Miss Wonderful

  “But you’ve said, several times, that you wish to marry me,” she said.

  “I have never wanted anything so much in my life,” he said.

  “Well, then,” she said.

  “Well, then, what?”

  “I’m an heiress,” she said.

  MIRABEL waited through a short, churning silence.

  Then, “No,” he said.

  He paced from the fire to the door and back. He sat in a chair and got up again. He started toward her, then away again. He returned to scowl at the fire.

  It was not the reaction she’d expected. She had never dreamt the problem was so simple. Still, it remained a problem to him, and how could she expect otherwise?

  William Poynton had loved her, too, but the sacrifice required of him was too great. He could not give up his dreams and ambitions any more than she could abandon her home and her amiably oblivious father, whom every scoundrel and sharper for miles around was busily duping and defrauding.

  “I would not expect you to turn country squire and stay in Derbyshire all the time,” she said, her heart beating frantically. “Naturally, you would wish to be in London in the spring, during the Season.”

  “If you think I would leave you alone in Longledge, in the height of the tourist season, when the place swarms with idle men, I strongly recommend you think again,” he growled at the fire.

  The flickering light deepened the shadows under his eyes and hardened the lines of his angular features.

  “You cannot imagine I can leave the estate unattended, especially in the spring and early summer, when there is so much to do,” she said, lifting her chin even as her spirits sank. “We had better settle this now. Certain points are not negotiable.”

  He turned to her, his eyes cold and hard. “There is nothing to settle,” he said. “I shall not come to you penniless. I have been a parasite upon my father. I refuse to be a parasite upon my wife.”

  “A parasite?” Mirabel stood and faced him, though she wanted desperately to run away, so mortified she was. “I see. I have thrown myself at you in every possible way, yet you doubt me. You have said repeatedly that you wished to marry me—until now, though it will solve all your problems at once. You find this intolerable? Why? Your pride won’t bear it? Perhaps you imagine I shall make a lap dog of you, as Judith Gilford tried. If that is what you imagine, then you cannot know me at all, and this professed love of yours is like all your other passions: intense, but lacking the strength to deal with the practicalities of ordinary life.”

  “I can deal with them very well, thank you,” he said curtly. “And I mean to prove it.”

  He went out, his limp more pronounced than usual. In spite of her shame and anger and despair, Mirabel winced for him, for the unceasing pain he lived with and his constant struggle to keep it from showing.

  She told herself it was all pride, and he had more than his share—far too much. Still, she knew a part of what drove him to behave as he did was courage. Angry though she was, she knew as well that the same pride and courage made her love him all the more.

  No, not love. Of course not love. She’d known him only a few weeks.

  Yet it had been more than time enough, she now saw. Somehow, without her quite realizing, he’d stolen the very last bit of her heart. Then out he went, with her heart in his keeping—her heart—as though it were nothing more than a handkerchief embroidered with his initials.

  Let him go then, with his precious pride and his beastly canal. If he didn’t want her money, that was his problem. She would proceed as originally planned. Nothing had changed, really, she told herself. She knew he’d make her wretched. She’d accepted the fact that she’d pay for a brief happiness with a long misery. It was no more than she’d bargained for. She was quite resigned.

  It must have been resignation, then, that caused her, when she’d heard him take his leave of Mrs. Entwhistle and go out, to pick up the nearest breakable object—a pitcher—and throw it against the fireplace.

  CREWE carried in a supper tray shortly after Alistair returned from his tumultuous encounter with Mirabel.

  He picked at his food, then, weary and sick at heart, undressed and went to bed. It was only to rest his limbs after the afternoon’s hard traveling. The hour was far too early for sleep—not that he expected to sleep, given the recent encounter with Mirabel and its stunning revelations.

  An heiress! Why hadn’t Gordy told him?

