The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) (5 page)

She swept from the room and was half way across the hallway to the front door when she realised that by deliberately goading her to lose her temper, he had avoided completely the subject that she had gone there to discuss. Determined not to let him off the hook so easily, she spun on her heel and walked back to the library.

Lord Marcham was still where she had left him when she walked back into the room. He looked up as she entered and a ghost of a smile flickered on his lips. “Miss Blakestocking…not one easily put off your purpose, I see. What a pleasure it is to see you again…and so soon.”

She tapped her foot im
patiently against the floor. “You will allow me to tell you that I find you―” She broke off, suddenly realising that giving full rein to her temper was hardly likely to get her what she wanted.

“Yes?” he goaded softly. “Do go on.”

“No.”

“You were about to
say despicable, shallow and dissolute.”

“No I was not,” she bit out through gritted teeth.

His eyes twinkled. “My manners are deplorable, are they not?”

“My Lord Marcham, will you
stop
?”

He gave a low laugh. “As it seems that you are determined to say what you have come here to say, despite my best efforts to put you off, won’t you please be seated Miss Blakestock
―Miss Blakelow? I will call a truce and then we may try and be friends.”

“You have made a lifetime career from fleecing men of their property, have you not?” she demanded.

“I thought we had agreed to call a truce?” he murmured.

“Do you have any notion what
impact your actions have on the families of those men?” she asked, ignoring him.

He shrugged. “I might, I suppose, if I were to put myself to the trouble.”

“But you don’t because it bores you,” she flashed, her temper still high.

“No, I don’t because I know that those gentlemen were just as keen to fleece
me
of
my
property,” he replied calmly. “I doubt they would have given me a moment’s thought as they took up residence at my table. The difference, my dear Miss Blakelow, is that
I
have rarely been foolish enough to gamble away anything that I wanted to keep.”

“So you feel no guilt?”

“Why should I? If they are stupid enough to gamble away the future of their wives and children then that is their affair.”

“My father lost a great deal of money to you eighteen months ago.”

“I believe he did.”

“And my brother lost yet more money to you trying to win back his father’s losses.”

“He was foolish enough to attempt it, yes.”

Miss Blakelow’s bosom heaved. “I am here to tell you that we have no more money left to pay you. Thorncote is all we have left and if we sell that to pay you what we owe then we have nowhere to go.”

There was a silence.

“I am truly sorry to hear it, Miss Blakelow. Allow me to offer you my sympathies.”

“And what do you imagine I am to do with those?” she demanded. “Do you think your sympathies will provide a home for my brothers and sisters? Do you imagine your sympathies will console my brother at the loss of his inheritance?”

“I
am
truly sorry for your loss,” he repeated. “But I say again, your father gambled away what he had no right to. You should be venting your anger at him, not me.”

“Oh, I do, I can assure you,” she retorted. “Not a day goes by when I don’t wish he were alive so that I could tell him exactly what I think of him.”

“My dear Miss Blakelow―”

“But there is something you can do as reparation.”

He gave her a tight smile. “Forgive me, ma’am, but I do not feel the need to make reparation.”

“Oh, you are a selfish creature!” she cried. “Do you care for anyone besides yourself?”

“Not really, no.”

“
Then I am sorry for you,” she declared.

He looked somewhat taken aback. “
Sorry
for me? Why should you be indeed?”

She shrugged. “Because it is clear to me that you must be an extremely unhappy man. Lonely too.”

The earl got up abruptly and walked to the window, turning his back on her so that she could not read his face. “Don’t presume to know me, Miss Blakelow,” he said in a completely altered tone, and one which made her flinch.

“I don’t
want
to know you,” she answered. “All I want is your assistance.”

He turned towards her in amazement. “My God, you speak your mind true enough, don’t you? Well, go on then. Let’s have it.”

She took a deep breath. “I have never been close to my father. In fact it has been many years now that I have considered him one of the most foolish men I have ever known. Shocking is it not, to speak of one’s father in such a way? But he drove his wife to an early grave and he gambled away practically everything we owned. The money, the silverware, paintings, sculptures…everything. The house is an empty shell.” She looked down at her hands. “Much of my mother’s jewellery was sold years ago to pay for his debts and it is only thanks to her, who hid a little of her own property that we have anything of hers left. But, that is not getting me to the point, is it? I know that you have issued us with instructions to leave before the end of the month and you will not find us difficult to remove when the time comes; we honour our father’s debt to you even if he did not.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

She looked down at her hands. “W―what do you plan to do with Thorncote once we have gone, sir? Will you sell it?”

