by Norma Darcy
He took out his pocketbook, withdrew several notes from it, and held them out to her. “I will not assist you in restoring Thorncote to its former glory but I will do this: please, go and have yourself fitted for a new pair of spectacles without delay before you do serious harm to your person.”
She gaped at him as he took her hand and slapped the money into her open palm. And with that he was gone.
CHAPTER 5
THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY, LORD Marcham attended church.
To say that his presence was unusual was an understatement. Miss Blakelow looked over the heads of the congregation to the Holkham family pew at the front of the church where their esteemed neighbor was sitting, seemingly ignorant of the stir he was creating by his presence. She could only see the rear view of him from where she was seated and was trying to detect from staring at the back of his dark head whether he had in fact fallen asleep.
Lord Marcham was not a religious man. He was seen in church at Christmas and Easter Sunday and very infrequently beyond that. His lifestyle was such that merely setting his big toe over the threshold of Loughton Church was enough to have the neighborhood in an uproar, so why he was sitting cool as you please in the front row, surely aware of the interest he was generating and yet apparently uninterested in anything but those words of wisdom that passed the clergyman’s lips, was anyone’s guess. The rector seemed particularly flustered by the presence of his lordship and frequently darted a worried glance at his patron lest he find fault in any of the utterances that were put forth for the moral improvement of his parishioners.
“His lordship has never shown any interest in coming to church before,” whispered her aunt. “Indeed it is rumored that he does not leave his bedchamber before midday.”
“Perhaps our rake has sinned to an alarming degree this week and must seek forgiveness,” murmured Miss Blakelow. “Or perhaps the ceiling fell in on his bedchamber and he was obliged to get up.”
Her aunt laughed quietly. “You are too cruel.”
Miss Blakelow stole another look at the earl from under her lashes. He had raised his eyes to the ceiling and appeared to be examining the dark beams that supported the roof. He wore a bottle-green coat of impeccable cut, and she knew that he also wore pale-biscuit pantaloons and Hessian boots, for she had caught a glimpse of him as he was coming up the path before the service began, at which point she had ducked behind a yew tree to avoid having to speak with him.
She saw the heads of other parishioners bob and roll, and she knew that Lord Marcham’s presence was being discussed by others too. She wondered if poor Mr. Norman’s sermon had been heard by anyone. The service ended and the congregation stood and waited for his lordship to leave the church before filing in behind him like water down a pipe. Miss Blakelow kept her eyes downcast, sensing his eyes on her but refusing to meet his gaze. She saw him chatting to the rector outside the church as people milled around, and she saw him glance at her and take in her appearance, from her scuffed half boots to the large black bonnet upon her head.
Miss Blakelow pointedly turned away, the circumstances of their last meeting still fresh in her mind. She had not used his money to purchase herself new spectacles; in fact, the crisp notes still sat upon the mantelpiece in her bedchamber as she was undecided as to what to do with them. She was looking around for Mrs. Mount, who had promised to give her Aunt Blakelow a ride home in her carriage, when she was startled to find that she was being addressed.
“Good morning, Miss Blakelow . . . Miss Georgiana Blakelow,” Lord Marcham said amiably, with a bow. “How do you do? What a fine morning it is for a drive to church. I really must make the effort to do it more often.”
“Indeed you should, my lord,” returned Aunt Blakelow. “And a pleasure to see you at church, if I may say so? It has been far too long since we have had your company, my lord, too long indeed. But I am sure you are much too busy to attend our church and probably prefer to attend the dear little church at Holme Park instead.”
“If he can get out of bed,” Miss Blakelow muttered to herself, glancing away over her shoulder at a late-flowering rosebush festooned with red blooms.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” asked his lordship, his eyes twinkling.
She was obliged to turn back to face him and their eyes met. “Nothing, my lord,” she replied, although she suspected that he had heard her perfectly well.
“I am glad that I found time to come to church this morning. I am usually . . . otherwise occupied on a Sunday,” he said, regarding Miss Blakelow as a wicked smile hovered about his mouth.
