by Darcy, Norma
She gave him a sideways look. “Flirting with me, my lord?”
He smiled. “A little.”
“And have you practised that speech all morning?”
He shook his head in mock censure. “For shame, Miss Blakelow. Has no-one ever taught you how to accept a compliment?”
“A compliment from your lips does not sit well, my lord. It has rather a too studied an air to be convincing.”
“My word, you speak your mind to me as you wish, do you not ma’am?” he marvelled. “You might wish to know a man before you condemn him merely on the say so of others.”
“I rather think that you forged your reputation with your own hands, my lord. No-one forced you into the life that you have led and you cannot blame anyone but yourself if people judge you by your actions.”
“And whatever happened to ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’? I would have thought that a fine Christian woman like you would have a little compassion for a man who has lost his way?”
“You have not lost your way, my lord. You chose the route that you have taken. You came into your inheritance far too early and you had no-one to check you. That behaviour is allowable in a boy of eighteen but not in a man of nine and thirty.”
“Please, Miss Blakelow, do not, I beg of you hold back,” he replied, a distinct hint of annoyance in his voice. “Why not say what is really on your mind?”
“Because if I did, you would not help us with Thorncote,” she said bluntly.
He stopped and stared at her for a long moment and just when she thought he was about to lose his temper, he burst out laughing. “Frank and to the point, Miss Blakelow. I swear that I have never before met your like.”
“I will take that as a compliment, for I believe you meant it,” she replied.
He shook his head, regarding her with wonder. “I did mean it! You are a truly remarkable woman, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
“You have a way of making me feel five years old again,” he said, still amused. “I am sure my father was the most fearsome man on this planet, but I think that even he could have learned much from you.”
She winced. That touched a nerve. She knew that she deserved it for goading him but it hurt nonetheless. “I have offended you, my lord.”
“Not at all, ma’am,” he said tipping his hat, “but I will take my leave of you. I have spied a beautiful woman and my uncontrollable baser urges force me to her side. Good day.”
He strode away without another word towards a petite woman with a riot of golden curls framing her face. Jane Bridlington, daughter of a retired admiral, she lived in Loughton with her parents. She was seventeen, beautiful and dressed in an extremely fashionable pelisse of blue complete with military style trimmings.
She watched him tip his hat and smile at the girl. So proves my point, thought Miss Blakelow with an inward smile as she watched them converse and the young lady blushed prettily.
Miss Blakelow’s own heart was still pounding at her audacity for goading him as she had done. She would not have dared speak to anyone as she had done to Lord Marcham. But hopefully he had learned his lesson. Miss Blakelow of Thorncote was not a fool.
With a satisfied smile she turned to the path that took her back through the fields and home.
Chapter 6
Lord Marcham was on the verge of walking out.
If he had to endure one more felicitation from the father of a simpering Miss Onthecatchforarichhusband, he would scream.
What in God’s name was he doing here? He never went to these affairs. And he hadn’t been to the Silverwood’s ball in years. It was hot. It was a crush. It was every bit as tedious as he’d remembered. And on entering the room, he was very soon furnished with the knowledge that Miss Blakelow had been correct, and news of his supposed engagement to Lady Emily Holt was spread far and wide.
He had been congratulated by two persons whom he had no recollection of having ever met before in his life, clapped on the back by several of his friends demanding to know if they might have his mistress now that he was about to be leg-shackled, and when the woman in question, Lady Emily Holt, arrived half an hour later, she started visibly at the sight of him, stared miserably at the floor and would hardly meet his eye. He made it his mission to inform as many people as he could during the course of the evening that no such engagement existed and told himself that he did not care if her reputation was ruined in the process. He moved purposefully towards his fiancée, determined once and for all that he would make her publically deny all knowledge of an engagement between them, but she saw him approach and made good her escape before he could work his way through the crowd to her side.
The suspicion that news of the engagement had been spread abroad by Lady Holt was confirmed when he overheard that lady discussing bridal clothes with a group of her friends, declaring that the Countess of Marcham would have no cause to fear that any daughter of hers would turn up to her wedding dressed like a pauper. Marcham, goaded into incivility, muttered that she might dress up like a queen if she chose but that he would not be there to see it.
He reached for a glass of champagne.
Damn and blast Thomas. His information was sadly mistaken. Mr. Edridge had told him that the Blakelows would be in attendance that evening. And for something to do, he’d come along, telling himself that an evening out was what he needed to dispel his gloomy thoughts and that dancing with pretty girls was much preferable to an evening spent alone in his library with nothing for company other than a book.
He saw Lady Emily stand up with a young man in a wasp-waisted coat, and she moved across the floor as gracefully as a butterfly. The smile she turned up to the gentleman was truly something to behold. The lucky gentleman glowed.
The earl frowned. She never looked at me that way, thought his lordship, watching her with a sudden blinding insight. Was the chit in love with George Holkam?
Damn. How had he missed that? Was he losing his touch?
“March!” cried a voice at his elbow as a hand slapped him on the back.
“Don’t you dare,” muttered his lordship.
Thomas spread his hands innocently and laughed. “Don’t what?”
“Offer me your congratulations.”
