The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) (17 page)

“But
―”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“
There
you are! I have been looking for you everywhere!” cried Lady St. Michael coming in to the room at that moment. “Heavens, isn’t it warm in here? Well, I have just seen the Lady’s bedchamber and I must say, Robbie, it has been very tastefully done. It used to be pink in Mama’s day, but I rather like the pale green. It brings a spring-like freshness to the room which is very appealing. What decided you upon changing it after all these years?”

“Er…it was looking a little tired.”

“Well it looks wonderful now. One would almost think it had something to do with planning for the future Lady Marcham,” said Sarah softly.

“I’m always planning for that,” he returned coolly.

“She doesn’t happen to have green eyes, does she?”

* * *

A week later, Miss Blakelow had been to the village of Thornhill to visit one of her father’s tenants and had there met with a maid from Holme Park, who’d had it from the footman, who’d had it from the butler that his lordship was to host a ball in his sister’s honour.

Surprised that his lordship would agree to have his family stay in the house so recently frequented by fallen women, Miss Blakelow marched home across the fields, agog with the news.

“A ball!” cried Marianne. “Oh, how wonderful!”

“Do you think we shall be invited, Georgie? It is years since any of us has seen the inside of Holme house,” said Kitty, her eyes shining.

“I have no idea,” replied her eldest sister, selecting a skein of green silk for the cushion cover she was embroidering. The hated spectacles remained in her pocket, close at hand in case they had any unexpected visitors.

“But his lordship seems to like you, George. There is a good chance that we will be invited,” said Lizzy, looking just as excited as her sisters, for all her tomboyish protestations that she took no interest in such things.

“Perhaps,” was all Miss Blakelow would say.

“But what will we do for dresses?” cried Marianne. “There is no money.”

“Marry is right. There
is
no money,” said Kitty gloomily, “what are we to do?”

“You will have to economise like the rest of us,” said Ned from the window seat, moodily staring out of the window. “Go in your best dress.”

“But they’re so old,” complained Marianne.

“Then you will have to make them over.”

“Trust a boy to say something stupid like that,” said Kitty.

“Then don’t go. And stay here while all the rest of Worcestershire dances the night away,” recommended their brother a moment before he left the room.

The girls then went into Loughton and spread the news to every acquaintance they came across. Before long, the whole town was buzzing with the news.

* * *

Lord Marcham, some days later, seeking to escape the three female relatives in his house, walked the two miles over to Thorncote in the early afternoon and found Miss Blakelow vigorously pulling up weeds from one of the flower beds. On spying him from a distance of one hundred yards, she threw down the trowel and hastily donned her glasses and lace cap, and succeeded in smudging mud half way across her face.

“You needn’t wear them on my account,” he called out as he came up to her. “It is patently obvious to me that you don’t need them for gardening so why you think you need to wear them to talk to me is beyond my comprehension.”

“And a good day to you too, my lord,” she retorted, bending once again to rip up a particularly fine specimen of dandelion. “Are you here to discuss the estate? Or business? Or have you merely come here to annoy me?”

He folded his arms and leaned against the wrought iron gate, leaning back to get a good view as she bent over. “You’re in a good mood today,” he remarked. “Get out of bed the wrong side, did we?”

“Any side of the bed in this house is the wrong side,” she muttered angrily. “It makes no difference what mood I may be in when I get into bed, but I always wake up to the same problems. Most of them which are caused by knowing you.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, which side of the bed
do
you sleep on?”

“Why can that possibly interest you?” she fired at him over her shoulder.

He shrugged. “When we are married we will share a bed. I thought it only polite to ask the lady which side she preferred.”

“You being such a fine gentleman and all,” she said witheringly.

He dazzled her with his smile. “Exactly. I tend to prefer the right side but I’m prepared to compromise.” His eyes drifted slowly down her trim form. “I’m sure you’ll make it worth my while.”

Miss Blakelow gasped and stood up in a hurry. She came towards him, waving the muddy blade of the trowel under his nose. “You are beyond anything! How
dare
you speak to me like that?”

He spread his hands, half laughing. “Like what?”

“Like…like we are already married, which you know very well that we are not!”

“Come, Georgiana, you cannot tell me that you are innocent of what occurs between a husband and wife?”

“If you do not stop talking to me in that odiously disrespectful manner I will have you thrown off this estate. Do you understand?”

“I love it when you’re angry.”

Miss Blakelow thought she might explode. “I am
not
one of your whores, my lord,” she said crossly.

“No indeed you are not,” he murmured, frowning. “What
has
gotten into you today? You must surely know that I was teasing you? I meant no disrespect.”

“You are trying to shock me, aren’t you?”

“Not at all,” he replied smoothly. “I was merely referring to the very great pleasure to be had when you become my wife.”

She clapped her hands over her ears. “Enough! I will not discuss this subject with you which you must realise is highly repugnant to me.”

He bowed. “Then I apologise unreservedly. We will henceforth confine our conversation to the weather and your aunt’s many health remedies and mending shirts and books and pruning.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“And the best cut of meat to be had for a winter broth and other edifying subjects that I cannot at this moment think of.”

“Very proper,” she approved.

