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.”
Mirabel’s optimism was swiftly ebbing. “About yourselves,” she repeated.
“About our livestock, crops, tenants, and poachers,” Captain Hughes explained. “Sir Roger bragged about his greyhounds. The vicar went on about his prize marrows. We yammered and yawed about leaky roofs and wandering pigs and mole catchers. Mr. Carsington must have been bored witless, but he looked as entertained as if we’d been telling bawdy stories.”
Mirabel let out a sigh.
“A clever strategy, don’t you think?” said the captain.
“Who does not think highly of a good listener?” she said. “Who is not happiest when speaking of himself and his own concerns? By the time you had left the dining room, you were all viewing him as the dearest friend of your bosom, I daresay. And this dear friend happens to be Lord Hargate’s son. I can imagine what you were all thinking: What an understanding fellow! Such easy manners! No high and mighty airs about him!”
“I was thinking Mr. Carsington has a great political future ahead of him, if only his father will buy him a seat in Parliament,” the captain said.
Like everyone else, Mirabel was fully aware that the House of Commons was not a democratically elected body. The lords of the land controlled the seats, and “winning” one cost about seven or eight thousand pounds.
“I wish Lord Hargate had done so as soon as his son had recovered enough from his war injuries to stand upon the hustings,” Mirabel said.
“Too late for that,” said the captain. “We might as well resign ourselves. At least we’ll be paid handsomely for use of our property. And we might take consolation in furthering economic progress.”
“Really?” Mirabel turned sharply back to him. “Try consoling yourself with this.”
She reminded him of the changes that had overtaken pastoral villages from one end of England to the other with the growing network of canals and the industrial areas that grew alongside them. She reminded him that not all factories were as agreeable in appearance or so well-lit as Mr. Arkwright’s in Cromford.
She drew a verbal picture of foul-smelling brickyards and their miserable residents, and of the even more desolate world surrounding coal pits. She spoke of winding gears and slag heaps, cranes and coal barges, the hiss and clang of steam engines, the clouds of black smoke and the banshee wail of the whistles. She reminded him they lived at present in an arcadia, one of England’s most beautiful places, whose tranquillity they treasured.
She turned toward the window and gestured at the night-blanketed landscape beyond. Growing impassioned as she reminded her neighbor of all they’d invested in their land and the people abiding on it, Mirabel forgot everything else. Consequently, she failed to notice they had company, until a low rumble of a voice jolted her back to the moment.
“Thinking you must be parched with so much talking, Miss Oldridge, I took the liberty of bringing you a cup of tea,” Mr. Carsington growled behind her.
Five
MIRABEL turned so abruptly, she nearly knocked the cup and saucer from his hand. But Mr. Carsington moved quickly. His war injuries had definitely not slowed his reflexes.
“Tea’s ready?” said Captain Hughes. “Excellent. I feel in need of a stimulant.” He fled to his hostess.
Mirabel collected her composure and accepted the tea with steady hands.
“I hope it hasn’t cooled too much,” Mr. Carsington said. “I’ve stood here for a time, because I didn’t wish to interrupt you.”
“You were eavesdropping,” she said.
He nodded. “That, too. I was perishing of curiosity. I wanted to know what had roused your passions.”
His voice dropped very low, to become more an undercurrent than a sound. Mirabel’s pulse rate climbed, along with her temperature.
He studied the floor. “In your agitation, you have shaken loose a great many pins. I cannot decide whether or not it is an improvement.” His hooded gaze traveled in the most leisurely manner up the skirt of her gown, lingered briefly at her bodice, then proceeded unhurriedly to the top of her head.
Every inch of the way, Mirabel felt the narrow golden scrutiny—through her heavy silk gown, buckram corset, flannel petticoat, and silk knit drawers—right down to her skin, which it left tingling.
“Is my hair coming down again?” she said composedly. “How vexing. I wish you would show my maid your method with hairpins. I collect you learned that at Oxford, too. Unfortunately, Lucy did not attend university.”
“If she had, she might have learnt how to hold her liquor,” he said. “Obviously she was drunk when she arranged your hair. But let me correct a misapprehension, Miss Oldridge. I did not learn how to pin up hair at university. I learnt it from a French ballet dancer. She was very expensive. I might have sent you and your maid and all the other ladies in this room to Oxford for what she spent in a twelvemonth.”
“You might send us to Paris, but not Oxford,” she said. “Perhaps you failed to notice that women are not admitted to our great English universities.”
“I’ve noticed,” he said. “It is a great pity.”
“I daresay. No ballet dancers to teach you useful skills.”
“True.” He folded his arms and leant back against the window frame. “Such forms of entertainment are sadly lacking. But I was referring to all members of your sex. I don’t see what great harm would result if women were permitted the same sort of education as men.”
