The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) (21 page)

“Only because he cannot be bothered with searching for a replacement for Lady Emily Holt,” said Miss Blakelow. “To be frank with your ladyship, he wants a brood mare to give him a son. And that is…not what I want. He had best look in another direction for his wife and so I have already told him.”

“You are not then in love with him?” asked Lady St. Michael.

Miss Blakelow struggled with the fastenings on her dress. “I…I am not.”

Her ladyship seemed to relax. “And you have no intention of accepting him were he to make you an offer?”

“I have already refused him,” said Miss Blakelow quietly.

“You relieve me, Miss Blakelow. I have to own that you relieve me a great deal.”

“But he will marry one day, my lady, and you had best get used to the fact. He needs an heir and that is something that even
you
cannot give him.”

There was a chilly silence.

“And what do you mean by that remark?” demanded Lady St. Michael.

“That you will not always be the first woman in your brother’s life,” said Miss Blakelow, as she pulled on her boots.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I suspect that you are rather used to having him all to yourself…”

Lady St Michael gave a scornful laugh. “If you say so.”

“…and you don’t like the thought that one day he might choose his wife over you.”

Lady St. Michael simmered with anger. “I want him to be happy.”

“With a lady of your own choosing, no doubt,” said Miss Blakelow, wrapping her cloak around her half fastened dress. “A lady who won’t answer back. A lady who you may order around as you choose.”

“How dare you?”

“Does your brother continually flout your choices for him?” mocked Miss Blakelow, pulling her hair into a bun and thrusting it under the hood of the cloak. “Poor Lady St. Michael. You try so hard to choose him someone you think he should be happy with and drat the man, he’d rather choose his bride himself.”

Miss Blakelow came out from behind the screen, dressed in haphazard style but decent nonetheless. Her appearance would not pass public scrutiny but her cloak hid the unfastened buttons of her gown from view. “I won’t stay in this house with you for another second, Lady St. Michael. I am going home. I will let you explain to your brother the reason why I have gone. Good day.”

* * *

Miss Blakelow found an entrance to the servants’ staircase and yanked open the door. She flew down the rough stone stairs, her hand gliding down the cold steel banister rail, her boots echoing on the steps as she ran. She did not want to be caught by his lordship or anyone else; she was so close to tears that any further confrontation would completely overset her composure.

She followed the stairs down and down until she emerged in a small lobby. The servants’ hall was to her left, the great long table empty, a huge clock on the wall above them, no doubt to remind them that even their leisure time belonged to the master. She sped out of the door in front of her and found herself in the stable yard.

A stable hand was looking at her curiously from one of the stalls.

“Can I help you miss?” he asked, wiping his fingers on his trousers.

“My horse was brought here two days ago, a black mare with a white flash―”

“Down its nose. I know, miss. Were you the lady that had the accident?”

She smiled. “Yes. But I am recovered now and should like to go home. Would you be able to saddle her for me?”

“Right away, miss.”

Miss Blakelow was in an agony that his lordship would find her at any second and ask the reason for her departure. And she could not face him. She could not let him know that his sister had chased her away by reminding her of the things she already knew; Lord Marcham was not the man for her.

* * *

Lord Marcham stood behind his desk in the library, bracing his fists on its surface so that he leaned over it and could look into his sister’s face. “What the devil was all that about?”

Lady St. Michael bristled. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You decide to tell an innocent female one of the choicer stories from my past and you tell me it was nothing?”

“May I remind you, Robbie, that
she
brought it up? She wanted to know the truth.”

“That’s because she had no comprehension of what the truth would be,” he said furiously. “And you took great delight in telling her, didn’t you? I could see it all over your face. No matter that I was barely eighteen and drunk as a wheelbarrow at the time. No matter that I did it for a dare because I was bored out of my brain. Or that I have regretted it ever since. I find it remarkable that those facts never seem to be recounted, just the juicier parts of the story.”

“Oh, poor Robbie. Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?” she mocked.

He paused, a muscle pulsing with anger in his cheek. “What else did you tell her?” he asked her, controlling his temper with an effort.

Her ladyship adjusted the shawl around her shoulders. “I told her nothing that she could not have heard from anyone else.”

“What
else
did you tell her?” he demanded again, more insistently.

“That you gamble and drink and see opera dancers. She needs to know what you are, Robbie. She has some nonsensical notion that you have reformed yourself for her, just as every other female did who ever set up a flirtation with you. They all think they can change you. And they are all wrong.”

He folded his arms and sat on the edge of his desk, staring coldly down at her. “You think that you know me so well, don’t you?”

