The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) (12 page)

“Yes,” replied the earl promptly. “And so if any chastisement needs doing, I will do it…Jack?”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Consider yourself duly chastised.”

“Right…oh…is that it?”

“That’s it. And you are barred from fishing for a week.”

“Er…right.”

“But you don’t even
like
fishing―” said Kitty. “Ow! I don’t see why you should kick me Jack Blakelow!”

“You seem to forget, sir,” said Ned, ignoring all this with a cold smile, “that our sister refused you. All of us heard her turn you down.”

The earl smiled. “When you come to know me better, you will realise that when I want something, I invariably get it.”

“Well I am
glad
that the earl is to be our brother,” said Jack promptly. “He is not half so stuffy as―” he was just about to say Peabrain but at a glare from his eldest sister, caught himself in time, “as some…others.”

“Thank you,” murmured his lordship.

“Although I’m not quite sure why you would pick…I mean…Georgie is a great gun and all that…but not exactly―oof.”

Jack was rescued from his rather unflattering speech when he was kicked
in the shins by Elizabeth. He sank into moody silence.

“Yes, but Jack has a point. Why
would
you pick Georgie?” Marianne asked the earl. “You must know that she has vowed never to marry anyone? It is common knowledge, you know.”

“Hush, Marianne,” said Miss Blakelow quietly.

“You may think you know her but you don’t, my lord. She had any number of beau when she was young and refused them all.”

“Indeed?” he replied, meeting Miss Blakelow’s gaze. “A veritable little heartbreaker.”

The lady blushed and looked away.

“She doesn’t
want
to be married,” declared Marianne.

“I see. Well, what does she want then?” asked his lordship.

“She is happy to stay here with us,” said Kitty.

“Yes. And although she is not strictly related to us, she has always managed everything creditably,” said Marianne.

“And is like a mother to us all,” put in Lizzy.

“I see,” said the earl. “And what will happen when all of you marry? And when William brings his new wife to live at Thorncote? Do you imagine the future Lady Blakelow will be happy to have her sister-in-law running things for her?”

“She will come and live with me,” said Marianne gallantly.

“And me,” said Kitty.

“She will be the dear kind teacher to our children that she was to us.”

Although this impassioned speech was intended to be a compliment, it hit Miss Blakelow like a slap around the face with a dead fish. She tried to smile and failed.

Lord Marcham saw the look of consternation on Georgiana’s face and longed to box Marianne’s ears. “What an attractive prospect to be sure,” he murmured. “But perhaps your sister would prefer to have children of her own to love and nurture. And I own, I would like nothing more than to try to give them to her.”

There was an audible gasp in the room, and Miss Blakelow blushed scarlet.

“Sir!” cried Mr. Peabody. “There are ladies present.”

“So there are…” agreed the earl, picking up his cup and sipping from it. “Miss Blakelow has given up her youth and prospects to look after you brats. It is time she did something for herself.”

Miss Blakelow blushed. “What nonsense! I did not give up anything.”

“That’s not what I heard,” he murmured.

She sank into brooding silence, wondering how much Aunt Blakelow had told him.

“You, my lord, are a disgrace!” said Mr. Peabody, almost as red as a holly berry.

“So I have been told.”

“To speak of the…the marital act…in front of impressionable young minds is simply not to be borne!”

“If these young minds are anything like mine was at their age, then they probably already know more about it than you do,” replied the earl.

A collective giggle answered this remark and Mr. Peabody stormed from the room.

The earl’s eyes twinkled engagingly as they rested upon his reluctant fiancée. “Well that got rid of him, my love; I told you I would achieve it, didn’t I?”

“My lord Marcham, might I have a word with you in private?” asked Miss Blakelow, a steely edge to her voice.

He set down his cup and smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

“What exactly are you up to?” Miss Blakelow demanded when a minute later, the party stood up to move for a stroll in the gardens and she brushed past his lordship as he held the door open for her. She trod on something and tripped and only just caught herself before she ploughed face first into his chest.

“
That
was my foot,” he said with a pained expression on his face.

“Sorry,” she said awkwardly.

“What did you do with that money I gave you for the new spectacles? You clearly have not made use of it. If I find you have spent it on any of the other Blakelow brats it will be very much the worse for you―”

“What are you doing?” she interrupted with some impatience. “Are you determined to shame me in front of the entire neighbourhood?”

“Not at all. You wanted to be rid of Pearbrain, did you not?”

“His name is
Peabody. Please try and remember it. I did…did wish that he might go away…but not like
that
. And I wish that you wouldn’t say that I have given up my youth and prospects and beauty for the children; it is not true, you know.”

He looked down at her, a warm light in his eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

“You did.”

“Not your beauty. I didn’t say it for I don’t think it.”

“Then you need spectacles even more than I do,” she said caustically.

He smiled. “My eyesight is just fine and I suspect yours is too.”

“Did I or did I not refuse your offer of marriage the other day?” she demanded.

“You did.”

“I did. I am glad that we are in agreement over that. So why then, given my very clear refusal, have you just announced that we are to be married?”

“I didn’t. I announced my
intention
to marry you. That, my girl, is entirely different.”

“I am not going to marry you. Can you understand that?”

He gave her a twisted smile. “I will allow that you are not ready to marry me at the present moment but I hope that once you have discovered that you cannot live without me then you will change your mind.”

There was a loud audible groan from the lady.

“Yes, my love?”

“I will not change my mind. I won’t marry. I cannot marry. There, can I be any plainer?”

“Why not?”

