The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) (33 page)

Cautiously he pulled the pistol from his pocket and made his way through the house, his body tensed, listening for sounds of life. A distant clock chimed the hour.

He heard voices. He moved towards them. He pushed open the dining room door and saw a scene of carnage. Sir Julius Fawcett lay on the floor, bleeding from a shoulder wound, his face as pale as the face of the moon. Blood seeped across the expensive carpet beneath him like a spill of Bordeaux.

“Boyd, don’t mind me, go after her!” hissed the wounded man, gripping the other man’s shoulder. “Bring her back!”

“I cannot leave you, sir,” replied Mr. Boyd, crouching at his master’s side with a pile of towels.

“If we lose her again I will personally rip you limb from limb,” said Sir Julius, grimacing with pain.

“You will do no such thing, Julius,” said Lord Marcham icily from the doorway.

Sir Julius Fawcett looked up as the earl entered. “March,” he murmured as Mr. Boyd plied towels to the wound. “The bitch shot me.”

“Perhaps you deserved it.”

“She can’t have gone far. Boyd, go and bring her back.”

“But sir, you’re bleeding―”

“Go after her or you’ll be looking for new employment.”

Lord Marcham raised his hand and levelled his pistol at the chest of the manservant. “Mr. Boyd, might I suggest that you remain where you are?”

Mr. Boyd looked warily at the pistol, then at the pal
e face of his master and finally back at his lordship.

“Quite so,” agreed the earl, reading the man’s mind to a nicety. “You’ll be much better off following my orders. What price loyalty, eh Ju? You once warned me not to trust my servants.”

“What the hell do you mean by pointing that pistol at me?” demanded Sir Julius, his forehead sticky and shiny with sweat. “Don’t you remember who saved your life on the battlefield?”

“Oh, spare me.”

“You owe me March,” gasped Sir Julius. “You owe me this!”

“I owe you nothing. I have more than paid my debt to you over the years and you know it.”

“Boyd! Get me up! I’ll go after her if you lack the courage.”

“By all means,” replied the earl. “And we’ll watch you bleed to death all over this expensive carpet.”

“You don’t know what she’s done to me! You don’t know what she is.”

A muscle pulsed in his lordship’s jaw. “On the contrary, I know precisely what she is.”

“She’s done for me, March. The bitch has done for me.”

“You’ll live,” drawled the earl.

“You don’t understand. She took my boy from me, Rob. She stole him. He’s my only son.”

“So I understand. And I know where your boy is.”

There was a silence.

“I beg your pardon?” Sir Julius coughed and blood welled up in his wound.

“I know where and who he is. And I will tell you.”

Sir Julius stared at him as if he could not believe his ears. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I want something in return,” said Lord Marcham, calmly pulling out a chair and straddling it. He laid the pistol down on the table.

“What? I mean, how would you know? You’re bluffing.”

The earl folded his arms along the back of the chair. “Not in the least. I’ve seen him. He’s a fine lad.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

His lordship smiled. “You don’t. You’ll just have to trust me.”

His friend raised himself painfully onto his elbows. “Go on.”

“Imagine, if you will, Captain Clayton, a naval man who moved his young family out to the West Indies to make his fortune. He had two daughters, the eldest of which he married off to the son of a plantation owner. Unfortunately the lady died giving birth to the couple’s child. The bereaved family wished to return to England, and changed their name. Imagine a young girl of sixteen, arriving in England with her baby nephew and her sickly mother. They have little money and little knowledge of England. Where would they go? But to relatives of course. The mother had a brother, a Mr. Thorpe who lived in London. But Mrs Thorpe was not keen on her sister-in-law and soon the lady, let us call her Sophie Crane, found a new husband. Sir William Blakelow, although a man of many failings, he was father to a brood of young children and was looking for a mother for them. He was willing to take young Joshua into his house and the daughter, Mary. There they lived until the mother’s death a few years later. Sir William, by this time in dire financial straits, had no choice but to ask Mary and the little boy to leave. Reluctantly she returned to her uncle. He agreed to give her a season, to launch her into the ton and achieve a good match. Here she took her mother’s Christian name and her grandmother’s maiden name and Sophie Ashton was born into being. She formed a friendship. A friendship with a young widow, whose husband had died in battle and who yearned for a son.”