  He must have assumed Alistair knew this, along with everything else he should have known but didn’t. Given the size and prosperity of the estate, he’d assumed, naturally, that she must have a respectable portion. He’d also assumed, however, that the property must be entailed, as his father’s was, upon the nearest male in the paternal line.

  But the way she’d offered herself as the solution to all his problems told him that her funds must be substantial. She knew he was expensive. She’d probably estimated the cost accurately to the nearest shilling. Unlike most other women, she’d had to learn what everything cost and how to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of buying this or that, how to decide whether repairing or replacing was the sounder economic choice. She would not have suggested he marry her to solve his problems if she hadn’t been certain she could afford him.

  But he didn’t want another—any other, but most especially her—to buy him out of his present difficulty.

  If he could not solve this problem himself, he would lose the last scrap of self-respect he had remaining. He would not deserve her love or his father’s respect or Gordy’s friendship.

  All the same, he felt like a beast for rejecting what she offered. He’d hurt her. Again. His brain had shrunk while his masculine pride swelled to monstrous proportions. He should have explained. But it was not until he was alone in his bedchamber that matters sorted themselves out. While with her, all he’d known was frustration and shock and anger. He couldn’t think, let alone speak clearly.

  Despite all this turmoil, however, he fell into a deep enough slumber to dream the Waterloo dream again, in more detail and length than the previous night. Every night it started a moment earlier in the battle and shed light in places previously dark. Every night he saw the carnage more vividly and relived his feelings more intensely. Every night he woke himself or his valet with his ravings.

  This night Crewe stood over him, gently shaking him. “Wake up, sir. You’re dreaming again.”

  Alistair struggled up to a sitting position. “What time is it?”

  “Close to midnight, sir.”

  “Has Lord Gordmor come?”

  No, his lordship had not yet come, and Crewe thought it unlikely he’d arrive this night. The weather had turned very bad since the master had gone to bed.

  Alistair got up and looked out the window. He could see nothing. He could hear the pounding rain and roaring wind, however, which sufficed to make him agree with Crewe. As great a hurry as Gordmor was in, he would not risk either his people or his horses. He’d have stopped at the nearest inn as soon as the weather took a turn for the worse.

  In any case, there wasn’t room for everyone here. Miss Oldridge and her entourage had left only a few rooms unoccupied. These were the smallest and darkest, overlooking a narrow alley at the back of the building.

  Still, when he heard the knock at the door, Alistair assumed Gordy’s panic had overcome his caution. Expecting his friend, he did not hurry to throw his dressing gown on over his nightshirt when Crewe answered the door.

  Alistair heard a whisper.

  Crewe said softly, “Yes, he’s awake, but—”

  He was unceremoniously thrust aside, and Mirabel flew in, in a flutter of delicate ruffles and…lace?

  She came halfway across the narrow room, then stopped short. “Oh. I didn’t realize. I thought Crewe meant you hadn’t yet gone to bed.” She flushed and looked away.

  Alistair looked wildly about. Crewe hurried to a chair, snatched up the dressing gown, and swiftly stuffed his master into it. He mumbled so
mething about a hot drink, and vanished.

  When he had gone, Mirabel turned back to Alistair. She wore a dressing gown of fine, oyster white lawn, trimmed with exquisite silk lace, over a matching nightgown with a ruffled hem. She looked like a princess in a fairy tale. His gaze moved slowly, disbelievingly, from the dainty silk slippers up over the deliciously feminine confection to her face.

  Her cheeks were a very deep pink, and the candlelight made twin stars in the twilight blue of her eyes. Her red-gold hair tumbled over her shoulders, and a fiery froth of curls danced about her face.

  She clasped her hands at her waist.

  “I withdraw my opposition,” she said.

  OUT of doors, the storm continued unabated. The wind whistled and wailed, and rain beat against the windows. Within, the fire crackled and hissed in the grate.

  Mirabel would have felt safer outside, in the middle of the storm, than here in this small room.