She took his meaning: women, drinking, carousing, or nursing the aftereffects of all of the above. “Indeed?” she replied, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. “Philanthropy, my lord?”
His lips twitched. “Just so, ma’am.”
“They have returned to town then? Your . . . er . . . friends?”
“Friends?” he asked, looking the very picture of innocence but for the laughter in his eyes. “Plural?”
She blushed faintly. “Oh. But I see now that it was not plural. One lady in particular . . . a favorite of yours, perhaps? And is she known to Lady Emily Holt, my lord?”
His lordship regarded her with weary amusement. “Lady Emily Holt, as I know you are perfectly well aware, is not my fiancée. She is a respectable lady and is not in the slightest bit interested in my . . . er . . . philanthropic tendencies.”
“Oh, she is. I guarantee it. If she is betrothed to you, I should rather think that she would be interested in them. She would be unlike any other female I have ever known if she were not.”
“Including you?” he asked softly.
“Undoubtedly. I would not wish to be made a fool of.”
“And if I told you that rumors of my . . . philanthropy . . . had been greatly exaggerated, what would you say then?”
“Merely that you are at church, and it is not seemly to lie before God.”
He smiled briefly. “Very true. But perhaps I am not lying.”
Aunt Blakelow, who had been following this exchange with some degree of confusion, looked at her niece with such an expression of bewilderment that it was all the latter could do not to laugh. “And do you stay long at Holme Park, my lord?” Aunt Blakelow asked in a valiant attempt to bring the conversation back to normality.
“I am undecided,” he replied, flicking a glance at Miss Georgiana Blakelow, who had suddenly become fascinated with the contents of her reticule. “I may return to town within the month.”
“Well, that would be a great shame,” Aunt Blakelow said. “It would be of all things the most agreeable to have the family back at Holme. I remember when you were young, my lord, and your father was alive and all the family was at Holme Park. There were balls and lavish parties and picnics and skating on the lake at Christmas. It seems such a long time ago now. And Holme seems so empty and forlorn these days, but for the servants, of course. Such a shame to see such a beautiful house unloved. Do you plan to return soon, my lord? Oh, but you said that you were undecided, did you not? Silly me! Well, perhaps my niece and I can add our voices to those who wish to see you happily established here?”
“Thank you, ma’am. We will see,” he replied noncommittally.
“Ah . . . there is Mrs. Mount and my carriage ride home. Such a delightful creature but talks ten to the dozen. I can never get one word in from the moment I set foot in her barouche to the moment I step out again. Well, I will take my leave of you. Would you be good enough to escort my niece back to Thorncote, my lord?”
“Oh, there is no need,” said Miss Blakelow hastily, coloring up as she spoke.
Lord Marcham bowed as Aunt Blakelow gave him her hand. “Of course, ma’am, I would be honored.”
“Of course there is a need, my dear,” said her aunt, thinking how the earl seemed to like Georgiana and how convenient it would be if she could persuade him to help them. Yes, he was a rake, but a gentleman nonetheless, a gentleman who had the power to save Thorncote. His lordship’s groom would be
in attendance so that no impropriety could take place. She trusted her niece. She was no young fool to go throwing her heart after a rake. Let this man escort her niece home and see what could be done. “You cannot walk home alone as I have told you on any number of occasions. It is not at all seemly for a young woman to be abroad entirely by herself. You must be escorted by a gentleman or, at the very least, your maid. Now you go with Lord Marcham and he will see you safely home.”
A gentleman rake, thought Miss Blakelow, rolling her eyes. She would surely be safer on her own. “Dear ma’am, I have been walking these lanes alone since I was eighteen!” she cried, a hint of irritation creeping into her voice. “And I have never been accosted once yet.”
“There is a first time for everything, my love. Now, do as you are told. These young girls, my lord, always gadding about with nary a thought for their reputations . . . Well, I do hope we will see you at Thorncote again very soon. You know you will always be welcome at our home. And perhaps we shall have a dinner party or something of that nature . . . and perhaps I may venture to hint that Lady Emily Holt might exert her influence and persuade you to stay, in the expectation that she may join you one day in this very church as your wife?”