“Who?” Sir Julius breathed.

“She gave the little boy into the lady’s care.”

“
Caro
? I don’t believe it…I mean why would she take him on? How do I know he’s mine?”

“Only look at him Ju,” replied the earl caustically. “He’s got your damned hideous nose for one.”

Sir Julius laughed and coughed and blood gurgled.

“Boyd?”

“Yes, my lord?” the man said over his shoulder.

“Have you sent for a doctor?”

“Sir Julius wouldn’t let me.”

“Might I suggest you see to it and with all possible haste?”

“Yes, my lord,” he replied, running from the room.

Lord Marcham knelt by his old friend and made a fresh swab from a clean towel and pressed it against the wound.

“All I ever wanted was to do right by him, March.”

“So you hounded his young aunt halfway across the globe?” demanded the earl.

“I was obsessed with finding him. I was a little obsessed with her too. I admit it,” he croaked. “I wanted to possess her, make her mine. Well,
you
know.”

“No, I don’t.”

Sir Julius grimaced. “I loved her, in my own way. But then love grew to hate. Does Caro know that you’ve told me?”

“Not exactly.”

“So it is to be our secret.”

“Yes. But I want your promise. I want you to promise me that you will give up your pursuit of Miss Blakelow, Miss Ashton and Miss Clayton and whoever else she may have been in the intervening years. I won’t stand idly by and watch you make her life a misery any longer. Do you understand?”

“You take her side against me? Such old friends as we are?”

“Were, Julius. Past tense. Any man who can treat a woman as you have done is no friend of mine. I want your promise that this is the end.”

There was a silence.

“Julius?”

“Alright,” said the man, wearily laying his head back against the carpet.

“In writing,” insisted his lordship. “And you won’t do anything to take Caro’s boy away?”

“No. But I would like to see him.”

“Well, that would be a start.”

2 years later

Holme
Park, Worcestershire, Winter 1819.

It was early and still dark. Lord Marcham had not been aware that he had fallen asleep in the chair in his library until he was awoken by someone vigorously shaking his arm.

He started, sat up abruptly and almost immediately felt a pain in his neck from sleeping with his head at a strange angle. He grimaced and put a hand to the stiff muscles in his shoulders. The room was icy cold and he shuddered. His butler went to close the window and his lordship groaned and blinked his bleary eyes.

“What time is it?”

“Six, my lord.”

The earl stretched and yawned loudly. “What is it, Davenham?”

“A message, my lord, from Thorncote.”

“What message?”

Mr. Davenham produced a note. His lordship recognised it as the letter he had found on his desk the previous evening and had left unread. “Miss Marianne Blakelow had it sent over late last night with one of the stable hands. He said it was important.”

“Take it away, Davenham.”

“But my lord―” protested the butler.

“Take it away, I say,” muttered Lord Marcham, reaching for the bottle of brandy.

His faithful servant was quicker and moved the bottle out of his master’s reach.

The earl scowled at him. “Damn you, William, give me that back.”

“You have had more than enough, my lord. I think Miss Marianne is in trouble―”

“And what makes you think I give a fig for the Blakelows’ troubles?”

“Because I’ve known you since you were in short coats, my lord.”

His lordship groaned. “Give me back that bottle.”

“No, my lord. You may have coffee.”

The earl narrowed his eyes. “Oh, may I?” he said softly.

Mr. Davenham swallowed hard but returned his master’s gaze steadily. “Open this letter. Please, sir. I think that there is trouble at Thorncote.”

“There is trouble
here
!” protested his lordship. “A man cannot get a glass of brandy in his own home.”

“The letter, my lord.”

“Oh, give it here!” snapped the earl impatiently and snatched the note from his butler’s outstretched hand.

“Well?” asked Mr. Davenham anxiously as his master read the missive.

“Young Jack has a fever,” replied the Earl, standing swiftly. “Damn it, man, why didn’t you give me this last night?”

Mr. Davenham opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it.

“Coffee, my lord?”

“No, damn you. Have my curricle brought around in fifteen minutes,” snapped the earl, striding across the floor. “And send for Dr. Judd immediately and direct him to Thorncote with all possible haste.”

“Yes, my lord. Is it bad, Master Robert?” asked the butler.