She rolled her eyes. “I am not having this discussion with you. Please consider this my final answer.”

“Very well. I will come to an agreement with you. I will not send details of our engagement to the newspapers just yet.”

“How kind.”

“Yes. We will be friends first.”

“
When
are you going home?” she asked, as if his presence gave her exquisite pain.

He grinned. “When you have agreed to ride with me tomorrow.”

“Then you will have a long wait, my lord.”

“A walk then, by the lake.”

“No.”

“You
are
being rude to me today,” he marvelled.

“And you are making decisions for me and I don’t like it,” she said tartly, trying to move past him.

He caught her elbow in his hand and held it fast. “Don’t you?” he asked in a soft voice. “I venture to think that you like it a great deal.”

She blushed and tried to remove her arm. “You flatter yourself. I know it amuses you, my lord, to mock me because you think I have no experience of men. But I do not find it amusing and I wish that you would find yourself another flirt.”

“Is that what this is all about? You think I am teasing you?”

“I think we both know that you are amusing yourself at my expense. Now, please let go of me, or we will be remarked upon.”

He released her. “You will allow me to tell you that your Peabody fellow is a great deal too busy in your affairs, ma’am.”

She glared at him. “No,
you
are a great deal too busy in my affairs. You are no more my choice of husband than I am your choice of wife.”

He smiled. “Then that shows how little you know me…and yourself for that matter.”

With this very perplexing remark he let her go and watched her disappear into the rose garden with Mr. Samuel Bateman. Soon afterwards he left, sure in the knowledge that Miss Georgiana Blakelow was thinking about him―if not in the most flattering of terms―but she was definitely thinking about him.

* * *

“My dear Miss Blakelow,” began Mr. Bateman slowly, ten minutes later, “forgive my impertinence, but marriage to the Earl of Marcham?”

She gave him a speaking look as
they found a seat at one end of the rose garden. “There will be no marriage, never fear. Pay no heed to his lordship, Mr. Bateman.”

“Pay no heed? The man is a…a
scoundrel
.”

The note of shock in his voice made Miss Blakelow want to laugh and she bit her lower lip and sucked it under until she had controlled herself. “This is his idea of a jest only. He seems to take enjoyment from baiting me.”

“Baiting you?” he repeated. “But why?”

She shrugged and adjusted the shawl around her shoulders. “He has likely never come into contact with someone like me before. As part of my work with the church, I wrote a pamphlet, you may remember, condemning his morals and behaviour. No-one was more surprised than I was when it was published across half the country.” She smoothed the worn skirt of her gown over her knees and gave him a rueful smile. “I think he is looking for revenge.”

Mr. Bateman reached under the slats of the bench and pulled out a weed from between the gravel chippings. “I would never have thought a man like him would be bothered if a hundred such pamphlets were published.”

“I agree. But for some reason he seems determined to punish me by pretending to have an interest in me.”

“The thrill of the chase,” he said distractedly.

She smiled brightly. “Something like that. I don’t believe he has ever been turned down by a woman before. And his pride is wounded.”

“And such pride, too.”

“Oh, I don’t say that he has insulted me, or accosted me in an improper manner. Merely that he has made it his mission to make a fool of me.”

“How any man could make a sport of such a pure and gentle creature is beyond me,” Mr. Bateman said earnestly.

Miss Blakelow, who considered herself anything but pure and gentle, pulled a face. “He is bored.”

“Do you think so indeed? Bored with his wealth and position? I wish that I had the opportunity to be bored with his advantages,” he remarked bitterly and then coloured as if remembering that he was supposed to be a Christian man. “My apologies, ma’am, I meant only that he has a world of opportunity spread before him. He has no reason to be bored. He may go where he likes, buy what he wishes, and marry who he wants…others, younger sons especially, are not so lucky.”

“I don’t say that he is bored of his position, merely that he is bored of his life. Women come two-a-penny to a man like him. He is only making me the object of his attentions because I am different. A novelty.” She smiled brightly. “Do not worry for me. He wishes to make me fall in love with him so that he might cast me aside. And I am in no danger of giving him what he wishes.”

“Well,” he replied. “If the man becomes intolerable, let me know.”

She smiled, gratefully. “That is very kind of you Mr. Bateman. What do you plan to do? Fight a duel on my behalf?”

He baulked a little; unaware that she was teasing him. “If I must,” he replied, running a forefinger between his neck and the collar of his shirt.

“Dear sir, pray don’t be ridiculous. I was jesting. He’d kill you in an instant.”

Mr. Bateman turned towards her, his pride a little wounded. “I am known to be something of a fair shot, you know,” he said stiffly.

“I am sure you are,” she replied promptly. “But the earl is a crack shot and, more significantly, would not know a scruple if it fell on him. That is, I believe, the difference. Now tell me, are you planning to attend the dance next week with your mama and sister?”

“Yes, at least I think so if Jane has recovered from her cold. Will you be there too ma’am?”

“Me?” she said, rather taken aback. “Oh, Lord no. It has been a long time since I have shown my face in Loughton. No, Aunt Blakelow will accompany the girls. She enjoys it, you know, sitting and chatting with her friends.”

Miss Blakelow remembered the horrible tedious evenings, sitting amongst the dowagers and the chaperones, dressed in some featureless dull grey gown that no-one noticed anyway, her obligatory spectacles hiding her from the world, her foot tapping longingly in time to the music. She watched with every other dowager present as the young people set about having fun and yearned to join the dancing herself. It was torture. No, let Aunt Blakelow go and leave her in peace.