“I know you better than
she
does.”

“I don’t think you do. You have no
idea
what I want. You have no conception what my thoughts are on anything. The man you have described so exhaustively to her was the man I was ten years ago. You are intimately familiar with my reputation but you do not appear to know
me
anymore.”

“She has addled your brain. Your lust for her has clouded your judgement. You should try thinking with your brain and not another part of your anatomy, for a change. You cannot tell me that you are serious about this woman?” said her ladyship, rounding on him. “Who is she? Who are her family? A second rate baron with a gambling habit? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Why are you determined to ruin this for me?” he demanded.

“Because she’s lying. She’s hiding something and I don’t trust her.”

He rolled his eyes and flung away from the desk. “Just because you don’t remember sledging with her? For God’s sake Sarah, grow up.”

“I was telling the story about how you broke your leg sledging on Thorn Hill.”

“It was Hal who broke his leg, not me,” replied his lordship.

“Exactly!” she cried triumphantly. “Exactly right. And yet she said that she remembered it was you.”

“It’s hardly a crime, Sarah.”

“Do you remember her from when we were children?” Lady St. Michael demanded suddenly.

“I have to confess that I don’t.”

“No, and neither do I. The point is that she lied. She said she lived here all her life and then changed her tune. Why would she do that unless she has something to hide?”

“I have no idea,” he said, flinging up his hands. “Maybe she’s forgetful. I don’t know and I don’t care.”

Lady St. Michael stood up and came towards him and laid her hand upon his shoulder. “I’m only doing this because I don’t want to see you hurt.”

He shrugged her hand away and moved towards the door. “Leave Miss Blakelow alone and keep your nose out of my affairs. I won’t warn you again.”

“You can’t keep away from her, can you?” said her ladyship, her voice rising with hurt and anger and rejection. “Look at yourself, running up to see her like a lap dog. Well she’s gone, so you are wast
ing your time.”

“Gone?” he thundered, pausing with a hand on the door knob.

“She went home the best part of an hour ago.”

There was a silence.

“Why you little―” he broke off, controlling himself with an effort. “I mean it Sarah, leave her alone.”

“She’s not in love with you, Robbie,” said Lady St. Michael as she watched him wrench open the door. “You’re deluding yourself. She doesn’t want you. She told me so herself―”

But his lordship had gone.

Miss Blakelow spent the next few days in a kind of
torpor.

She told herself and her Aunt Blakelow that she was resting; the bruise to her eye made her an unsightly companion and she spent much of the time in her room, reading and pondering her future. She stared listlessly out of her bedroom window, looking at the unkempt gardens with frustration, almost as if she could hear the weeds growing in the late October rain as she languished in her room, wondering what she should do.

His lordship did not visit the day after she had returned to Thorncote, or the day after that, or any time during the week that followed. He seemed to have decided to keep his distance; perhaps his sister had managed to persuade him to drop their acquaintance. Perhaps he had realised for himself that she was unremarkable and was quite prepared to forget her. In any event, she missed him and could not quite fathom why his absence affected her so.

It was two weeks after her riding accident when a travelling chaise appeared at the front door and her Aunt Susan stepped down onto the gravel drive.

Miss Blakelow and her aunt had never been close; it was this aunt who had been reluctantly pushed into bringing her out all those years ago and who was intimately acquainted with everything that had befallen her since. That Aunt Susan disliked her, she knew; that she had only agreed to champion her because she had married the brother of Miss Blakelow’s mother, she also knew. So it was with trepidation that Miss Blakelow reluctantly went down to the parlour where the woman was intimately examining the thickness of dust on the mantelpiece.

The woman had her back to her as Miss Blakelow entered the room and gave her thin smile to no-one in particular. She was a thin woman—all bones and sharp edges, the cheek bones, the beak of a nose, her dark small eyes buried deep in their sockets, an oily curl of iron grey hair sat immovably against her forehead as if it had been dipped in melted butter and had set hard. She was dressed from head to toe in a pewter coloured pelisse of satin, a small mean bonnet with a wilted semi-vertical feather.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding yourself,” remarked Mrs. Thorpe, turning at last to examine her niece. Then she froze. She gaped. She stared. She looked her over from head to toe and could do nothing but blink at her.

“Hello Aunt,” said Miss Blakelow in her calm quiet voice, smiling vaguely at the reaction.

“Good God…”

“Won’t you please sit down? Can I offer you some refreshment?”

Mrs. Thorpe opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again. Her mind drifted back the decade since she had last seen her niece, young, vivacious and beautiful and tried to reconcile that picture with the staid, drab woman who stood calmly before her.