  She stood where she was, as she was, barely dressed, her hair undone. She wore the frothy concoction Aunt Clothilde had sent, without explanation, along with the letter describing Mr. Carsington’s indiscretions.

  The nightclothes were provocative. It was an unscrupulous tactic, but Mirabel didn’t care. She would do whatever was necessary to win him over. She was in love, truly, deeply, hopelessly in love this time, and this time she would not give it up.

  “I should not have let you go before,” she said. “I should have tried harder to understand. But I was too mortified and angry to think clearly.”

  She’d had hours since then to calm down and sort it out and make up her mind what was most important: a house and a piece of land or the love of a lifetime.

  He still gazed at her in that blank way. Had he shut his mind and his heart to her because of his pride? Did he see her differently now? In his eyes had she become another Judith Gilford—the heiress whose petty tyrannies, Aunt Clothilde believed, had driven him away?

  It didn’t matter what he saw, Mirabel told herself. She would not give him up, no matter what it cost her.

  She stood firm, chin up, her hands clasped to white-knuckled tightness and pressed against the knot of fear that was her insides.

  “I was unreasonable,” she said. “Captain Hughes approved of your revised plan. He read my letter only because he’d promised he would.”

  She’d known her father would not appear at the canal meeting, no matter how earnestly he promised. He’d insisted on setting out early, and walking, as he always did. She could hardly force him to drive with her and Mrs. Entwhistle in the carriage. She’d prepared the letter for the likely eventuality of Papa’s nonappearance, and given it to Captain Hughes the day before the meeting.

  “I should have signaled or sent word to him not to read it,” she said now. “Your new plan was most accommodating and well thought out. I’ve been silly not to accept it. I cannot expect everything to remain exactly as it was. The world changes, and we must change with it. I ought to be happy and grateful for all the trouble you took on my account, instead of causing you more difficulty.”

  “It was a good plan,” he said.

  “Yes, very good.”

  “But not good enough,” he said.

  “No plan could be good enough,” she said. “I wanted Lord Gordmor to close up his mines and go away and stop troubling us with his transportation problems. I didn’t want any more Lord Gordmors or any other enterprising men, including my neighbors, finding new ways to make fortunes on Longledge Hill. I didn’t want increased trade. I wanted the peaceful, simple country life I’d grown up with.”

  “Then I shall find a way for you to keep it,” he said.

  She looked down at her still-clasped hands, then up into his starkly handsome face. The tenderness she saw there lightened her heart. “You are not to waste your time on any such thing,” she said. “You are not to risk everything you have worked so hard for. I came to tell you so. Mine would be a poor sort of affection if I could not sacrifice a very little comfort for your sake.”

  “I think you’d lose more than a little comfort,” he said.

  Yes, the truth was, it would break her heart to see her home changed. But she knew what he, what any reasonable person would think. One couldn’t make time stand still. Times were changing, and she must change with them.

  Her mother had been dead for half her life, and recreating the world Mama had lived in and making her dreams come true would not bring her back. This man was very much alive, and Mirabel loved him. She’d rather make a life with him, under any conditions, than go back alone to her solitary life in her beautiful arcadia.

  She said, “I have been in love before, you know, and let it go because I could not abandon my land and roam the world as he wanted—as he needed—to do. I broke off my engagement, and came home, and resigned myself to spinsterhood. Yet it seems I am not fully resigned. I asked myself a short while ago whether I was willing to sacrifice my affection for you. I decided I was not.”

  “He was a fool to go,” he said, his voice low and fierce. “He should have stayed and fought for you. But I’m glad he was a fool, because I’m selfish. I want to be the one who fights for you.”

  Her hands unclasped, and her heart banged crazily. “You don’t have to fight,” she said. “I’m won. I’m yours.”

  “Are you, my love?” He smiled then, and opened his arms, and she ran straight into them.

  As soon as those strong arms closed about her, she knew she’d made the right decision. She’d learnt to take care of herself, to do without a man’s protection or even affection. She could do without his if she must, but only if she had no other choice, only if he abandoned her.

