The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series)

by Darcy, Norma

  “Where is the place? What is it called? Do I know it?”

  “I doubt it. It’s a pretty enough little estate with a fair sized house. Thorncote, owned by Sir William Blakelow junior, currently to be found losing money hand over fist at the faro table. A boy so wet behind the ears he has not the sense to know when he’s about to lose his inheritance.”

  “Lord, not that chubby blonde fellow who puts me in mind of a goat? Always bleating that you murdered his father or some such nonsense.”

  “The very same. His family are about to be turned out of their home and all he cares about is cutting a dash―and, I may add, squaring up to me.”

  “Blakelow…Blakelow…why is that name familiar to me?” mused Sir Julius.

  Lord Marcham smiled. “Your pamphlet.”

  “Eh?”

  “’The immoral Lords of Worcestershire and their pursuit of buxom lovelies in the bedroom’–or whatever that thing was called.”

  Sir Julius Fawcett gaped. “Not her?”

  “Miss Blakelow, author and arbiter of moral excellence.”

  “Well I’m blowed,” breathed the other man.

  “Would you believe that she came to me asking for my help?” said his lordship. “The gall of the woman quite took my breath away. She wanted me to lend her money―a lot of money―and this after she had dragged my name through the mud. I said no, of course.”

  “What does she look like? Is she as horse faced as we feared?”

  The earl made no answer but reached for the coffee pot to refill his cup.

  “You dog, March!” cried Sir Julius, laughing. “You dog!”

  His lordship merely smiled.

  “I knew it! I knew that you wouldn’t let that pamphlet go unchallenged! You had to have your revenge somehow and now you will take her home from her―but what will you do with the family? You cannot turn them out onto the street, Rob.”

  “I understand that the younger Blakelows have relatives living that they can call upon for assistance…so what do you think?”

  Sir Julius shrugged. “It sounds as good a place as any. And close enough that you can keep an eye on Hal.”

  “That was precisely my thinking. I think he’s a little low in spirits as one might expect after such a loss.”

  “Did he love Mary then?” asked his friend, looking surprised.

  “I don’t think love came into it. But she was his wife, after all.”

  “And what may I ask, are your plans for Miss Blakelow?” asked Sir Julius with a grin.

  “Miss Blakelow…is to live with me.”

  A pale eyebrow rose. “The devil she is…with you? As your wife, my lord, or as your mistress?”

  His lordship smiled. “Miss Blakelow does not approve of me or my ways.”

  “I see. Then I fail to see how you can assume that she will live with you. You can kidnap her, of course, but I hardly think that behaviour of that sort will be tolerated in this day and age.”

  “I will do whatever it takes―what in God’s name is that racket?” said the earl as sounds of hysterical female voices were emanating through the thick walls from his hallway.

  “Robert?” cried an imperious voice. “Robert Louis Edward Phillip Hockingham. Show yourself this minute!”

  “Oh, Lord,” murmured the earl, throwing down his napkin, “what on earth can she want now?”

  “I imagine,” answered Sir Julius, leaning back in his chair as one preparing to be hugely entertained, “that your mother has heard of your imminent engagement.”

  “Robbie? Are you in there?” The door was thrown open and the Countess of Marcham stood upon the threshold, a picture of outrage in purple silk, a shawl around her shoulders that grazed the floor and a bonnet of such vast size upon her head that her son rather marvelled at her being able to get through the door. She fixed him with her fulminating glare, her ample bosom heaving with indignation. “There you are. What, may I ask, is the meaning of this?”

  “The meaning of what, Mama?” asked his lordship, dutifully rising to his feet.

  “Your engagement,” she said with almost violent passion. “Another one!”

  “Won’t you sit down, ma’am?”

  “Don’t you try that flummery with me! Tell me at once, is it true that you have made an offer for that…that Blakelow creature?”

  “You may not choose to sit down, but I have not finished my breakfast, so you will forgive me if I continue with my toast.”

