Miss Wonderful

by Loretta Chase

  She wore a wine-colored sarcenet dress trimmed in blue. The style was too severe and the colors weren’t quite right for her complexion, but it was the least unflattering dress she’d worn so far.

  Her inept maid had made an attempt to dress her hair in the antique Roman style fashionable several years ago. As one would expect, the two knots at the back of her head were coming unknotted.

  Reflected light from the candles and fire glimmered along a trail of hairpins to and from the chimneypiece. He found the sight arousing, heaven help him.

  On the positive side, if mere hairpins could arouse him, he could not be anywhere near death’s door.

  “If your ankle is not allowed to rest, it will not heal properly,” she said when she returned to the fire. “It will become weak and susceptible to repeated sprains.”

  “Your miniature doctor exaggerates the danger,” Alistair said. “Medical men always make dire predictions. That way, if one dies, it isn’t their fault, and if one recovers, it’s due to their brilliance.”

  “Everyone knows what happens with sprains,” she said. “At least in the country we do. You would be foolish to take such a risk. You especially cannot afford a weak ankle. It will undo all you’ve accomplished in recovering use of your leg.”

  The speech was as simple and blunt as a club to the head, and equally effective.

  His leg was fussy and uncooperative at the best of a times. Given a weak ankle, it might refuse to perform at all.

  Alistair had the usual quantity of masculine pride. On the other hand, he was not a dumb brute. He refused to behave like an idiot merely to appease his pride.

  “It grieves me to say this, but you have made an excellent point,” he said. “We must on no account upset the famous leg. There is no predicting what it will do.”

  Her taut expression eased. She approached, took the chair by the bed, and folded her hands in her lap. “It is understandable, your being upset,” she said. “Anyone who’s endured a long period of immobility, as you have done, must cherish his freedom of movement. Even a day or two of being confined to bed must seem a great deal to you.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t mind that so much,” he said. “By dint of long study, I’ve mastered the art of lounging about or sleeping away the day instead of doing something noble or at least useful. No, no, it isn’t that. The trouble is, I’m sick to death of pandering to this capricious limb.”

  She glanced at the peak in the bedclothes under which his injured foot reposed upon a pillow, then looked quizzically at him. “Pandering?”

  “Let me tell you about this leg, Miss Oldridge,” he said. “This used to be a modest, well-behaved leg, quietly going about its business, troubling nobody. But ever since it was hurt, it has become tyrannical.”

  Her expression eased another degree, and amusement glinted in her eyes, like faint, distant stars in a midsummer night’s sky.

  Encouraged, he went on, “This limb is selfish, surly, and ungrateful. When English medical expertise declared the case hopeless, we took the leg to a Turkish healer. He plied it with exotic unguents and cleaned and dressed it several times a day. By this means he staved off the fatal and malodorous infection it should have suffered otherwise. Was the leg grateful? Did it go back to work like a proper leg? No, it did not.”

  Lips twitching, she made a sympathetic murmur.

  “This limb, madam,” he said, “demanded months of boring exercises before it would condescend to perform the simplest movements. Even now, after nearly three years of devoted care and maintenance, it will fly into a fit over damp weather. And this, may I remind you, is an English leg, not one of your delicate foreign varieties.”

  Her mouth quivered, and laughter danced in her eyes.

  Something quivered and danced within him, and his mind filled with the wrong thoughts—of touching his lips to the tiny laugh line at the corner of her eye, of bringing his mouth to her quivering one.

  He kept talking. “In any case, it won’t go anywhere willingly at present. How on earth did I imagine I should be able to hop up from bed and trot along to the hotel?”

  She said, not too steadily, “You did fall on your head. On a r-rock.” She stifled a giggle.

  Alistair had always found giggling girls tedious. He told himself to be bored with her, too, but it was impossible. Her choked laughter made his heart so light, it seemed to float within him, and his mind was light and floating, too—not good, and he thought, Oh, no, I shall soon like her, and that won’t do because we know where it must lead. Stop charming her, you numskull.