“Well I was going to ask you if it were true,” he confessed. “Is it?”
“No,” snapped the earl.
Mr. Edridge grinned. “Well I thought as much. Couldn’t ever see you willingly going up the aisle…thought it was all a hum. Told my friend Jim as much when he tackled me on the subject last week. So how have you managed to get yourself engaged when you don’t wish to be?”
“Mothers. Two of them. Hers and mine.”
“Oh, lord.”
“Quite,” agreed Marcham, gloomily.
“So dance. Dance the night away with as many pretty girls as you can find.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The earl turned. “Because I’d rather hack my arm off with a razor than endure another peal of false congratulations over my impending nuptials.”
“March, don’t be a fool. Flirt outrageously with every other girl here. Make her cry off.”
“I need to go home.”
“Home? How can you talk so? Do you know, Rob, I swear you have become middle-aged. Shocking as I know that must sound, but I feel it my duty to drop the hint to you.”
“I am middle aged,” muttered his lordship, somewhat dismally contemplating this admission.
“Well, I never thought to hear you say that! What has happened to the man I grew up with? What happened to London’s most infamous rake?”
“He grew up.”
“Oh, tosh! You, my friend, are bored. You need a new flirt.”
His lordship groaned.
“You do! A pretty face, a kiss or two, the promise of a little dalliance would put the ink back in your quill…there! The yaller-haired chit in the white gown by the door. Isn’t she the most heavenly creature? Even you canno
t be unmoved by such beauty.”
Lord Marcham turned to inspect the vision his friend had described to him. “She is, I will own, a pretty girl.”
“A pretty girl?” repeated Mr. Edridge. “What is wrong with you, man? She’s ravishing.”
“But,” drawled his lordship, bored with the whole subject, “distinctly un-ravishable. One requires a ring for the fourth finger of her left hand to indulge in any of the activities currently occupying your mind, Tom.”
His friend grinned. “No harm in trying, is there?”
“If you have a mind to be leg-shackled before the week is out, by all means try. I won’t stand in your way.”
“Now March, come out of the doldrums, do. Such a sweet natured girl. Anne or Amelia or Amanda or some such. I have to confess I wasn’t listening to her name.”
His lordship looked faintly amused. “Yes…they are distracting, aren’t they?”
Mr. Edridge choked on his champagne. “You needn’t pretend that you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’m not pretending anything of the sort,” replied the earl smiling. “I merely point out that you seem unduly hypnotised by her…er…natural assets.”
“And you’re not?” demanded Mr. Edridge.
“I am able to remember her name at any rate,” countered Lord Marcham with a smile.
“Which is?”
“Miss Annabel Crosbie.”
“Lord…they’re almost worth getting hitched for.”
“Almost,” agreed the earl, “but not quite.”
“So speaks the rake.”
His lordship smiled. “I retired from that game quite some time ago. Didn’t you know?”
“Well that’s what they say to be sure. But no-one believes it. Julius told me and I could scarcely stop laughing.”
“It’s true,” the earl protested.
“Have you tired of women? The thrill of the chase? The chance of a kiss behind a husband’s back? Don’t you miss the excitement?”
“Not in the least,” replied his lordship, “and I don’t miss being thrown naked out of a lady’s bedchamber when her philandering husband returns unexpectedly to town either. That I can quite happily live without.”
Mr. Edridge grinned. “I heard about that.”
Lord Marcham sighed as if in pain. “Everyone heard about it. I was climbing out of a bedroom window in nothing but my breeches. I don’t think there was a soul in London who did not hear about it.”
“Were you foxed?”
“Extremely.”
Thomas laughed. “Poor March. And was she worth it?”
His lordship shrugged. “It was enjoyable enough while it lasted.”
“So where’s the problem?”
“There is no problem.”
“Then why have you announced your retirement?”
“Because it’s no longer enough…not any more. Not for me, anyway.” Marcham looked away. Why had he given it up? Because he was bored. Because a pretty face, despite what Miss Blakelow might think, was agreeable enough, but when a woman could not hold a conversation with him, or give as good as she got, or make him laugh, his ardour rapidly cooled. He had begun to question his life; his days filled with the business of running his estates and his evenings with no more taxing a subject on his mind than which coat to wear to dinner. Something was missing. He was lonely.
“But you cannot expect me to believe that you have vowed to a life of celibacy?” said Mr. Edridge.
The earl looked at his friend as if he had developed a second head. “Now, Tom, you are stretching the realms of possibility too far.”
His friend grinned. “Then how?”
“Marriage, dear boy. I am of a mind to get myself a biddable wife who will see to my every whim.”
Mr. Edridge looked taken aback. “Marriage? But I thought you just said you didn’t want to be engaged?”
“Tom, you numbskull, I said I don’t wish to be engaged to Lady Emily. It is not the fact that I am engaged, but the woman to whom I am affianced and the manner in which it came about that irks me.”
“Yes, but…marriage? You?”
Lord Marcham sipped his champagne. “One must provide an heir Tom, and I only know one way of doing that.”
“But you’ll be bored―I’ll lay you odds that you tire of matrimony within a month.”
“Possibly, but I plan to take extreme care in my choice.”