Mirabel didn’t try to hide her disbelief. “I see what you are doing. Having easily made all the gentlemen love you, you suppose you can turn me up sweet as well. You’ve guessed that I’m a bluestocking, and—”
“I should say ‘intellectual,’ rather,” he said. “You read the desperately difficult-sounding book about the fossils and strata, and no doubt you understood everything your father had to say about mosses and tulips.”
“Mr. Carsington, only on rare occasions can I make heads or tails of what my father is saying,” she said impatiently. “He has his own unique thought processes, which I do not attempt to follow. I should not advise anyone else to attempt it, either, for that way madness lies. I have my doubts, in fact, as to whether other botanists understand him.”
“It would be more useful for me to understand your thought processes than his,” he said.
With not-so-steady hands, she set down her neglected tea on a small table nearby. “In order to change my mind?”
“I must do something,” he said. “If you sp
eak to the rest of your neighbors as you did to Captain Hughes, I shall be here for months, trying to repair the damage.”
“You should have anticipated me and bolstered your cause when you had the opportunity after dinner. You cannot expect me to hold my tongue merely because you are amiable and charming.”
His dark eyebrows arched. “You’ve found my behavior to you amiable and charming?”
“That is not the point,” Mirabel said. “The point is, your position and fame don’t signify to me, and I won’t be seduced by your charm, so I recommend you not take the trouble of exerting it. Also, while I am grateful for your efforts and sacrifice on behalf of your country—”
“Pray let’s leave that nonsense out of this,” he said stonily.
The frigid tone did not intimidate her. She was accustomed to men using every sort of tactic to make her retreat or yield. She was accustomed to men trying to make her feel insignificant or unsure, and thrusting Keep Out signs in her face. She had learnt to disregard these ploys. She’d had no choice but to learn.
“It isn’t nonsense, and I cannot fathom why you would say so,” she said. “You fought bravely. You suffered damage, permanent damage. Still, you aren’t the only one or the one who suffered most.”
He stiffened as though she’d slapped him. But in the next instant his expression softened into puzzlement, and by degrees the faintest promise of a smile touched the corners of his mouth.
His rigid posture relaxed, too, and he said, “An excellent point, Miss Oldridge.”
So, he was not offended. Mirabel’s estimation of his character rose a cautious degree. She went on, “It does seem to me that we ought to keep the two matters separate. Gallantry in battle is no assurance of wisdom in other matters.”
He regarded her steadily—seriously, she would have thought, but for the smile that yet hovered at his mouth. She wanted to ask what the almost-smile meant. She was tempted, terribly tempted, to touch the place where it lurked. Her heart was beating a little too fast.
She folded her hands at her waist and said, “I wish you to understand that it would make no difference to me if you were the Duke of Wellington. I should still think ill of this canal scheme and do my best to hinder you.”
“Have you ever met the Duke of Wellington?” he asked.
“No, but I understand that he, too, is handsome and charming and possesses an immense force of personality. Still, I fancy I could stand up to it.”
The amber gaze raked her up and down. “I should like to see that. Perhaps you could.”
The slow survey made her knees wobbly. Amusement danced in his eyes, and something inside her danced, too, a darting pleasure and excitement she hadn’t felt in a long time: the thrill of flirtation.
But it couldn’t be. She was long past flirting age, and dressed like a hag besides.
“All the same,” he went on, “I think you would not deny His Grace a fair hearing. Would you not at least tell him what you did and didn’t want?”
“Did he tell Napoleon his strategy?” she answered calmly enough, though her mind was neither calm nor clear, and she wasn’t sure what she wanted.
“Miss Oldridge, I am not trying to conquer the world,” he said. “I only want to build a canal.”
She became aware of movement, and glancing past him, noted, with mingled relief and vexation, that the young ladies were casually meandering this way. “Your fleet draws nigh,” she said.
He didn’t look away from her. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “Better yet, show me: what you’ve invested, what you stand to lose. Show me what you were talking about to Captain Hughes.”
“You could never understand,” she said.
“Suppose I cannot? What will it cost you? A few hours of time?”
Saturday 21 February
CREWE’S cough this morning was low and tragic, telling Alistair that his valet was in the throes of another one of his famous Forebodings.
He’d had one the night before the battle of Waterloo, and blamed the ensuing catastrophe on his master’s riding out to battle without him.
Ever since then, Crewe had been convinced he possessed clairvoyant powers.
The tragic cough did not dampen Alistair’s mood, which was cheerful, despite his having arisen at the uncivilized hour of nine o’clock. He saw nothing inauspicious about this day. At present, he stood shaving in a pool of sunshine, recalling his after-dinner encounter with Miss Oldridge with the first real pleasure he’d experienced in—Well, he couldn’t remember how long it had been.