  He couldn’t stop.

  He sighed theatrically. “Since a graceful exit is out of the question, I must accept my fate with humble resignation. I shall lie here looking wan and brave. Now and again, perhaps you would be so good, Miss Oldridge, as to stop by to admire my quiet fortitude.” He settled back upon the pillows and donned a heroic expression.

  She laughed then, out loud, her eyes crinkling into narrow blue slits.

  The cool, whispery sound wafted inside him and stirred again the place already disturbed with the erotic allure of hairpins and the untoward delight he took in a poorly suppressed giggle.

  But before Alistair could say or do anything fatally stupid, Mr. Oldridge entered, carrying a large volume.

  “Mr. Carsington is not to read, Papa,” the daughter said. “Dr. Woodfrey said he is not to exert his mental faculties.”

  “I know,” her father said. “He is not to be overstimulated. That is why I have brought Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis. I sent my sister a copy some time ago, and she has written her thanks more than once. Clothilde says it is a most restful book. Whenever she finds herself in a state of agitation or unhealthy excitement, she reads it. Infallibly, after a page or two, she tells me, she subsides into a pleasantly drowsy state.” He beamed at Alistair. “I shall read to you—but if you find it too sensational, we shall try something else.”

  MR. Oldridge had a soothing voice, and of the Latin words he uttered, Alistair understood about one in ten. Having some dim idea that he’d be quizzed later, he struggled to follow.

  He didn’t remember falling asleep. He simply went from one place to another in the night, from a warm, clean bedroom to a battlefield.

  The smell made him sick, and his foot slipped on the slick ground. He lost his hold of Gordy and slid downward toward the muck, the hideous muck that wasn’t simply mud, but blood and other things human. Parts. Bits and pieces.

  It had nearly swallowed him, that unspeakable mire.

  Don’t think about it, he told himself as Gordy dragged him up again.

  But the horror was everywhere. There was no escaping it, all the long way to the tent. Then he spied the thing, the ghastly thing, worse than any sight in a shambles. No butcher dealt in parts like these.

  He looked away, but not before he saw the arm, muddied and bloodied linen stuck to it, a bit of ruffle at the lifeless wrist.

  The scene dissolved into haze. He became aware of voices. He couldn’t understand it all, but he grasped enough.

  “No,” he said. “They’re wrong. It’s only a flesh wound. I refuse.”

  There was more murmuring, headshaking, voices growing sharp and impatient. They hadn’t time to dig out bits of bone and metal and wood, the surgeons said. They couldn’t be sure of getting it all. What they were sure of was infection, gangrene. The leg must come off or he’d die, slowly and horribly.

  All Alistair could think of was the heap he’d seen, and someone tossing his leg onto it. After all those hours of hanging on, fighting fear and despair…was this what he’d been saved for? An impatient surgeon wielding a saw? Had he endured all those long hours only to be mutilated?

  “They don’t know,” he gasped. “They know only one way. We must go away from here.”

  “Yes, yes, but please wake up.”

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. He brought his hand up, and covered it. “Yes, steady,” he said. “You need only steady me, and I’l
l do perfectly well.”

  “Of course you will. Only do wake up.”

  It was a woman’s voice, an Englishwoman who spoke in the accents of his own class. The night voice.

  Alistair opened his eyes. The world about him was so quiet, he could hear the faint crackle of the fire. The room was lit as before, and he had no trouble recognizing the woman leaning over him.

  “That’s better,” she said. “Do you know me?”

  “Of course.” He smiled up at her. He’d been dreaming, that was all.

  Relief was too small a word for what he felt. He’d been crawling through Hell for half eternity, it seemed, and come out on the other side. He didn’t know where he was now. Not Heaven, he was sure, and glad of it, for he wasn’t quite ready to give up the things of this earth—like the sight and scent of a pretty woman bending so near that he might easily reach up and bring his hand to the back of her neck, and draw her down….

  But this would be wrong, he remembered, and not only wrong but stupid beyond permission.