  “Answer me!” she said coming further into the room, leaning heavily upon her parasol that looked as if it might well give up under the weight it was forced to bear.

  “Yes, it is true,” her son replied calmly.

  “Are you not aware that she is the author of that…that rag?”

  “Precisely what I said,” put in Sir Julius helpfully.

  “Are you not aware that you have been most viciously maligned?” demanded her ladyship.

  “As the stories are for the most part true,” replied Lord Marcham, “I rather think she is guilty of nothing more than dredging up my past―disagreeable though that may be.”

  “You defend her?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Who is this woman that she should dare to criticise you? A poor nobody, that’s who. And you make the woman an offer? I thought you had lost your mind when you announced your intention to marry Lady Emily Holt, but at least she had breeding! A Miss Blakelow? Nobody had ever heard of her before she wrote that…that drivel! Who is her father, pray? Who are her family? Are you expecting to go up in the world with this alliance?”

  His lordship gave up on his toast and pushed back his chair, allowing his eyes to coolly assess his enraged mother. “No, ma’am, I am expecting to be happy.”

  Sir Julius picked up his eyeglass and examined his friend through it. “Happy, do you say?”

  “Happy…yes.”

  “With her?” asked her ladyship. “How can you be?”

  “Because I like her.”

  The countess pulled out a chair and collapsed into it. “You like her?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I like her,” said the earl, looking amused.

  “Define ‘like’, March,” said Sir Julius. “Like as in, enjoy her company, or like as in wanting to take her…er…clothes off…” his voice trailed off as he encountered the chilly stare of her ladyship.

  “Both,” replied his lordship calmly.

  “A woman of no fashion or beauty?” said the countess. “A woman with no connections or expectations or title? A woman, in short, who is so far beneath your company that she is not fit to shine your boots?”

  “She is a gentleman’s daughter,” said her son, pushing his chair under the table, “and that is good enough for me. Now if you will both excuse me, I have an appointment in an hour.”

  “Stay precisely where you are, young man!” said her ladyship in a voice that seemed to shake the glass in the windows.

  “With all due respect, Mama, I am a little old to be put over your knee. I am a grown man and will make my own decisions.”

  “Like you did with Lady Emily Holt, you mean?” she snapped.

  His lordship smiled coldly. “That young lady was bait for a trap that I was foolish enough to fall into. She was innocent, I believe, in the schemes which her parents hatched. She was as relieved as I was that the match between us fell through.”

  “And how do you know that you haven’t once again fallen into a trap?” demanded his mother. “How do you know that this Blakelow creature is not another money grabbing harpy who wants you only for your purse?”

  “She has a point there, Rob,” put in Sir Julius, “you have to admit that it is a consideration. Especially as you told me that she was after your blunt to save her family’s property.”

  “There!” said her ladyship triumphantly. “I knew it!”

  “Miss Blakelow is not that kind of woman. She is good, kind and decent. She is also proposing to pay me back for any monies lent to her.” He walked towards the
door. “You may not approve, Mama, but for the first time in my life, I have found someone who makes me smile, someone who’s absence from a room makes me sad, someone whose eyes seek mine when there is a good joke to be shared. For the first time in my life I wonder what it would be like to hold that person when I am old and grey. And that, in my experience, is a most promising start. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go.”

  And with that and stopping only to peck her upon the cheek, he went away.

  “Well,” fumed Lady Marcham, flinging down her parasol. “Well! That is how he speaks to his own mother! That is the son whom I bore into this world and nurtured and raised. Ungrateful boy!”

  Sir Julius looked longingly at the door, wondering how he could get out of the room without appearing rude. “I…erm―”

  “This is how he repays me! This is how much he thinks of his father’s name…of his father’s inheritance! Are that woman’s children to run free at Holme? Is her blood to taint the Hockingham name for future generations?”

  “I…what a fetching bonnet that is, my lady.”