He remembered the moment of surprised pleasure last night, though, with perfect clarity. He’d gone all stiff and sensitive about his curst fame and his famous dratted injury, and she—But he didn’t know how to explain, even to himself, what she’d done. She’d meant it to be a setdown, he supposed, reminding him that he was not the only one who’d fought at Waterloo, not the only one injured, and certainly not the one who’d lost or suffered most.
Even his family, usually brutally direct with one another, tended to skirt the subject of Waterloo when he was about. Only Gordmor, of all his friends, referred easily and comfortably to the lame leg.
Miss Oldridge was the first woman he’d encountered who didn’t pretend he wasn’t lame and didn’t get starry-eyed about his so-called heroics.
She didn’t seem to pretend much of anything or to be easily rendered starry-eyed.
Crewe’s poignant cough called Alistair back.
“Crewe, do you not see the sun pouring through the window?” Alistair said patiently. “Did you fail to notice that this morning dawned fair, with temperatures well above the freezing mark?”
“I wish I could take heart in the weather, sir,” Crewe said. “But after such a dream.” He shook his head. “It was so very like the one I dreamt the night before Waterloo.”
Alistair paused in his shaving. “Do you mean the one where the footpad cuts my throat and you find me in the alley as the last drops of blood are oozing from my body? Or is it the one where I pitch off the cliff into the sea, and you jump in to save me, but you’re too late, and I drown?”
“The cliff, sir,” said Crewe. “The sky darkened suddenly, as before a storm, and the remaining light had a peculiar quality. It was as if the sun hung behind a great, green glass. I remember the light in particular as the same I dreamt before that fateful day in June of 1815.”
“I’m not riding out to battle,” Alistair said. “I’m merely touring Longledge Hill with Miss Oldridge. You may be sure we’ll have a servant in attendance. Even in this wilderness, a lady does not go out without protection. Doubtless she’ll bring along a large groom of menacing aspect. Should exposure to so much raw nature arouse my passions, he will discourage me from attempting her virtue. Should the scenery produce a similar effect upon her, I reckon I can protect myself.”
As he returned to scraping his jaw, he tried to imagine the lady subjecting him to amorous advances. Given her straightforward style, he supposed she’d throw herself at him, literally. He saw her hair tumbling down, and her face upraised to his, and her wide mouth parted…and he nicked himself.
Crewe went white. “Sir, I beg you will allow me to assist you.” He hurried forward and pressed a towel to the tiny speck of blood near Alistair’s ear. “Consider how much weighs upon your mind at present. Is it not the wisest course to allow me to undertake a task requiring one’s fullest attention?”
Alistair waved away valet and towel. “If, before Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington could shave himself without fatal results,” he said, “I believe I can manage it before ambling along country pathways with a levelheaded—or do I mean hardheaded?—countrywoman.”
Crewe subsided into gloomy silence, and Alistair completed his shaving without interruption or injury.
Once the razor was put away and the less hazardous business of dressing commenced, Crewe grew talkative again. Last night, while the master was out, he’d gone to a tavern the local servants frequented, and continued gatherin
g information. He had found out why Lord Gordmor’s agent had been turned away, and this news confirmed Alistair’s own impression of the situation on Longledge Hill.
About the Oldridges, on the other hand, Crewe had learnt nothing new.
LORD Hargate’s heroic son was bored witless.
Mirabel told herself she should have expected it. One hour into the riding tour she was reproaching herself for agreeing to show him her world, especially now, when the landscape was mainly brown, grey, and the drabbest greens.
He could never see it as she did.
Few men could.
Even in Longledge, few truly understood why she’d given more than a decade of her life to this place. Few had any inkling how much she’d given up: the prime of her young womanhood, along with those youthful hopes and dreams. She’d given up as well her one chance at love, because the man she loved was not ready to relinquish his hopes and dreams to make a life with her here.
She had never meant her life to turn out this way.
She’d begun because she had no choice. She’d believed Papa would improve in time, but it never happened. He let all those about him do as they liked. As you’d expect, some took advantage of him. While she was in London, his incompetent—and possibly dishonest—estate manager had made chaos of estate affairs and in a few years nearly destroyed what it had taken generations to build.
At first, Mirabel had taken charge out of necessity. There was no one else to do it. But as time passed, she developed a passion for the land not altogether unlike her father’s passion for plants. While he pondered theories of botanical reproduction, she built an arcadia.
She replaced outmoded and inefficient agricultural practices with modern ones, increased farm production, rebuilt the estate village, and began restoring the timber her father had allowed to be nearly decimated.
But to Mr. Carsington, her thriving plantation was only a stand of trees. Her modern cottages were rustic dwellings. Her cultivation methods had something tedious to do with turnips and corn. Her livestock were a lot of boring animals.