“Well,” said Miss Blakelow with a kind smile, “I have already arranged for some tea, and then you may decide when it arrives.”

“But you…you look so…I would not have recognised you for all the world.”

“I am a little older, ma’am.”

“Yes, to be sure…so are we all…but Good Lord. I would never have imagined…”

“No,” replied Miss Blakelow, “an
d I hope that others do not ‘imagine’ either.”

“But this…I mean, I came here after news reached my ears concerning you, Sophie―”

“My name is Georgiana Blakelow. I would be grateful if you would commit it to memory.”

“Yes…of course.” Mrs Thorpe sat down hea
vily. “Good Lord, if your uncle could see you now.”

Miss Blakelow smiled. “He would be a good deal surprised.”

“He would indeed…”

“And so, Aunt? What is your reason for coming all this way?”

Mrs. Thorpe gave herself a mental shake. “I have come to speak to you on a delicate matter…concerning my daughter.”

“And how is my cousin?” asked Miss Blakelow. “She must be seventeen by now.”

“Eighteen.”

“And…and has she had her come out, ma’am?” Miss Blakelow blushed faintly as she asked the question, the memories of her own disastrous come out was still fresh in the minds of both women and pervaded the air like a stench.

“This season gone was her first,” replied Mrs. Thorpe somewhat awkwardly. “And you may imagine that she was a great success. I hope she may achieve a very good match indeed.”

There was a silence. Miss Blakelow could not help but feel that her aunt was making the comparison. There was no doubt that the young Miss Thorpe would obey her mother’s wishes, even if her cousin had not.

“I wish Charlotte every happiness,” murmured Miss Blakelow.

John then appeared with the tea tray and several moments passed in silence as Miss Blakelow saw to the refreshments.

“It is her happiness which concerns me. It has come to my attention that your brother is on the lookout for a wife,” said her aunt.

Miss Blakelow blinked. “William is four and twenty, ma’am, he is old enough to decide for himself when he wishes to marry.”

“That he may be, but all of London knows that he does not have two shillings to rub together,” said Mrs Thorpe, twitching her skirt over her knee.

“He has an allowance which I believe his mother put in trust for him.”

“Yes, expressly to keep it from the grasping hands of his father,” returned Mrs. Thorpe somewhat acidly.

“Well, whatever the reason,” replied Miss Blakelow in her calm way, “he has a little money for the future.”

“He is on the hunt for a fortune. Surely you must know that? From all I hear, he is well on the way to establishing himself in debtors prison unless he finds himself a wife with means.”

“I know nothing of that. I think that William will marry for love when the time comes.”

“Love? You still prate of love? And where pray, did all that talk of love get you?”

“We are not discussing me, Aunt, we are discussing William, although why he is any of your concern, I cannot imagine.”

“When he is chasing after my daughter, then it is very much my concern,” retorted Mrs Thorpe.

There was a silence.

“I see,” said Miss Blakelow gravely.

“He has been seeing her behind my back. Secret assignations. Meetings in the park, and
Charlotte without even a maid to lend her respectability.”

Miss Blakelow was silent. She had heard from Lord Marcham that William was hanging out after a fortune, but never had she supposed the object of his desire to be Miss Charlotte Thorpe.

“I need not tell you the seriousness of the situation. You may imagine how concerned I am as a mother. And William without anyone to guide him, in short, as much a loose cannon as ever his father was. Charlotte is to come into a considerable fortune. I will make no secret of the fact that Sir William Blakelow is not the man I wish to see her married to.”

“If money is his true object, then very likely someone richer will come along and your
Charlotte will be safe.”

Mrs. Thorpe gaped at her in an expression that always reminded her niece of a trout. “And is that all you have to say?”

“What do you expect me to say?” asked Miss Blakelow, sipping her tea.

“That you intend to do something.”

“And what do you imagine that I may do? I am not William’s guardian. He is a grown man and may marry where he wishes.”

“He may
not
marry where he wishes,” said Mrs. Thorpe, her small pearl earrings bobbing violently under her earlobes.

“Ten to one it is an infatuation that will be over before Christmas.”

“You are mightily calm about it. But then, it would be in your interest to see him married off to a fortune, would it not? Your beloved Thorncote would be saved.”

Miss Blakelow was amused. “My dear Aunt, with all due respect, if William’s object is to save Thorncote, he will need to look for a much richer heiress than your daughter.”

Mrs. Thorpe bristled. “You will do nothing?”