  “And I am just expected to sit back and let him throw himself away on a…a harpy? No and no!”

  “No, my lady.”

  “I will not let that woman wreck my son’s future. I will not stand idly by and let that odious creature take him from us. Oh, no!” said her ladyship, shifting her ample bosom, “she will find out exactly what I am made of!”

  Chapter 12

  Miss Blakelow was busy polishing the copper late one morning the following week when John appeared to inform her that his lordship had called and was waiting in the parlour to take her out in his curricle for a drive.

  The lady’s first inclination was to ask John to inform the earl that it was not convenient and that he should come back again another day. She had started to relay this message to her butler, but on his giving her his look, the one that contained that perfect mix of scepticism and “tell him yourself,” she was persuaded to give it up. She untied her apron, hastily put on the cap and spectacles and went in to the parlour.

  He was standing by the fireplace, talking to Aunt Blakelow when she came in, and Miss Blakelow did not miss the swift but thorough assessment the man gave her figure as she appeared. She lifted her chin, and wrapped her arms protectively across her bosom, but on seeing the gleam of amusement that stole into his eyes, unfolded them again.

  “Good morning, my lord,” she said clasping her hands before her. “Did you have a good trip to London?”

  “Certainly I did, thank you,” he replied. “How do you do? Your aunt has just persuaded me to take you out for a drive and I have to say that I think it a capital idea. It is a glorious day and I have a fancy to see the far side of the lake where there is a grotto, or so I have been told. My curricle awaits, ma’am, if you would send a maid for your shawl and bonnet?”

  “I told you before that I am too busy to drive out with you.”

  “What nonsense. Do you never stop for luncheon? Even paragons of womanly virtue such as you have to eat and I have brought a picnic. Now, what say you to that?”

  “Of course she will be pleased to go with you, Lord Marcham,” said Aunt Blakelow, ignoring the glare she received from her niece.

  Miss Blakelow gritted her teeth. “I don’t wish to appear rude, my lord―”

  “Good, that settles it then,” he replied promptly. “Go and fetch your bonnet.”

  “Do you ever take ‘no’ for an answer?” she complained.

  He grinned. “Not when I want something. I’ll wait for you here.”

  For some inexplicable reason, it took her an age to decide what to wear. It was a warm October day and yet she tugged on a thick winter pelisse because it was smarter than the old cape she habitually wore. She changed her gown three times and ended up back in the one that she had been wearing earlier. She put on her glasses and a hideous bonnet that she had only bought because it completely hid her hair and cast her face into shadow, which greatly added to her strait-laced image. By the time she was dressed to her own satisfaction, it was fully forty five minutes before she finally returned to the parlour.

  “Well,” he said, as she entered the room. He was standing by the window, impatiently slapping his gloves against his thighs. “If this is how you treat your beau, it is not surprising that you have never married.”

  “I don’t have any beau,” she said.

  “No, and I don’t wonder at it. You probably frightened them all away with that bonnet.”

  Miss Blakelow took a firm grip on her temper. “Are we going for a drive, my lord, or not?”

  “Yes, if my horses have not expired through boredom in the last hour. I was beginning to wonder if you had become stuck in your own chamber pot.”

  Aunt Blakelow had a suspicious coughing fit, which sounded very much like laughter.

  “I have not kept you waiting above forty minutes,” Miss Blakelow said, with a defiant toss of her head.

  “Only because you did not have the nerve to keep me waiting a full hour. But I’ll wager you were tempted to try it to teach me a lesson, weren’t you?”

  Miss Blakelow lowered her eyes as a guilty flush stole into her cheeks. “I was undecided as to whether I needed a shawl or a spencer or a pelisse.”

  “So instead you chose that great thick redingote, which I’m sure is just the thing for a freezing winter day…but in the warm sunshine outside, you will be wishing it at Jericho within the space of five minutes.”

  “Have you finished?” she demanded.

