by Darcy, Norma
He shrugged. “Since I realised that there are a great many days in my life spent far too foxed to achieve anything meaningful. Whole weeks have passed which I can honestly say that I do not remember a damned thing about. A life of idle dissipation, even for such a wastrel as me, ceases to hold any fascination after twenty years of it.”
“Gentlemen in your line do not retire,” she said firmly. “And you may think it is amusing to pull the wool over my eyes, Robbie, but I am not Sarah and not as green as you may think.”
He laughed, spreading his hands. “It’s true.”
She gave him a knowing look. “And who was that blonde piece I saw you with last week if you are retired?”
He grinned ruefully. “I was merely making myself agreeable.”
“Hmm,” said his sister, clearly believing it all a hum.
“I do not have a mistress,” he repeated, “and I have no immediate desire to change the situation. And really, sister, it is most improper in you to speak to me of such things.”
She arched a brow. “Lady Harwich?”
He sighed. “Lady Harwich returned to her husband a number of years ago. Your information is sadly out of date.”
“Mrs Brandon?”
“You have been listening to gossip,” he marvelled.
“Miss Susan Hartcourt, then.”
He smiled but made no answer.
“Ah. I knew it!”
“You’re not listening to me, sister. I have no mistress,” he said again.
“And is your heart still untouched after all these years?” she asked softly.
He smiled, his grey eyes twinkling. “Dear Caro, always the great romantic.”
“I would see you in love, Robbie.”
He pulled a face. “You would see me make a cake of myself,” he retorted.
She took his arm and led him over to the other window, out of earshot of their mother. “Don’t throw yourself away on Lady Emily. Be patient.”
“I would say twenty years is patient enough, wouldn’t you?”
She stared at him. “What’s happened to you? You are so jaded.” She stole a glance at her mother and lowered her voice. “I think you’d rather read a book these days than…well…rather than make love!”
He looked at her with amusement from under his hooded lids. “Sister, you shock me,” he murmured.
“I am a married woman of the world―well, widowed at any rate―and you Robbie, were never shocked by a little plain speaking so don’t come the outraged prude with me. When was the last time you looked at a woman and wanted her? I mean really wanted her. You are bored. Bored with women and bored with life.”
He smiled faintly. “But never by you, my love.”
“Oh, don’t listen to me then. Marry this girl if you wish, but don’t blame me when it blows up in your face.”
“You are only saying this because you wish to see me wrapped tightly around someone’s finger so that you can then laugh at my misfortune. And you will wait in vain for that. You found love; you were happy in your marriage and no-one was happier to see it than me, but don’t lecture me. I am old enough to make my own decisions.”
Caroline stiffened. “And how can you be so certain you will not live to regret them? You may meet with someone anywhere and you will have thrown yourself away on Lady Emily Holt.”
“Then where is she?” he asked, spreading his hands wide. “Where is this paragon? I have waited for her long enough. No, it is time I married. I need an heir. Emily is my choice and I would ask you and Mama and Sarah to respect my wishes…especially Sarah, as she is of all of you sisters the busiest in my affairs.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Have you heard her news, by the way?”
“Yes. Wonderful news.”
“If she has a son do you think she will name him after me?”
“What sort of a name is Lucifer for a baby?” Caroline asked with an innocent look.
The Earl of Marcham snorted in amusement, made his goodbyes and sauntered down the steps of his mother’s home in restless mood. By no means certain that he was about to make an offer for Lady Emily, his mother’s outrage at his choice had provoked the devil in him and he had found himself declaring an interest in the girl when he had not entirely made up his own mind on the subject.
Yes, he found her attractive. Yes, she was a kind and generous woman and he had no doubt would make him a splendid countess. And yet…
And yet something about the thought of it sent a chill down his back. He had always hoped for a love match, but as the years went by, the chances of such a union seemed increasingly unlikely. He was well off and personable and he had little difficulty attracting women. What bothered him was that he might have been sixty-five with a bald head and a liking for raw onions and corsets and they still would have pursued him. He was rich and he was painfully aware that most women of his acquaintance (well the respectable ones, anyway) were as much in love with his purse as they were his person. The love match that his sister had found was what he wanted and he had all but given up on ever finding such a match for himself.
So let it be Lady Emily Holt. Or Amelia Connaught. Or any of the other respectable women of Worcestershire. He cared not.
* * *
The woman’s mother irritated him, the earl decided as he sipped his tea.
The over-attentive, almost fawning desire to please, rubbed him on the raw. She was like a spider, spreading her web out wide to catch him.
He was given the best chair, or so she told him, and the best tea served in the best china. He watched Lady Holt, a plump vacuous woman, titter on the edge of her chair, praising the accomplishments of her eldest daughter and he felt an overwhelming desire to run in the opposite direction.
Lady Emily sat opposite him, looking demure and shy and hardly raised her eyes to his face. He found himself wondering idly if she would be the image of her mother in thirty years’ time.