  She would do everything in her power to make sure he didn’t.

  “I must send you back to your room,” he rumbled into her hair. “In a moment.”

  His hands came up and tangled in her hair. He kissed her forehead and her nose. She tilted her head back, offering her lips.

  “We had better not,” he murmured, raising his head.

  “No, we really mustn’t,” she said.

  Liar, liar. She didn’t care what they must or mustn’t do. It was late, and they were alone, and the storm seemed to shut out the world.

  He slid his hands down to her shoulders. He gazed deep into her eyes, as though she harbored unfathomable secrets—as though she had anything left hidden from him.

  She’d opened her heart. She’d let him see and touch—and do things she had no name for—to parts of her body she’d once felt depraved merely looking at.

  “I want to be good,” he said. “I’ve taken appalling advantage of your inexperience.”

  “Yes, it was very bad of you,” she said, drawing away. “And it was bad of me not to discourage you. It was bad of me to come tonight in all my dishabille. Despicable, really. I am not wearing a scrap of undergarments. And this gown—what was Aunt Clothilde thinking, to send such a frilly, flimsy little nothing to a respectable spinster?” She looked down and fiddled with the ribbons at the front of the low neckline. “I suspect it is French. No decent English dressmaker would make such a thing.”

  “Mirabel.” His voice had thickened. “Please. I am not made of iron.”

  “I know that.” She smiled. “You are flesh and blood. Very muscled. And the hair on your chest is more generally golden than on that your head.” She untied the topmost ribbon. “Whereas I am quite, quite smooth in that area.” She glanced down. “But a good deal more rounded.”

  “Yes.” One strangled syllable. “I think your body is perfection, but I must not look at it now. Mirabel, you are not to untie the next ribbon. It is the worst sort of cruelty. You know I must resist you. We shall be wed, and I absolutely will not anticipate the wedding vows.”

  She untied the second ribbon. “I thought you already had,” she said. “Twice.”

  “That was irresponsible and selfish. And anyway…Anyway, you are intact—barely—by the grace of God. Oh, why am I talking about this? You must go. Good ni
ght.” He limped to the door and opened it.

  She stood where she was. She untied the last of the ribbons and shrugged out of the dressing gown.

  He shut the door.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “I won’t,” she said. “I want you to take it off me. You are so good at dressing and undressing.”

  He stalked to her, eyes flashing gold sparks, and she wondered if he meant to pick her up and eject her bodily from the room.

  He grasped her shoulders. “You,” he said. “You.”

  “Yes, this is truly me.” She reached up and dragged her fingers through his sleep-tousled hair. “I did not know a wanton lived inside me. You found her and set her free. Now you must live with the consequences.” She tugged him down, and his mouth sank onto hers, and in an instant he swept her into another realm, where she was young again, and fresh, and utterly happy.

  She curled her hands round his neck and stood on tiptoe, trying to get more of him. He deepened the kiss and dragged her down into a drunken darkness. No fruit of the poppy could be half so intoxicating as the taste of him. With his tongue he played inside her mouth and made her remember the more intimate way he’d played with her not ten days ago. Heat skittered along her skin and under it. Dry reason evaporated, and pleasure seeped in, cool and dark and dangerous, to make her someone else, the wanton he’d brought to life. No longer cautious, no longer responsible, no longer in control.

  She moved her hands over his shoulders, his powerful arms, and relished the answering caresses, his long, skillful hands sliding over the frilly nightgown, making it whisper under his touch as though it were alive. He made everything come alive, created a wild, vibrant world, mysterious and exotic and yet so familiar, as though it had always existed inside her.

  She slid her hands down to the sash of his dressing gown. His hands got in the way, nudging hers aside, un-fastening the ribbon of her nightgown, loosening the bodice. He pushed the thin fabric down, and she caught her breath as his hand closed over her breast.