“I had not yet decided what I want to do with it,” he answered.

“Yes…I suppose you have…
other
…things to think about,” she mused aloud, staring off into the distance.

His lips twitched, coaxed at last out of his ill humour by this blithe comment. “Indeed? And what might those
other things
be, Miss Blakelow?”

She stared back at him, refusing to rise to his bait. “I―nothing. The Thorncote estate has
been mismanaged and deprived of money for years. It is good farming land and used to make a tidy profit when my grandfather was alive. But it has been allowed to go to seed and I do not think you would get a very good price if you sold it in its present condition.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps, but any money I get from it would still be an addition to my coffers.”

“Yes but it could be so much more,” she said eagerly. She opened her leather case once more and took from it a sheaf of papers. “See here. This was the income in the last year of my grandfather’s life. It is good land, my lord; it can be made profitable again.”

“This is all very laudable, but I don’t want to bring it back to profitability. I lack the will, you see. Let the man who buys it from me do that. I just want shot of it.”

“Then let me do it.”

He frowned. “What exactly are you asking of me?”

“Don’t take Thorncote from us. Let my brother stay in possession of the estate and let us repay the debt to you from the profits. We can work out a schedule. Every month we will make a payment to you, with interest, until the debt my father owes you is paid off.”

There was a long pause while he considered her offer. He looked over at her and folded his arms. “My dear Miss Naivety, have you any idea how much money that is?” he asked softly.

She stared at her hands. “I imagine it would be a sizable amount,” she said in a low voice.

He laughed harshly. “Yes, ma’am, it is a sizable amount,” he said with sarcasm. “You would be paying me back into the next century.”

She swallowed hard. “Well we could do it. I know we could.”

“I admire your industry, Miss Blakelow, truly I do and your courage too for coming here to explain your idea to me. But it won’t fly.”

“Why won’t it?” she demanded, a pleading note in her voice. “My father’s estate manager, Mr. Healey, is a superb man and has a great deal of experience in these matters, if only he had not been hamstrung by my father’s bleeding the estate dry.”

“And there you have hit the nail on the head,” said his lordship. “How do you imagine that these improvements are to be made when you have said yourself that you have no money?”

“Well, I have thought of that. If you could loan us the money...”

Lord Marcham smiled. “How did I know you were going to say that? You are already in debt to me up to your eyeballs, and you want me to lend you
more money?”

“Yes.”

“
And
after you have dragged my name through the dirt,” murmured his lordship. “Go on then, tell me it all. How much?”

Miss Blakelow pulled another piece of paper from her case and handed it to him.

He looked from the document to her face. “Why so conservative? Why not ask for double that amount?” he asked softly.

She flushed. “Well I did think of it,” she confessed. “But I did not think you would give it to me.”

“No,” he replied. “And you were right.”

“But sir, if you would but look at the figures. I can guarantee you a very good rate of return. It represents a very good investment for your money. And with the added bonus of turning a bad situation to good account.”

“My dear Miss Blakelow, no.”

“But sir, if you had allowed Mr. Healey to come and explain it all to you―”

He held up a hand. “Spare me from the rigours of farm technology, I beg of you. I cannot think of anything more tedious. Now, is that all?” He had moved towards her when he said this.

“Do you wish to keep the paperwork in case you change your mind?” she asked.

“No, ma’am, I do not,” he replied, slowly shepherding her towards the door.

“Why do you not come to Thorncote and see for yourself?” she asked, clutching at his arm. “If you were to see the land, smell the earth, you would know that it is a special place.”

His lordship relinquished the sleeve of his coat from her clutches. “I am very busy, Miss Blakelow.
Carousing
, you know, takes up all my time.”

“And you have not the slightest interest in helping a family whom you are soon to turn out onto the streets?”

“Don’t play the guilt card with me, young woman, it won’t wash.”

She bit her lip. “My lord, I beg of you…we have nothing else.”

He sighed heavily. “Look, I can help find you another place, somewhere that is more within your means…if that would help? And I would take that offer if I were you, for I never do anything for anybody if I can help it.”