  He suppressed a groan and squeezed the hand upon his shoulder. He had only to turn his head to kiss it…but he mustn’t because that, too, was wrong, though he couldn’t remember why.

  “I must have fallen asleep,” he said. “Bad dream.”

  “What is your name?” she said.

  He gazed blankly at her.

  “What is your name?” she repeated.

  He gave an uneasy laugh. “Don’t you know me, Miss Oldridge? Am I so changed?” He hadn’t changed. He was the same man as before. Only a little deformed.

  “I am supposed to ask you at intervals what your name is,” she said, so crisp and businesslike. “I am to ask other simple questions as well. To determine whether your brain has been injured.”

  Her brisk tone swept away his anxiety and made him want to tug her down and kiss her until she had not a sensible thought left in her head. But he mustn’t because…Ah, yes. She was a gently bred maiden, and there were certain lines a gentleman didn’t cross. Having sorted out that matter, his mind produced another rational thought: She shouldn’t be here, so late at night, alone with him.

  Reluctantly, he released the soft hand, pushed himself up on the pillows, and looked about the dimly lit room.

  “Where is your father?” he said.

  “I sent him to bed an hour ago. I couldn’t sleep, and he is not the most reliable person to keep watch over a sickbed.”

  “I’m not sick,” Alistair said. “I have a sprained ankle and possibly a concussion, that is all. It cannot be a severe concussion, as I have no trouble recollecting the fact that my name is Alistair Carsington, that Weston makes my coats, Hoby my boots—By the way, the pair you hacked to pieces came from Hoby only a fortnight ago. And Locke makes my hats. My waistcoats—”

  “That will do,” she said. “I am not greatly interested in the numerous parties involved in assembling you. I daresay it’s as complicated as fitting out a ship, and of the same crucial importance to you as proper nautical accoutrements are to Captain Hughes. But it does not matter to me in the least.”

  “Does it not?” he said. “Perhaps my brain is more grievously injured than we thought, for I distinctly recollect your mentioning, more than once, my being elegantly turned out.”

  She straightened and took a step back from the bed. “It was an observation,” she said curtly. “Nothing more.”

  What Alistair observed was that she must have pinned up her own hair, because it not only made no pretense at style but was falling in her face. A tangled clump of light copper curls dangled at her shoulder.

  As to her clothes, either she’d slept in them or had thrown them on with more than her usual careless haste.

  Her frock was the one she’d worn earlier, but she was not wearing a corset. He could tell by the way the garment hung, especially by the way it outlined her bosom.

  He wished she’d put on the corset. He wished he could be sure all her buttons were buttoned and all her tapes tied. But he knew she must be half undone, and he could not stop his mind from undoing the rest. He told himself not to think about her underthings and the naked body underneath, but he was a man, and it was too late. Minus the corset’s artificial upthrust, the true shape and size of her breasts was easy to picture. He couldn’t help estimating how few layers of underthings the wrinkled dress concealed: a chemise, perhaps, and very likely, nothing else.

  He remembered how small her waist was and the sweet curve of her bottom and the bewitching sway of her hips.

  He bore all this manfully.

  But then he recalled the way her hand, soft and warm, fit under his, and a longing seized him, so fierce and wrenching that for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

  “You had better go back to bed,” he said, his voice harsh. “You ought not have come here, especially in the middle of the night. It is shockingly improper.”

  “Indeed, it is,” she said. “You have dropped hints leading me to suspect you are a rake—”

  “A rake?” Alistair came up from the pillows, and the movement outraged his leg and ankle, both of which went into spasms. He winced, and hastily smoothed the bedclothes to make her think their rumpled state was what caused him pain. “I’m nothing of the kind,” he muttered.

  “But you spoke so casually to me of your expensive ballet dancer.”

  “One ballet dancer doesn’t make a man a rake. If I were…” He trailed off. If he were a rake, he’d think nothing of coaxing her into bed with him. She had no idea what it cost a fellow to behave like a gentleman in these circumstances. He wished his father could see him now.