There was a frigid moment of silence.
“There seems to be a general misunderstanding, ma’am,” replied the earl rather coldly. “I am not, nor ever have been, engaged to Lady Emily Holt.”
“Oh, you are playing your cards close to your chest, are you not, my lord?” chided Aunt Blakelow coyly, smiling and placing a hand familiarly on his arm. “You young lovers are forever trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”
“Young lover?” he repeated, somewhat taken aback. “Me?”
“Oh, yes! We have observed the way that you look at each other, have we not, my dear?” answered Aunt Blakelow, turning to her niece.
Miss Blakelow, mortified to be dragged into the conversation, gave a wan smile and wished that the ground might swallow her whole.
“It is obvious to anyone that you must be in love with her,” continued her aunt.
His lordship raised a brow with a look of distaste. “Indeed, ma’am? Then you must be exceptionally clever for you have divined something that no one, not even I, has any knowledge of.”
“Oh, my lord,” Aunt Blakelow cooed. “You are a cagey one, as dear William would say, a cagey one indeed. Well, I will tease you no longer on a subject that I can see is putting you to the blush, but you may count on my discretion; I will not breathe a word of it to anyone.”
“Thank you,” muttered his lordship dryly.
Miss Blakelow didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She saw the look of exasperation in his lordship’s eyes and found herself applauding her aunt for putting him so out of countenance. But the mortification of her aunt’s forthright language, the vulgar manner in which she expressed herself to one so far above their station as if he were the merest greenhorn, put her to the blush, and she braced herself for the crushing set-down that was sure to follow. As much as she enjoyed their neighbor’s discomfiture, as much as she was ashamed of allowing her temper to get the better of her when she had burst into his house, nothing was as mortifying to her as listening to her aunt’s teasing overtures now as if they were intimate friends rather than the virtual strangers that they were.
She managed to shepherd her aunt toward the waiting carriage, promised faithfully that she would let his lordship drive her home, and was only able to let out her breath once the steps had been put up and her relative was resolutely borne away.
“What a very singular county this is,” observed the earl, watching the plume on Mrs. Mount’s bonnet wave in the breeze as the carriage rapidly disappeared.
“Singular, my lord?”
“The people of Worcestershire have me in love and betrothed to a woman I hardly know, merely because I have spoken to her publicly on a couple of occasions.”
“I rather think it was more than that. It is your behavior that has set tongues wagging, sir. Your attentions have been quite marked, you know.”
“Hardly,” he replied. “By the same token, they might say that I am in love with you, for I have known you a comparable length of time.”
“Ah.” Miss Blakelow smiled. “But that will not fly, my lord, for I am not nearly beautiful enough to attract a man like you.”
He looked down at her, a smile lurking in his own eyes. “And how, pray, am I to answer that? If I tell you that you are beautiful, you will accuse me of toadying, and if I agree with you, I shall be in your black books.”
She laughed. “Exactly right. You cannot win, you know. You had best give it up.”
“Bested by a woman?” he cried in mock horror. “No, no, that will never do.”
“Then let me assist you out of your dilemma,” she said kindly. “I will admit to being less beautiful than Lady Emily Holt, and therefore we can dispense with your theory that the good people of Worcestershire would suspect any attachment between us.”
“My dear ma’am, are you suggesting that I am a man who is uninterested in any but the most beautiful of women?” he asked.
“Your past rather proves the point, my lord,” she replied. “I doubt you would make yourself agreeable to a woman with an opinion . . . After all, it is not a woman’s conversation that interests you.”
He was momentarily lost for words. “I see,” he managed at length.
“You must own, my lord, that a woman as beautiful as Lady Emily Holt is more likely to hold sway with you than anyone else. If she had a wart and a crooked nose, she would not be half so appealing, no matter how eligible she might be.”
“You are wrong, Miss Blakelow. You are wrong indeed.”
“Then I might look to the ladies of your past as evidence—”
“No let us not,” he interrupted.
“Miss Charlotte Hall was a case in point.”
He groaned.