“I don’t want to live anywhere else,” she said. “I love Thorncote.”

“You will have to leave there one day when your brother marries…or if you marry for that matter,” he pointed out.

She shook her head. “I won’t marry. And Will has told me that I may stay there for as long as I choose.”

“Yes,” he replied dryly. “And I imagine that the future Lady William Blakelow will adore having her husband’s sister running the place. Don’t be such a goose. You will have to leave and that is right and proper.”

She allowed him to guide her into the hallway. “You will not even consider it then?”

“No, I will not.”

Miss Blakelow turned at the door and offered him her hand. “And do you think Lady Emily Holt would be pleased to learn that her future husband has all night orgies?”

He looked amused. “Blackmail, ma’am?”

“No, I just think that your fiancée should be made aware of what goes on in her future home.”

“Do your worst, Miss Blakelow. I know whose reputation would come off worse from such an encounter and I can assure you it would not be mine. Yes, my girl, how would you explain your presence in my house while such a party was in progress? Neither your widow’s weeds nor your unblemished reputation would be enough to save you.”

“She knows then?”

“I have no idea and furthermore, neither do I care. But I’m willing to wager that she, along with any other female, is more than prepared to put up with it for the pin money I will give her.”

“It sounds a rather dismal contract, this marriage of yours. I hope you may find happiness in it.”

He held out his hand. “Will it do me any good to reiterate once again that I am not engaged to Lady Emily Holt?”

“None at all,” she replied, shaking his hand and pulling on her gloves. “Goodbye then, my lord.”

He bowed. “Goodbye, Miss Blakelow, and I shall look forward to featuring heavily as the villain of your next pamphlet.”

Miss Blakelow picked another plump blackberry from the briars and tossed it into the basket hanging over her arm. It was early September and they had been enjoying a bout of late, warm, sunny weather, a welcome epilogue to the summer that softened the impending approach of autumn.

Now that her father’s estate all but belonged to Lord Marcham, this was in all probability the last summer that she would spend here and these the last of the fruit that she would pick at Thorncote. She picked another berry and put it between her teeth, biting into the sweet black flesh as she tossed the hull away.

She looked out across the rolling hills and back towards the house that she had considered her home ever since she had been a young woman. It had been her belief that she would have spent the rest of her days there and that she would be eventually carried out in her coffin. But on the turn of a card, her future had been remade, as if her life had been thrown into the air and had landed in a jumble. How long could they stay at Thorcote? When would Robert Hockingham come to claim his property? Where would they go then?

Miss Blakelow winced as she pricked her finger on a thorn and took the cut into her mouth to stem the flow of blood. Ten years she had lived here and roamed among these hills and trees and briars. Ten years she had hidden from the world in this, her favourite part of the country.

What a long time ago now it seemed since she had decided to make her home at Thorncote! She remembered her first glimpse of the house and how enchanted she had been by its high gargoyles and gables. She remembered how safe it felt compared to the world she had just left behind. S
he had been a young girl of nineteen, thrust into the glare of London society, without a mother to guide and protect her, and she was very soon cast out again when she had fallen foul of her own temperament and her willingness to love and be loved. Then, when it had all blown up in her face, she had come back to Thorncote, expecting to live out her days there as aunt to her brother’s children and to find some sort of contentment in being useful.

Her one disastrous season in
London all those years ago now seemed as if it belonged to someone else, another person entirely, for she was a different woman now. No longer was she the green girl who had set the ton on its heels. No longer was she the young beauty, who’d had men casting themselves at her feet. She was older, a good deal wiser and well educated to the hypocrisy of men.

Thorncote had been her solace; the big blue skies above had been a balm to her soul and the trickle of the stream washed her girlish dreams away. She considered herself lucky. She’d had a second chance at life and she had grasped it with both hands. She was moderately happy in the life she led. To be sure, it was a safe, undemanding existence and if she did crave a little excitement from time to time it was only confessed in bed at night and when entirely alone.

Now, at the ripe old age of nine and twenty, when she had been considered an old maid for the best part of ten years, her future was about to change again. Who knew where she might go next? Who knew what the future held in store? She had a little money. She had no connections of note (none that would recognise her, anyway). She had to live on her own wits and make her own future as she had once before.