The earl wrenched open the door, his jaw clenched tight. “Just do as I say.”

“Yes, my lord.”

* * *

Marianne was at the boy’s bedside when the Earl arrived at Thorncote.

He went up immediately to her, entering the room with a soft knock on the door. The room was in darkness save a single candle burning low in its socket and a meagre fire. The slight figure under the covers shifted listlessly, a sweat upon his skin, his eyelids fluttering at the inner torment which burned him.

Marianne turned and saw him. “My lord,” she said quietly, rising from her chair by the bed. “You came. Thank you. I knew that you would not fail us.”

The earl moved forward towards her. “How is he?” he asked as he clasped her outstretched hand.

“Delirious. He knows not where he is. He keeps asking for Georgie.”

Lord Marcham took a step towards the bed and looked down at the boy’s pale and sticky countenance. “I have sent for Dr. Judd; he should be here directly. If ever a sawbones could be trusted, it’s hi
m. He fixed my brother’s broken leg and brought me and my siblings into this world.”

“You are too good. Thank you, my lord. Only―” she broke off and bit her lip.

He turned to look at her. “Yes, Miss Blakelow?”

“It would be so much better if Georgie were he
re. She knows just what to do. I am hopeless without her,” said Marianne in a rush.

His eyes slid from hers. “Well, that is not possible. You will have to content yourself with me and Dr. Judd, I’m afraid.”

She wrung her hands and looked at them. “But if she
could
be brought to us…”

“Not unless you are possessed of a gypsy’s crystal ball and can see where she is,” replied his lordship, laying a hand upon the boy’s hot brow.

“I
know
where she is,” Marianne said softly.

The log in the hearth spat suddenly and a shower of tiny orange sparks burst and glowed and fell to mingle with the grey ash. Lord Marcham did not move a muscle. The silence was deafening. His lordship felt as if his heart had just been rent in two.

Marianne swallowed hard but pushed on regardless. “Georgie wrote to me last Christmas. She missed Thorncote so much that she said that she could not help herself. She signed herself Honoria Wakeham or some such name, and pretended to be a distant relative of ours but the things she wrote about were only such as Georgie would know. And so we struck up a correspondence. She wrote to ask about my brothers and sisters and if Thorncote was to be saved. She missed us.”

The earl got to his feet, now staring at her, his eyes intense with some wild animal light. “Indeed?” he asked.

She bit her lip. “I know that you are angry―indeed, I think that you must be.”

“Angry? Angry that she misses everyone but me? Why should I be?” he flung at her.

She was chastened by his tone, the quiet vehemence, and the harsh lines of his features. “I, only, knew where she was,” she assured him hastily. “She dared not trust the knowledge with anyone else. Not Jack, not William… not even Aunt Blakelow and she tells her
everything
. She couldn’t take the risk that they would let it slip where she was so she bade me promise to keep her whereabouts a secret.”

“From me, you mean?” he demanded.

She bit her lip but made no answer.

“Oh,
that
I can readily believe. I have proven myself to be so
very
untrustworthy after all,” he snapped.

“I’m sorry, my lord. We didn’t mean to deceive you.”

“You didn’t think it might be kind to tell me that she was alive at least?” he demanded.

“She made me promise that I would not tell anyone. And you seemed to not want to talk about her―”

“Oh, that’s alright then,” he muttered, his eyes crackling with anger. “You didn’t think to tell me that she had found a new home. You might have spared me the bother of a sleepless night or two, at the very least.”

“She didn’t want you to go after her,” said Marianne, wringing her hands and unconsciously making matters worse.

“
That
much I had gathered.”

“Dear Lord Marcham, don’t be angry with me,” she begged, big moist tears filling her eyes.

He paused, struggling for mastery over his feelings.

“I’m not angry with you,” he said at last. “I’m angry with her.”

“She knows that she hurt your feelings―”

He laughed harshly. “Oh, really? Whatever gave her that notion?”

Marianne lowered her gaze. “Will you go to her and bring her here? Ned is in London with William and that horrid Thorpe woman he married and I have no one else I can ask, save John and I know he would go, only I don’t like to ask him on account of his knee being so very painful. I would go myself but I dare not leave Jack. Dear Lord Marcham, can my troublesome family ask of you one more favour?”