“Lord,” breathed Mr. Edridge.
The earl looked amused. “I was thinking of Jane Bridlington. What say you to her?”
Mr. Edridge blinked at him and his eyes sought the trim form of Miss Bridlington. “Well, she’s pretty enough I suppose and if you like her, March…but don’t you find her a trifle…dull? How you could prefer her to Lady Emily, I don’t know.”
Lord Marcham’s amusement grew at his friend’s studied air of indifference. “I thought you were fond of her.”
Mr. Edridge shrugged nonchalantly as his eyes settled on the young lady in question. “I am fond of her. We enjoyed a little flirtation…of a sort. She grew clingy though. Stuck to me like a leech. Be careful there, March, the parents will have you up the aisle if you even look in her direction. The Lord and Lady Holt are nothing to it, mark my words.”
“I don’t doubt it. And on the subject of the Holts, you did some damage there Tom, with Lady Emily, I mean, if you but knew it. I think you raised expectation in that lady’s breast, if not her parents’.”
“I consider myself fortunate to have escaped from such an alliance. Look at her with Holkam, staring up at him with those doe eyes of hers. It makes me sick to watch them.”
“Did you never think it was an act?” asked the earl softly.
“An act? To what end?”
“To make you jealous as hell, Tom.”
“Me? Jealous?”
“She’s punishing you.”
“No, no…you’re way off there, March. Only look at the way she stares up at him. She’s quite obviously in love with him.”
His lordship shrugged and set down his champagne glass. “Well then. If you’re not interested, perhaps I should make Lady Emily an offer?”
“If you wish it,” replied his friend stiffly, downing the rest of his own champagne in two gulps.
Lord Marcham turned away to hide a smile. Thomas was looking a trifle bosky, his eyes were glazing over and his countenance was flushed. His lordship had no doubt that Lady Emily’s determined flirtation with Mr. Holkam was the cause.
“Marianne Blakelow is what you might call, in your style,” offered Mr. Edridge.
Lord Marcham’s eyes strayed from the demure features of a voluptuous dark-haired beauty he had been admiring on the other side of the room and focused on his friend. “Blakelow? Related to Miss Georgiana Blakelow?”
“The sister, I believe.”
“Indeed? And is she here this evening?”
“Mumps.”
“Mumps?” repeated his lordship blankly.
“The younger brother has it.”
“Oh.”
“They were worried that Marianne might have it too so they stayed away this evening.”
“I see. And Miss Georgiana Blakelow? Is she here?”
“Thoroughly Moralising Miss? Lord, no. She doesn’t ever come to occasions like this. Far too beneath her.”
“You don’t like Miss Blakelow?” asked his lordship.
“She makes me want to drop to the floor and say a thousand hail Marys and I am not even Catholic. She terrifies me.”
His lordship smiled. Truth be told, she terrified him too. That is, the disapproving glint in her eye when she looked at him, as if she had just trodden in something unsavoury, the feeling that he would never be good enough to meet her exacting standards and the feeling that she had very deliberately set him at a distance as if she were handling an extremely explosive substance and needed to establish a containment area.
He’d only come to the wretched ball in the vague hope that she would be there too. His eyes
skittered around the room, over milk and water misses and mother hen chaperones and he wished that she were there. Someone to share a joke with, that delicious moment where their eyes would meet after he’d said something outrageous, merely to shock her or to force her eyes to his. Something about her intrigued him and he wasn’t entirely sure that the feeling wasn’t mutual. He looked amongst the dowagers and the chaperones and saw again what he already knew; that she was not present. Acknowledging within himself a mild disappointment, he decided that he needed to drown his sorrows in drink to get through the evening.
He was distracted from his thoughts by the sight of Lady Emily Holt standing momentarily on her own with her back to him. In a trice he had left his friend and re-appeared at her side, grasped her arm none too gently and frog-marched her out onto the terrace.
* * *
“I did not mean to do it,” whispered Lady Emily, staring at the floor, her great blue eyes swimming with tears. “Indeed, I am very sorry, my lord, but when Mama asked me if you had made me an offer…I couldn’t tell her that you had not after all the expense…bonnets and gowns and slippers. Father would have been so disappointed in me…”
The rest of this speech was lost as her tears choked off her ability to make coherent speech. Lord Marcham took out his handkerchief and impatiently thrust it at his fiancée.
“You don’t wish to marry me, do you?” he demanded.
She shook her head, dabbing her eyes.
“No…nor I you. I don’t wish to offend you, my lady, but I don’t think we’d suit.”
“No,” she whispered, forlornly staring out at the Silverwoods’ garden, shrouded in darkness but for the lanterns that were strung prettily across the paths.
“Was it your parents who spread this abroad?”
She nodded.
“But why me?” he asked. “There are any number of eligible men in this county who would make you a much more suitable husband than me. I wouldn’t let any daughter of mine marry a man like me, Earldom or no.”
“You are of noble birth and good family. You are also extremely rich. Father’s estate is mortgaged to the hilt. We are not as well off as we appear.”
“I see,” replied Lord Marcham. “A woman who wants my money to save the family estate. Now where have I heard that before?”