The earl had travelled from his mother’s estate to the Holt’s residence, expressly to decide once and for all whether he was to make an offer. Emily was pretty; petite and voluptuous with blonde artificially curled hair and a small mouth that simpered rather than smiled. He wondered if she had put on her best dress for him. He wondered if her mother made her life a misery in private. He wondered if Lady Emily would rather marry the devil himself than him. He looked at her closely, trying to detect any warmth in her expression as her eyes rested upon him. Was she being forced into this match by her mother? And if he married her, would he find her a dutiful but unenthusiastic contributor to the more intimate moments of wedlock?
He set down his tea cup and suggested that Emily show him the rose garden that he had spied from his curricle.
The mother beamed. The daughter blushed and looked sick.
A shawl and a bonnet were fetched, and soon the Earl of Marcham, the most notorious of men, was alone with the eminently respectable Lady Emily Holt.
“You have been away, my lord?” she stammered as they pushed open the gate into the rose garden.
He nodded. “To see my mother.”
“And is she well?”
“Yes, I thank you.”
A silence fell, and Emily blushed and looked away.
“Do you know why I am here?” he asked.
She turned fuchsia pink. He found himself irritated by her blushes; her lack of worldliness, her die-away airs. He had been about for a good many years and had seen more than his fair share of blushing virgins. Many had set their snares for him and many had failed to entrap him. Lady Emily Holt and her dreadful mother would have to try a good deal harder if they were going to land him.
He smothered a yawn as she turned towards him.
“You are here to visit my poor Mama and indeed we are grateful for your kindness,” she said.
“My kindness?” he echoed. “Pray what have I done to deserve your gratitude?”
“You have taken an interest in us, even though you circulate in considerably more fashionable circles than ours. We are si
mple people, my lord.”
He doubted that. Her father was an earl, albeit an impoverished one, but they were still an old noble family and not so poor that they could not afford to put on a show for a prospective son-in law.
“And yet that is a very fashionable gown you are wearing, Lady Emily.”
She shrugged a pretty shoulder, pleased with the compliment. “Oh, this old thing? I have worn it for an age.”
“I’m sure I would have remembered if you had…Emily…may I call you Emily?” he asked, touching her arm. “I wish to know…are your feelings engaged? Forgive my candour, but I must know. You and Thomas…is everything entirely at an end between you?”
Lady Emily Holt paled and looked at her hands. “Mr. Edridge has…has decided that I am not…I mean he has…other interests.”
“I see.”
There was a silence.
Lord Marcham watched her face, trying to read her feelings. But she was so calm and pale that he could not detect any signs of her heart having been touched. He tried another approach. “Thomas tells me that you are merely friends. He said that you have told him that it was all a mistake and that you had no feelings for him beyond that of a brother. Forgive me, I do not wish to give you pain, but I have to be certain.”
Lady Emily Holt raised her chin. “I won’t pretend that you do not perfectly understand the circumstances, my lord. Mr. Edridge has…has toyed with my affections. He is nothing more than an acquaintance to me now.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Then…I mean…would you do me the honour…?”
“Yes?” she replied breathlessly, staring wide-eyed up at him.
He froze. The words stuck in his throat. Somehow he could not do it.
“Would you do me the honour of escorting me to the lake? I have a fancy to see it.”
“Of course,” she replied demurely, as she led the way along the path.
* * *
“Well, child, well?” asked Lady Holt as soon as his lordship had driven away.
Emily blushed and looked down at the floor. Her mother came towards her and took her face between her hands. Emily lifted her eyes.
“Well, child? Has he asked you?” Lady Holt demanded.
The young woman knew what it meant to her mother. She knew that the new gowns and bonnets had all been for his benefit. Her mother looked at her with such a sense of expectation that Emily felt trapped. To let down her family after such expense, to be a disappointment to the people she loved so well―she could not do it.
“Oh, Mama,” she began.
Lady Holt beamed. “You are engaged then? Tell me Emily, is it true?”
She stared at the floor.
The mother shrieked with joy.
Chapter 2
“Have you seen this rag?” drawled Sir Julius Fawcett, crossing his booted ankles and resting them against the edge of the table.
Lord Marcham cast a disapproving glance at his friend and reflected that pristine white table cloths should be absent from the table whenever Sir Julius Fawcett joined him for breakfast. He looked at the paper being waved at him without interest. “No, what is it?” he asked, carving himself another slice of ham.
“A sermon. At least it might as well be.”
His lordship reapplied himself to his breakfast. He had come down to London on business to stay at his town house and Sir Julius, on finding that his old friend was back in town, immediately accosted him at a very unfashionable hour. “Are you taking up religion at last, Ju?” his lordship asked.
Sir Julius shuddered and set the paper down. “Perish the thought.”
“Then would you like a slice of ham or sirloin instead?”
His friend waved it away impatiently with a look of distaste. He was an extremely thin man who never seemed to eat, a fact that contrasted strongly with Lord Marcham’s legendary appetite. Sir Julius was a good ten years older than his friend and had spent much of his youth abroad, his family having made their money in sugar in the West Indies some years before. Somewhere along the line, the Fawcetts had earned respectability by marrying into the aristocracy, and Sir Julius, the grandson of the union, was now as much a part of the English nobility as Lord Marcham himself.