  “And when we are married, such a hideous bonnet as that will be forbidden. As will be those spectacles,” he remarked, moving to the door and holding it open for her. “In fact, I may cheerfully burn half your wardrobe and not repine. Good day, Aunt Blakelow. I shall return your niece forthwith.”

  It was on the tip of Miss Blakelow’s tongue to retort in kind, to lash out that he was dressed like a court card, but he looked so immaculate, so elegant and so handsome that the words died upon her lips. He led her out to his waiting curricle and before she had time to set one booted foot upon the step, he had placed his hands on her waist and lifted her high up onto the seat as if she were nothing but a featherweight. Her stomach performed a perfect back-flip as her feet left the ground, or maybe it was because his hands held her so firmly that she felt funny inside. She opened her mouth in surprise and to protest, but before she could form the words he had removed his hands. He looked up at her, a devil lurking in his eyes, daring her to protest.

  “Yes, Miss Blakelow?” he asked softly.

  “Nothing, my lord.”

  A soft smile curved the corners of his mouth as he walked away to the rear of the equipage, said something to his groom and then swung up onto the seat beside her. He took the reins in his gloved hands, the groom jumped onto the seat behind them and in a moment, they were bowling down the drive.

  “And so Miss Blakelow, show me it all.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I do not wish to see the beauty spots that your aunt was pleased to show me the other day. I wish to see the warts.”

  She stared at him as if she could hardly believe her ears. “Do you have a hankering to see an estate in decline, my lord? Do you have a desire to see a property so ravaged of all its wealth by a man trying to pay off a gambling debt?”

  “Certainly I do.”

  “I can show you tumbledown barns in bad state of repair, farmers’ cottages with leaking roofs and rotting crops in the fields because there is no-one left to harvest them.”

  “Then by all means do so.”

  There was a silence.

  “I wish that I could believe you to be in earnest,” she said seriously.

  “I am very much in earnest. How am I to know what is to be done at Thorncote if no-one will show me where the problems are?”

  She flashed him a smile. “Then turn left at the end of the drive.”

  * * *

  “Well, what do you think?” Miss Blak
elow asked him a good while later as they sat on the grass in the warm sunshine by the lake, eating from the picnic basket that his lordship had brought. She reached into the basket and pulled out a pastry, pulling it apart with her nimble fingers.

  They had driven the length and breadth of the estate, inspecting rickety bridges, tumbledown walls and broken fences, talking to the tenants and discussing plans for improvement. Miss Blakelow was cautiously optimistic that she had persuaded him to help at last and stole a furtive glance across at his profile.

  Lord Marcham shrugged and gazed over at his horses, which were grazing nearby, the groom in attendance. “I think that Thorncote is in a very bad way,” he answered.

  “Yes,” she agreed thoughtfully, nibbling a piece of her pastry.

  “I also think that it would take an extremely large sum of money and an army of men to bring it back into good order. And I am asking myself why I should put myself to the trouble.”

  Miss Blakelow stared at him, her temper bubbling under the surface. Put yourself to the trouble, she thought angrily. Yes, it’s much easier to turn your back, isn’t it, my lord? She gave herself a mental shake, took herself firmly in hand; getting angry with him was not likely to get her what she wanted. “Because you will make a tidy profit when the estate comes to the good again,” she pointed out calmly.

  “And what if it does not come to the good?”

  “It will.”

  “What if you disappear to get married and leave the running of the estate to your brother? Who by all I hear is just as hopeless with money as your esteemed father. Who will care about my money then?”

  “I won’t get married,” she said, staring at her lap.

  “How do you know you won’t? You are still young. There are still…opportunities for you.”

  She pulled a face at the thought of being in any way physically intimate with Mr. Peabody. “Thorncote is my home,” she said. “I will live here for as long as I am able.”

  “And what if you fall in love, Georgie?” he asked softly, watching her.

  She ripped apart another piece of her pastry with a scornful laugh. “I have done with love long ago.”