She wiped her juice-stained fingers on the apron around her waist and sighed. Yes, she loved Thorncote and yes, she had her aunt to accompany her, but if she was honest with herself, she was lonely. Her brother was younger and spent much of his time in
London with his friends; her aunt much older and given over to the demands of her ailments. Her younger brothers and sisters were too young to understand her predicament and too old now to need constant attention. She was beginning to feel superfluous; they no longer needed her. It would not be long before they were married with homes and families of their own. And what then for Miss Blakelow? The aging spinster, shunted from one sibling’s home to the next, as unwanted at one as she was at the other. She grimaced at the thought.

How had it come to this, she asked herself? How had all her youthful charm and beauty led her to this impasse? She was not unintelligent, she was not unattractive. Surely there might have been some man prepared to take her on?

She had a lively sense of humour, one that had brought her trouble over the years, but one that she yearned to share with someone; a friend, a confidante. Once upon a time, she had hoped that this mysterious person of her imaginings would prove to be a lover too. She was not ashamed to admit that she had yearned for what every other young woman yearned for—a home of her own, a man to care for, children to love and nurture. But it had been many years now that she had considered that dream to be beyond her reach. Society had put it there; she was too old now to attract any attention, and indeed, she had gone out of her way to acquire a reputation as a bluestocking, a prude and the very pinnacle of female respectability because it had suited her needs. She had made her public persona with her own hands, carefully erecting each brick in the wall that she hid behind. But now that she had achieved it and she was considered by the neighbourhood to be a paragon of Christian virtue, she wanted nothing more than to tear it all down.

She was tired of her mourning clothes. She was tired of her position as governess and chaperone to her young siblings. She was tired of pretending to be something she wasn’t. She was nine and twenty but dressed like a dowager and spent her days mending shirts and teaching her youngest brother his lessons. Society had cast her as an old maid, a woman expected to sit with the dowagers and chaperones at a ball and never expect to dance. She ritually donned the spectacles and the cap of an old maid whenever she was in company because she wished to be invisible. And because now she had begun to loathe the role, she went out into company less and less. Thus, she had become rather a figure of fun locally, known as a recluse, an oddity. Convenient it was, for she wished to keep a low profile, but her vanity reared its ugly head now and again and demanded to wear a pretty gown and have a man look admiringly at her as they once had. Out here, amongst the briars and the long grass and the oak trees that dipped their branches low to the ground, she could shed her public persona and just be herself; the cap and the glasses and the role of the prim Miss Blakelow stayed in her pocket.

* * *

From her position on the rise, she saw a rider approaching the house.

At first she did not recognise the man, thinking him a visitor to her aunt. But when he swung easily from the saddle and looked about him as if calculating the worth of what he saw, Miss Blakelow recognised the tall, powerful frame of Lord Marcham. He turned and walked languidly into the house as if he already owned every blade of grass on the front lawn.

Miss Blakelow, torn between hope that he had changed his mind and anger at his arrogance, hurried back down the path towards the house. In the hall she handed her basket to the butler, one of the few remaining servants they could afford to keep at Thorncote since her father’s death.

“Lord Marcham is visiting with your aunt in the parlour, Miss.”

“Thank you, John.”

The servant discreetly coughed and directed a pointed stare at her blackberry stained apron.

She smiled and untied the bow at her waist. “Not fit to be seen, am I John?”

“You are without your glasses, Miss.”

“Oh yes, thank you.” She fished in the pocket of her gown for the hated spectacles and put them on. The cap followed, smothering her mass of red-brown curls under its frills until not a wisp of hair could be seen. Tying the white cotton strings under her chin, she was almost instantly transformed, and wondered not for the first time, how society was so easily duped by her simple disguise. It had served her well over the years and she was not about to undo all her hard work by giving in to vanity in a weak moment. She sighed, satisfied that she had once more assumed the role of prim Miss Blakelow of Thorncote and moved towards the door.

His lordship was standing by the fireplace when she entered the room, a cup and saucer in his hands, looking as if he were having a tooth pulled. His eyes shot to her face as she opened the door and for a moment he looked so intensely relieved by her arrival that she was amused. Her Aunt Blakelow was keeping him up to date on the latest health discoveries she had made when she was last in Bath. These had been many and by the look on his lordship’s face he was looking desperately for a means of escape. He set down his cup and saucer and bowed, opened his mouth to greet her but his words were drowned out by her aunt’s unstoppable tide.

