was enough to show her the state of things.
“It’s sleeting,” she said. “I cannot believe you let Lord Hargate’s son depart, on horseback, to travel in an ice storm all the way to Matlock.”
“Perhaps you are right,” he said. “Perhaps I should have summoned some of the largest footmen to subdue him and tie him to…something.” He looked about as though in search of a suitable something. “But I cannot think how otherwise he was to be prevented.”
“Why did you not send for me?”
Her parent frowned. “I cannot say why, but it did not occur to me. I am sorry it did not. The trouble was, he put me in mind of a cactus, and I found myself contemplating the spiny tufts, which might serve a reproductive purpose, though it is generally explained—Why, child, where are you going?”
Mirabel was hurrying out to the hall. “I am going after him, of course. Otherwise, he will break his neck or his horse’s leg—or most likely, both—and we shall never hear the end of it. Good God! An earl’s son. The Earl of Hargate’s son! The famous Waterloo hero, no less—and wounded in the line of duty. Oh, it does not bear thinking of. Really, Papa, you will drive me to distraction one of these days. The man hurls himself to certain death while you are contemplating cactus spines.”
“But my dear, it is quite important—”
Mirabel didn’t hear him. She was running down the hall.
MOMENTS later, mounted on an unhandsome but surefooted and imperturbable gelding, Mirabel rode out into the night. She caught up with her quarry a short distance past the park gates. The thick sleet had thinned to icy rain, but it could easily thicken and thin again a score of times in the course of the night.
“Mr. Carsington!” she shouted into the downpour. He was only a dark, man-shaped form on a dark, horse-shaped form, but the form was tall enough and sat straight enough, despite the rain pouring from his hat brim down his neck—and anyway who else could it be?
He halted. “Miss Oldridge?” He turned his head her way. It was too dark to see his face. “What are you doing here? Are you mad?”
“You must return to the house at once,” she said.
“You must be insane,” he said.
“You are no longer in London,” she said. “The next house is a mile away. In this weather, it will take you two hours at the very least to reach Matlock Bath—and that is only barring accident.”
“It is of vital importance that I return to my hotel,” he said. “I beg you to return to your house. They ought not have let you leave. You will catch your death.”
“I am but a few minutes from a good blaze,” she said. “You are the one who’ll catch his death. Then what are we to tell your father?”
“Miss Oldridge, no one tells my father anything,” he said.
“Or you, either, I collect.”
“Miss Oldridge, while we remain here disputing, the animals grow chilled. I am sure they will be better off moving, yours in the opposite direction of mine. I thank you for your hospitality, and I appreciate your concern for my well-being, but it is quite impossible for me to remain.”
“Mr. Carsington, whatever engagements you have for tomorrow—”
“Miss Oldridge, you do not understand: I have nothing to wear.”
“You’re funning me,” she said.
“I never joke about such things,” he said.
“Nothing to wear.”
“Exactly.”
“I see,” she said.
She had seen long before now but had failed to come to the logical conclusion. Logic had taken second place to reactions lower on the intellectual plane.
She had observed him closely enough, had been unable to keep from observing.
She had an all too vivid recollection of the way the expensively tailored coat hugged broad shoulders and the powerful torso that tapered to a narrow waist. She had a clear image in her mind’s eye of the exquisite embroidery of his silk waistcoat with its one upper button undone…and of the snugly fitting breeches outlining muscular thighs…and such long legs. Merely recalling sent heat washing through her, though she sat in darkness upon a horse in a cold, driving rain.
She could not help the heat. It was natural enough, she told herself. He was a hero and looked the part: tall, strong, and handsome. Few women could gaze on him unmoved.
All the same, she retained intellect enough to comprehend his irrational determination to travel at night in this filthy weather.
She had not spent two seasons in London without learning something about dandies, and this was a dandy if ever she had met one…though she’d never met one quite so imposingly built.
“Well, that’s different, then,” she said. “Good night, Mr. Carsington.”
She turned and rode back to the house.
To her surprise, Mirabel foun
d her father pacing the vestibule when she returned. Usually, he drank his tea in the library while perusing botanical tomes, then proceeded to the conservatory to say good night to the divers vegetable matter therein.
“Oh, dear. You could not persuade him,” Papa said as she gave her dripping bonnet and cloak to the footman.
“He has nothing to wear,” she said.
Her father blinked at her.
“He is a dandy, Papa,” she said. “Deprived of what he deems proper dress, he is like a plant deprived of vital nutrients. He wilts and dies, and one can scarcely imagine the agonies he suffers in the process.” She started toward the stairs.
Her father followed her. “I knew something was wrong. It is like the cactus spines.”
“Papa, I am wet and somewhat out of sorts, and I should like—”
“But he limps,” her father persisted.
“I observed that,” Mirabel said. How she wished for a less heartbreakingly gallant manner of limping! It made her feel things she didn’t want to and couldn’t afford to. And anyway, it was ridiculous at her age, after her experience….
She proceeded up the stairs. “I understand he was quite seriously injured at Waterloo.”
Her father trailed after her. “Yes, Benton told me about it. Yet I strongly suspect Mr. Carsington also suffered a head injury without realizing. I have heard of such cases. That would explain, you see.”
“Explain what?”
“The cactus spines.”
“Papa, I haven’t the least idea what you mean.”
“No, no, I daresay.” She heard his footsteps pause behind her. “Perhaps he will not understand about the tulips, after all. Yes, perhaps you are right. Well, good night, dear.”
“Good night, Papa.” Mirabel climbed the stairs and went to her room. Though she was tired, she blamed it on overstrained nerves. She had not been prepared. Had she been forewarned of Mr. Carsington’s arrival…but she hadn’t been, had not even imagined this turn of events.
She had made an incorrect assumption about Lord Gordmor that could prove to be disastrous. She’d never dreamt he would be so persistent.
She’d erred, and it was too late to undo the error. All she could do was take a lesson from it. She’d based her calculations on insufficient information. She would not make that mistake twice.