Miss Wonderful Read Online Free PDF Page B

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