  No, on second thought, it was better his lordship remained one hundred fifty miles away.

  His oblivious seductress, meanwhile, was looking elsewhere, her brow creased. “Now I remember,” she said. “My Aunt Clothilde writes me all the London gossip, and I am sure you figured in at least one of her epistles—before the battle in which you behaved so gallantly, I mean. Aunt tells me all the scandal about everybody, but it is hard to keep track of the names of people one’s never met. Yet I’m certain yours came up. Now what was it?”

  She settled into the chair beside the bed and appeared to cudgel her brains.

  Alistair sighed. “Pray don’t tax your memory,” he said. “The scandals attached to my name are numerous.”

  Her gaze returned to his face, and she tipped her head to one side to study him.

  He was not used to women, to anyone, studying him so openly. He was not used, he realized, to anyone’s taking the trouble. No one else looked deeper, past the elegant appearance and charm. He wondered uneasily if anything of value existed beneath the polished surface.

  “Do all the scandals involve women?” she said.

  “Yes, of course. However—”

  “Exactly how many scandals? Or are they too numerous to count in your present delicate state? Recollect you are not to tax your brain.”

  He recalled his father’s list. “Seven—no, eight, technically.”

  “Technically.” Her expression was unreadable.

  “One scandal involved two women. But it was my last,” he added. “And it was nearly three years ago.”

  “Then you are a reformed rake.”

  “To reform, I must first be a rake, which I never was. Not that it matters,” he added irritably. “The difference between me and a libertine will seem a mere technicality to you. You will believe I am splitting hairs very fine, indeed. Not that you ought to be thinking about such subjects, or that I had any business speaking of my mistresses to a lady. I cannot imagine what possessed me to mention the ballet dancer. I must have been addled. Perhaps it is this infernally clean country air. I think it makes me giddy.”

  “Good heavens, I did not intend to make you so agitated,” she said.

  “I am not agitated,” he lied. He was horny and frustrated. He was the next thing to naked, confined to bed, with a half-dressed woman within arm’s reach—all this while the rest of the household was sound a
sleep. He would defy a saint to remain serene in such circumstances.

  “Dr. Woodfrey believes you suffer from a fatigue of the nerves,” she said.

  “Nerves?” Alistair repeated indignantly. “I have no nerves to speak of. Ask anybody. I am the least excitable person you will ever meet.” After a pause, he added, “I admit I find you somewhat provoking. But I think you do it on purpose—oh, not altogether. I suppose you can’t help that.” He made an impatient gesture indicating her hair and attire. “It is an affliction, like tone deafness.” He waved her off. “Now please go away.”

  She smiled.

  Oh, no.

  The smile curled about his heart and squeezed it and threatened to strangle the remnants of his reason. “You’re amused,” he said accusingly. She didn’t recognize the danger. She was in no way on guard. He would have to guard them both—and really, it was too much to ask, after such a day and night.

  “I find you amusing,” she said. “You are the most amusing man I have met in a very long time.”

  A soft bed…a warm woman, laughing in his arms. His pulse was racing.

  His gaze swept the room and fell upon the botany book her father had left behind.

  The soporific book.

  “Well, if you can’t tear yourself away, Miss Oldridge,” he said, “perhaps you would be so good as to read to me.”

  Eight

  CAPTAIN Hughes arrived at Mrs. Entwhistle’s domicile late Sunday morning.

  When the maid ushered him into the cozy parlor, the lady of the house evidenced no great delight at seeing him.

  She appeared less pleased when he told her his errand.

  “You cannot be proposing that I appear, uninvited, on the Sabbath, with my baggage, upon Mirabel’s doorstep,” the former governess said in tones that had seldom failed to quell rambunctious pupils.

  The intimidating tone did not match the lady’s appearance. She was not tall and gaunt and dressed in severe black, but a plump, attractive woman of middle height and middle age, prettily garbed in a ruffled white morning dress and lacy cap.