“I can
do
nothing. I have written to him and requested that he come home so that we may discuss what is to be done about our future and that of the girls. When he comes I will speak to him.”

“And when will that be? After he has spent all my daughter’s money, no doubt?”

Miss Blakelow smiled and set down her cup. “That will depend upon whether Charlotte is willing to give it to him,” she said softly.

Mrs. Thorpe turned purple with anger. “Well, I begin to think I have come on a fool’s errand.”

“I begin to think that you might be right,” agreed Miss Blakelow.

“Oh, you are a cool fish, aren’t you? Sitting there with that smug smile upon your lips. Well, you will no longer be amused when you hear what I have to tell you. I could not believe it when I heard the story and having seen you, I believe it even less.”

Miss Blakelow raised a brow in silent enquiry.

“It has been brought to my attention that you have been encouraging the attentions of the Earl of Marcham,” said Mrs. Thorpe.

Miss Blakelow, despite her best efforts, blushed faintly. “Indeed, ma’am?”

“It is being said that you have set your cap at him,” said Mrs. Thorpe, “and that he has set you up as his latest flirt. Now miss, what do you have to say to that?”

“That it is untrue.”

“Do you deny that you have encouraged his society?”

“I deny that I have done it through any other reason than to secure the future of Thorncote,” said Miss Blakelow promptly.

“Has he offered to make you his mistress?” demanded her Aunt Susan.

Miss Blakelow was beginning to get angry and her colour deepened. “He would not insult me by such a suggestion, ma’am.”

“No?” sneered Mrs Thorpe, very, very softly.

Miss Blakelow struggled for calm. “His lordship has behaved towards me in a manner every inch the gentleman. He may have a reputation, but he has not laid a finger on me.”

“He will,” replied Mrs. Thorpe assuredly.

“You know the earl? You are in his confidence?” demanded Miss Blakelow.

“Anyone may know what he wants. I know his type. And so, my girl, do
you
. None better.”

Miss Blakelow became as pale as she was previously red. “You pain me, Aunt, by your language―”

“Do you not remember? Are you so fixated with him that you forget everything you learned? God knows that it is abhorrent to me to speak of that time in your past―”

“Then don’t speak of it,” flashed Miss Blakelow, her eyes blazing.

“Your mother entrusted you to my care―”

“My mother did no such thing,” replied Miss Blake
low coldly.

“And in that capacity, I must counsel you against the folly of courting a man like Marcham.”

“I am not courting him. We are friends.”

“Friends? You cannot be friends with a man like him. Sanity precludes it. Honesty, decency and delicacy preclude it. You must know that a woman who links her name to his, even in friendship, is finished in the eyes of society?”

Miss Blakelow smiled. “It is fortunate then that I am not interested in what society thinks about anything.”

“Do you have no care as to your reputation?”

“I did. As you can see, I have taken great care of my reputation. I have crafted a brand new one to fool society.” Miss Blakelow paused and with a wan smile indicated the clothes she wore. “And now my pristine reputation has replaced the tarnished one I made in my youth. My reputation defines me as Lord Marcham’s defines him―even though we both loathe our public faces. In that respect we are very similar, he and I.”

“Surely you are not foolish enough to believe that he means
marriage
?” exclaimed Mrs Thorpe, her pinched eyes as wide as they could be.

“I believe that his lordship intends to marry someone,” replied her niece calmly.

“Oh, I’m sure he does—he must, at any rate—but
you
?”

“I have the headache, Aunt. I hope you will excuse me but I must go and lie down for a while. I will ask John to bring your carriage to the door.”

“Take a good long look at yourself, my girl,” said Mrs. Thorpe, ignoring this while still seated in her chair.

Miss Blakelow stood and went to the fireplace where she pulled the bell cord. “I have no desire to do so,
however, and I must ask you to leave.”

“You have lost your youth and your looks and much more besides―heaven knows who will take you now. Your course is run, Sophie. You had your chance and you threw it away and now you live upon the charity of a family who are not yours―”

“John, please be good enough to bring Mrs. Thorpe’s carriage to the door.”

“Yes, miss.”

Her aunt stood, but made no move to leave. “I did my best by you. I made you the hit of the season, didn’t I? I promised Mr. Thorpe that I would. I did it for his sake; because he loved his sister so and when she died he wanted nothing more than to see her daughter creditably established. You had gowns and bonnets and lace. You had suitors vying for your hand. You had all of London at your feet. You might have had anyone―anyone you wanted! And how did you thank me? You threw it all back in my face! I tried to see you suitably established with a man of means but you rejected him―”