“And I may well die of boredom,” he added.

“We can but hope.”

“What say you to a discussion about the underlying engineering principles behind Stephenson’s locomotive?”

“If we must. I am sure that it would be most instructive.”

“Or whether I am corpulent enough that I should start wearing a corset?”

“Stop trying to make me laugh.”

“I wish that you would.”

She flung down the hand fork she was holding and it landed vertically with its tines in the soil, spearing the earth. “Nothing amuses you more than to put me out of countenance, does it? You love to mock me and I do not like it.”

“I was not
mocking
you, I was
teasing
you. There is a difference,” he said patiently. “What is the matter?”

“You and that wretched ball. I have heard nothing else all day but dresses and silks and satins until I am thoroughly sick of it.”

He frowned. “What ball?” he asked, although he already guessed.

“
What ball
, he says. For your sister,” she said, ripping up a daisy and hurling it at the bucket.

“I am not holding a ball for my sister,” he said calmly. “And I told her so in no uncertain terms when she arrived two weeks ago.”

“Well, it is common knowledge in Loughton.”

His lordship swore under his breath.

“Exactly!” fumed Miss Blakelow, clawing at a particularly stubborn buttercup root.

“And why has that put you in such a foul temper?” he demanded.

“Because my sisters are obsessed with having new dresses for the occasion and there is no money. Not a penny. And they have talked of nothing else all week.”

His lordship looked down at his boots. “And, if there
was
a ball…and if there was money to be found for your finery…would you come?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What would I do at a ball? Sit and make polite chatter with the old tabbies? No, I thank you.”

“You would dance and enjoy yourself like all the other young women.”

“I am
not
a young woman,” she said, wrestling with a clod of couch grass.

“What utter nonsense.”

“I’m not a child, my lord, I don’t want a new dress and I don’t want to dance at your ball. My problems are far larger than that. Look around you. Thorncote is on its last legs. How Marianne and Kitty and Lizzy can think about your stupid ball when they are soon to be turned out of their home is beyond me.” She wiped a tear away angrily with one gloved hand.

He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Hush, love.”

She shrugged him off. “Don’t you
hush
me! It’s alright for you! You have more money than you know what to do with.
You
are not about to be turned out of your home!”

“And neither would you be if you had accepted my offer.”

She paused, staring at him. “What offer?”

“Thorncote in exchange for my hand in marriage,” he said simply. “I believe I made it perfectly clear that I was willing to help you set this place back on its feet but that I want something in return.”

“You are already getting a return . A very good rate of return,” she pointed out hotly.

“It will be a number of years before Thorncote is paying me the interest you offered me. I want something else while I wait.” She stared at him and he smiled, spreading his hands.

“A bribe,” she said caustically.

“I wouldn’t
quite
put it that way…”

She bent over and tidied all the escaped weeds into the bucket.

He watched her, waiting. “Well?” he asked, inclining his head, a gentle smile on his lips. “Do we have an agreement?”

She straightened and picked up the bucket, walking towards him. She looked him straight in the eye. “I told you before that I am not one of your whores. I am not for sale, my lord.”

She brushed past him onto the gravel path and he rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“What do I have to do to get through to you?” he complained.

“You have done enough already,” she flung at him over her shoulder. “You have ruined my life!”

“Hardly.”

“You have!” she cried, yanking on a buttercup root with all her might. “You have taken my father’s estate away from us so that we are forced to split the family up and move away―no, let me finish! You have refused to help us with Thorncote so that we may keep it for ourselves and have given us three months to leave. Look at these gardens! How am I supposed to look after them on my own? And the house? And the farm? How can one woman set to rights the mismanagement of twenty years? I cannot do it alone. I can’t. And I asked for your help but you were too selfish to give it because you never consider anyone but yourself. And so I watch as day by day my home rots around me. And you come here expecting me to joke with you when you have shamed me in front of my neighbours by saying that you wished to perform the marital act with me and now you are holding a ball which has taken such a hold over my sisters that I cannot get a sensible word out of them from morning until night!”

Where the tears of Lady Emily had left him unmoved, even irritated him, he found the angry tears of Miss Blakelow upset him to such a degree that he had come forward while her tirade was in full flow and laid his hands upon her shoulders, intending to pull her into his arms.

But she shook him off, slapped his hands away and glared at him, levelling the fork at him as if it were a weapon. His closeness unsettled her and she stumbled away from him until several feet of bare earth existed between them.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

He held up his hands and backed away. “I was merely trying to offer you comfort, that’s all.”

“Well I don’t need comfort from you. I don’t want anything from you, do you understand me? Ever!” she cried and choked on a sob.

“Perfectly,” he replied stiffly.

“I never want to see you again as long as I live. You have brought nothing but misfortune to my door. I wish I had never laid eyes on you!”

There was a long moment of silence while his eyes scanned her face as if looking for confirmation that she really meant the words which had just left her lips. His jaw worked, a muscle ticked angrily in his cheek. “Very well, ma’am,” he said coldly, “as you wish.”

Miss Blakelow put a hand to her mouth, watching his broad back as he walked away, and the sobs came. She put out a hand to call him back, to say that she did not mean it, but he had gone.