“…mustard plasters are the thing for that… and of course I do recommend the waters at
Bath for the gout, you know,” remarked the elder Miss Blakelow. “They taste quite awful but I believe it to be very beneficial to a man suffering from that affliction. Do you suffer from gout, my lord?”

His lordship looked so much taken aback by this very direct question that Miss Blakelow, softly closing the door, was hard pressed not to laugh.

“Er, no ma’am. I am fortunate enough to be in the possession of excellent health,” he replied.

“Hmm. Well I wonder at it,” continued Aunt Blakelow. “From all I hear, it is a wonder to me that you are not riddled with it. Drink and idleness are the enemies of a gentleman, you know. A man should be busy. And if he cannot keep himself busy then he should find other things to occupy his mind and his time.”

His lordship, wrestling with the urge to give this impertinent woman a much deserved set down, happened to glance at Miss Blakelow and saw that she was extremely close to laughter. She was so in danger of losing control that she resolutely refused to meet his gaze and a devil lurked in his own eyes at the thought that he would overset her gravity if it took him the rest of his visit to do it.

“Oh, I have no difficulty occupying
my
time,” said the Earl and darted a swift look at Miss Blakelow to see how she bore it.

She did not mistake his meaning; women, drinking and all night orgies. A gleam stole into her eyes. “I think my aunt meant
philanthropy
,” said Miss Blakelow.

“I am sure she did,” he murmured. “But I am
very
philanthropic. I provide a good living and plenty of work for those under my roof.”

“Plenty of work, sir?” she asked, meeting his eyes through the thick glass of her spectacles.

“I have needs, ma’am.”

“Indeed?” she choked.

“I have a large estate and there is much to be done. My dear Miss Blakelow, whom else did you suppose me to be speaking of?” he asked innocently.

“An idle man may very easily give into corpulence,” said Aunt Blakelow at this moment, unconsciously rescuing her niece at that moment as she adjusted the arrangement of her considerable bulk upon the sofa.

“So may an idle woman,” murmured his lordship softly and had the satisfaction of hearing a choke of laughter emanate from the other side of the room.

“Remember that,” said Aunt Blakelow, waving a finger at him. “But I hear that these days they can do much with corsets, although they are prone to creak just when one wishes that they would not. Mr. Grantham wears one and you can hear him enter a house before ever he has been announced. You might consider corsets when you have a need of them, Marcham.”

“I’ll bear them in mind,” said his lordship.

Miss Blakelow, much amused by the thought of his lordship in a corset, was moved to take a firm hold on her bottom lip with her teeth and went to sit by the fireplace, narrowly missing upsetting the tea tray on the small table.

“How does your mother do?” her aunt asked without hearing his answer. “Dear Lady Marcham, such a fine woman and such excellent taste. I have often remarked upon it that one rarely finds a person with a better eye for colour than the Countess. I haven’t seen her in an age. Pray, does she not live up at the Dower House?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied. “She likes to divide her time between
Longfield Park and town.”

“
London is very well for entertainment, but I dare swear one grows tired of it after awhile. Come and sit by me, young man,” invited Aunt Blakelow, patting the sofa beside her.

Lord Marcham, who had not been called young man since he was in short coats, resisted the urge to let fly the retort that sprang to his lips. This imperious, forthright woman was fast making him lose his temper and Miss Blakelow was laughing at him for it. The words of his friend Sir Julius Fawcett came back to him and he decided that the biggest punishment to an uptight bluestocking who had little experience of men was to be the object of the attentions of a notorious rake. He smiled inwardly, took the offered seat by the spinster aunt and sipped his tea.

“You are a well looking man…although no longer in your youth,” remarked the elderly Miss Blakelow. “How old are you?”

“Nine and thirty, ma’am.”

“Well, you don’t look it. Oh, yes, I might be in my dotage but I can still appreciate a pretty face.”

“Thank you,” replied his lordship, meekly.

“Although you are rather too tall to be considered handsome. Your fiancée is a tall woman, I take it?”

Lord Marcham took the remark with a tight smile. “I have no fiancée.”

“Lady Emily Holt.”