She raised an amused brow at him. “Was she not beautiful, my lord?”
“She was indeed,” he replied uncomfortably.
“Well then. Lady Norwood something or other.”
“Mrs. Norwood-Welch,” he corrected. “You seem to know a good deal about my former lovers, Miss Blakelow.”
“I listen to the gossip, just the same as anyone else. Then there was Mrs. Maria Stockbridge, and you cannot deny that she was beautiful. They called her the diamond of—”
“Miss Blakelow, can we please desist from raking up my past?”
“But I am proving my point, my lord. You love the company of beautiful women. And why should you not? You are personable and rich. I am sure any number of women would find you an attractive prospect.”
One black eyebrow shot up. “Personable, now, am I? I thought you loathed me?”
“I do,” she conceded, without heat. “But I was just stating the facts as I see them. I may not approve of your lifestyle, my lord, but that does not mean that I cannot see your appeal to others of my sex.”
“But not you?”
“Oh, no, not I,” she said before she could stop herself. “I mean I . . . er . . . you are not the sort of man who would attract me.”
“Thank you,” he murmured with heavy sarcasm.
She bit her lip, aware that she might have insulted him. “Oh, that sounded even worse, didn’t it? Dear sir, I did not mean to insult you, I meant only that—”
“Yes, it’s alright. I know very well what you meant.”
She threw him a grateful look. “But you will have to own that it is much easier to acquire precisely what one wishes from the men in this world if one is blessed with the looks of an angel. I have often observed it. Men are predictably gullible, are they not, when it comes to women? And Lady Emily Holt is destined for great things, I feel sure of it.”
His lordship turned his gray eyes upon her, and once more she found herself being scrutinized. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the look of cool regard as if he were mentally weighing her up and deciding whether to
let fly the stinging retort that she felt sure was on the tip of his tongue. She stiffened under his scrutiny and raised her eyes defiantly to his face.
“You have a very poor opinion of men, Miss Blakelow,” his lordship replied at last.
She regarded him warily, not altogether sure of his mood. There was a glint in his eye that told her he had been angered by her words and her insinuation that he was as great a fool for a pretty face as any other man.
“Some men, indeed,” she agreed.
“You mean me.”
She felt herself color faintly. “I merely point out that you seem only able to fall in love with the most stunningly beautiful women.”
“Love?” he repeated incredulously. “Who said anything about love?”
There was a moment’s silence while she digested this.
“You did not love them?” asked Miss Blakelow, eyes wide with surprise.
He laughed, but it was a harsh mocking sound. “No, ma’am, I did not love them.”
“Oh.”
“You will allow me to tell you, Miss Innocence, that women who give up their virtue at the drop of a hat are not the sort of women that men fall in love with.”
“Oh,” she said again, dropping her reticule, a rather sizable, homemade receptacle that made a solid thud as it hit the ground.
“And I will also add,” he said, stooping to pick up her bag, “that it is not at all seemly for a young woman to know of a gentleman’s . . . peccadilloes.”
“No, my lord,” she replied meekly.
“Good God, what have you got in there? A dead body?” he asked, feeling the weight of her reticule.
“It is a book, sir.”
“Well, yes, I had realized that,” he said, handing it back to her. “Very worthy.”
Miss Blakelow winced at his tone.
“What sort of book?” he inquired.
“A . . . er . . . um . . . Fordyce’s Sermons, my lord.”
“I see,” he said.
She found her temper rising at the glazed look of boredom that swept his countenance at that moment. She had borrowed the book from a friend in the village. If he were to open the reticule, he would have found Glenarvon, the anonymously written novel that was widely known to have been penned by Lady Caroline Lamb. It was a revenge on that lady’s former lover, Lord Byron, and although it was entertaining to spot caricatures of the rich and famous within its pages, it hardly fit her bookish image. She would have given anything at that moment to declare that she had read the poetry of Byron and loved nothing better than to curl up in bed with a gothic novel, so that he would not think her the dull creature that he evidently did. But she would not do it. “If you will excuse me, my lord?” she said, bobbing the briefest of curtsies.