The earl walked to the window, his back to her so that she might not see the expression on his face.

“Where is she?” he asked, hating himself for the question.

“
Bath.”

He nodded. Of course. A town full of rich gouty old men on their last legs for her to fleece of their money.

“Will you go?” she asked.

He turned around at last and came towards her. “I will go for you and for Jack, but she may rot in hell for all I care.”

* * *

Lord Marcham made the journey to
Bath in record time, telling himself that speed was of the essence because the boy needed his sister. Had anyone accused him of being in a hurry to see Miss Blakelow, he would have been angry, he would have vehemently denied it; he was there for Marianne and little Jack.

He left Thorncote immediately for
Holme Park, ordered his travelling carriage to be brought around and by eight o’clock he was upon the road, his mind, if not his heart, focused on the task at hand. A distance of less than seventy miles separated Holme Park from the shabby genteel spa town that was his destination, and stopping to change horses only when absolutely necessary, and with the scant remains of a recent snowfall still on the ground, he made London Road, Bath by early evening by which time it had been dark for several hours.

His coachman pulled up before the York House Hotel and his lordship alighted, travel weary, hungry and thirsty. He took a tankard of ale in a private parlour, made a good dinner, and put off the moment of confrontation for a little bit longer. As the new set of horses were led into their traces, he looked up at the sky, grey and thick with cloud before climbing aboard once more for the short journey to the address given to him by Marianne. He glanced swiftly up at the townhouse as he jumped down onto the road, surprised that Miss Blakelow could affo
rd to reside in such a house. He was expecting―well, he didn’t quite know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the smart, elegant townhouse he saw before him.

He knocked at the front door and told the footman that he was a gentleman come to see the lady of
the house. He dared not give his name for fear that she might flee the house by a back window rather than see him. But he was most clearly a gentleman, and the footman, reassured by his air of quiet authority, admitted him. He was shown into a small, plain drawing room, sparsely and simply furnished, but pleasing nonetheless.

The earl walked to the window and looked out at the street and his carriage which was standing before the house ready to take them both back to Worcestershire. In vain did he try to calm the jitters that seemed at that moment to have taken possession of his stomach and set it trembling with the dancing of butterflies.

The door opened and he turned, bracing himself for the moment their eyes would meet as if fearing that it would fell him to the floor, steeling himself against the urge to take her into his arms and bury his face in her hair, to feel her bosom against his, their lips melding as one.

He saw staring back at him, the frank and surprised features of his sister.

“Robbie!” cried the lady.

“Caro? What the devil are you doing here?” he asked, visibly stunned.

“I
live
here,” she replied laughing and coming towards him.

He shook his head as if trying to shake it free of some impenetrable mist. “I don’t understand,” he said as she took his hands in hers and kissed his cheek.

“Julius and I came to an arrangement. I always had a desire to live in Bath, and he helped me achieve my aim.”

“I knew you were moving but
―since when?” asked Lord Marcham.

“Christmas.” Mrs. Weir looked at him amused. “Who were you expecting to see?”

He swallowed hard. “Miss Blakelow.”

“I see. And what makes you think that you would find her here?”

“I am sent here on an errand from Marianne,” he said and told her the story of Jack’s illness.

“I am grieved indeed to hear it,” she said. “But Miss Blakelow does not receive visitors.”

“Not me, at any rate,” he agreed, somewhat bitterly.

Mrs. Weir regarded him with a steady eye. “Robbie, how can you talk so? You made it perfectly clear that you never wanted to see her again. I taxed you on the subject any number of times and you were resolute. You
professed you had much rather get shot at again by the Frenchies than spend another minute in her company. Honestly, Robbie, if you still entertained feelings for her, then why the devil didn’t you say so?”

He impatiently slapped his gloves against his thigh. “Can we come to the point? Does she live here or doesn’t she?”

Caroline smiled and sat down. “Shall I ring for tea? Or would you prefer something stronger?”

“Caro, I have no time to lose. My horses are waiting on the street below to carry Miss Blakelow to Thorncote. Please have the goodness to tell me where she is.”

“How stern you are Robbie,” she marvelled.

Lord Marcham ground his teeth. Christ, did everyone know where Georgie was but him? Was he the only fool completely in the dark?