Sir Julius rubbed his spectacularly long nose. “It’s another one of those pamphlets, March. You surely must have heard about them? Every drawing room has one.”
“Really? Not mine,” murmured his lordship over the rim of his tankard.
“You will be pleased to learn that you feature in this one―well, she doesn’t actually mention you by name, but anyone may guess who she means.”
“She?” repeated the earl. “And who is she?”
“The author…a Miss Blakelow.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Well she has definitely heard of you,” said Sir Julius.
“Everyone has heard of me, Ju,” murmured his lordship without a hint of conceit. “My youthful…er…adventures, have made me infamous, you know.”
“It’s called ‘The inexorable pursuit of earthly pleasures by the moneyed classes and the consequences upon the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.’”
Lord Marcham raised his eyes from his plate. “Catchy.”
“Isn’t it, though?” agreed his friend.
“Are you dining with Hugh this evening?” asked his lordship in a valiant attempt to change the subject. “I thought that I might go to Whites.”
“She condemns your morals,” said Sir Julius. “She says that a man in your position should know better.”
“Indeed?” The earl yawned and cut a sliver of ham from the slice on his plate. “And who is Miss Blakelow to question me or anyone else?”
“’A woman with the highest moral principles,’ or so it says here.”
“A veritable saint then,” replied his lordship when he had swallowed his mouthful. “But I don’t answer to Miss Blakelow or her following.”
“And she has a following,” muttered Sir Julius gloomily, turning over the publication in his hands so that he might examine the back of it. “She must be making a pretty penny from all this too.”
“Good for her.”
“March, I do not think that you are taking this at all seriously,” complained Sir Julius. “Damn me if you ain’t a little too relaxed about the whole affair.”
“She is making money from peddling gossip. In my view that makes her no arbiter of moral excellence. I’ll wager she has achieved notoriety by sensationalising the same old stories that have been regurgitated continually since I was eighteen.”
“Oh, no, she’s done her research. She seems to know an awful lot about you.”
Lord Marcham fixed his rather hard grey eyes upon his friend. “Research? What research?”
“She knows about the duel.”
His lordship rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows about that.”
“No, the other duel,” said Sir Julius with a meaningful look.
There was a short silence.
“The other…how the devil―?”
“Exactly. See? I told you. She knows things. And now all of society knows about it too.”
The earl snatched the pamphlet from his friend’s hand.
“Third page, second paragraph,” said Sir Julius helpfully, a hint of triumph in his voice.
There was a silence while his lordship read the offending piece, a frown between his brows. “Devil take her.” he muttered under his breath. “Who is the woman anyway?”
“I told you,” said Sir Julius with some irritation. “Miss Blakelow. Don’t you ever listen?”
“Yes, I heard you the first time but that does not tell me who she is.”
“She knows things,” said his friend ominously.
“But I’ve never even heard of the woman…wait…Blakelow, why is that name familiar to me?”
His friend stared at him. “Her father was your neighbour, Rob.”
“Was he? Damned if I can remember.”
“Sir William Blakelow. Gamester
and profligate and that description could equally be applied to either the son or the father. Seems to me that the daughter knows your business and if I were you, I would look to my household.”
The earl threw down the pamphlet. “What do you mean?”
“Ten to one, your servants have been blabbing what they shouldn’t.”
His lordship shook his head. “My servants don’t blab―not if they wish to retain their positions in my house. Besides, they don’t know anything.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Sir Julius gloomily. “They have a way of knowing everything.”
“Well mine don’t…not everything.”
“You may say that, but somehow she knows about the Diana Ingham affair and I certainly didn’t tell her.”
A gleam of annoyance stole into his lordship’s eyes. “Does she indeed?”
“She knows you covered it up and that you went to great lengths to do it.”
The earl pushed back his chair and flung down his napkin on to the table. “Can I not eat my breakfast in peace?”
“I’m telling you March; you will have to take her to task. Pay her off or something.”
“Pay her off?” repeated Lord Marcham. “I will not.”
“I will lay odds that she’s writing another one.”
“Let her. Who is she that she dare question me?”
“She says, and I quote, that she is hell bent on ‘exposing the corrupt attitude of the nobility and their belief that any woman is fair game.’ There. Did I not warn you? This chit is a troublemaker.”
“You don’t say.”
“Have you and she…you know? Had relations?” asked Sir Julius.
The earl pulled a face. “Hardly, when I can barely remember her name.”
“That never stopped you before,” his friend pointed out helpfully and received a glare for his trouble. “She’s a jilted lover of yours looking for recompense.”
“She is not a jilted lover of mine,” insisted the earl.
“Did you get her with child? You needn’t glare at me like that, March. It’s not exactly impossible, is it? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if you had a brat or two come out of the woodwork,” said Sir Julius, pulling forth his snuff box. “You’ve ploughed a field or two in your time.”