by Norma Darcy
“Er . . . it was looking a little tired.”
“Well, it looks wonderful now. One would almost think it had something to do with planning for the future Lady Marcham.”
Her brother stood up, gave her a tight smile, and walked out.
To escape the three female relatives in his house, a day later, Lord Marcham walked the two miles over to Thorncote in the early afternoon. There he found Miss Blakelow vigorously pulling up weeds from one of the flower beds. On spying him from a distance of one hundred yards, she threw down the trowel, hastily donned her glasses and lace cap, and succeeded in smudging mud halfway across her face.
“You needn’t wear them on my account,” he called out as he came up to her. “It is patently obvious to me that you don’t need them for gardening, so why you think you have to wear them to talk to me is beyond my comprehension.”
“And a good day to you too, my lord,” she retorted, bending once again to rip up a particularly fine specimen of dandelion. “Are you here to discuss the estate? Or business? Or have you merely come here to annoy me?”
He folded his arms and rested against the wrought-iron gate, leaning back to get a good view as she bent over. “You’re in a good mood today,” he remarked. “Get out of bed on the wrong side, did we?”
“Any side of the bed in this house is the wrong side,” she muttered angrily. “It makes no difference what mood I may be in when I get into bed, but I always wake up to the same problems. Most of which are caused by knowing you.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, which side of the bed do you sleep on?”
“Why can that possibly interest you?” she fired at him over her shoulder.
He shrugged. “When we are married, we will share a bed. I thought it only polite to ask the lady which side she preferred.”
“You being such a fine gentleman,” she said witheringly.
He dazzled her with his smile. “Exactly. I tend to prefer the right side, but I’m prepared to compromise.” His eyes drifted slowly down her trim form. “I’m sure you’ll make it worth my while.”
Miss Blakelow gasped and stood up in a hurry. She came toward him, waving the muddy blade of the trowel under his nose. “You are beyond anything! How dare you speak to me like that?”
He spread his hands, half laughing. “Like what?”
“Like . . . like we are already married, which you know very well that we are not!”
“Come, Georgiana, you cannot tell me that you are innocent of what occurs between a husband and wife?”
“If you do not stop talking to me in that odiously disrespectful manner, I will have you thrown off this estate. Do you understand?”
“I love it when you’re angry.”
Miss Blakelow thought she might explode. “I am not one of your lightskirts, my lord,” she said crossly.
“No indeed, you are not,” he murmured, frowning. “What has gotten into you today? You must surely know that I was teasing you? I meant no disrespect.”
“You are trying to shock me, aren’t you?”
“Not at all,” he replied smoothly. “I was merely referring to the very great pleasure to be had when you become my wife.”
She clapped her hands over her ears. “Enough! I will not discuss this subject with you, which you must realize is highly repugnant to me.”
He bowed. “Then I apologize unreservedly. We will henceforth confine our conversation to the weather and books and your aunt’s many health remedies and mending shirts and pruning.”
“As you wish.”
“And the best cut of meat to be had for a winter broth and other edifying subjects that I cannot at this moment think of.”
“Very proper,” she approved.
“And I may well die of boredom,” he added.
“We can but hope.”
“What say you to a discussion about the underlying engineering principles behind Stephenson’s locomotive?”
“If we must. I am sure that it would be most instructive.”
“Or whether I am corpulent enough that I should start wearing a corset?”
“Stop trying to make me laugh.”
“I wish that you would.”
She flung down the hand fork she was holding, and it landed vertically with its tines in the soil, spearing the earth. “Nothing amuses you more than to put me out of countenance, does it? You love to mock me and I do not like it.”
“I was not mocking you; I was teasing you. There is a difference,” he said patiently. “What is the matter?”
“You and that wretched ball. I have heard nothing else all day but dresses and silks and satins until I am thoroughly sick of it.”
He frowned. “What ball?” he asked, although he already guessed.
“What ball, he says. For your sister,” she said, ripping up a daisy and hurling it at the bucket.
“I am not holding a ball for my sister,” he said calmly. “And I told her so in no uncertain terms when she arrived yesterday.”
“Well, it is common knowledge in Loughton.”
His lordship swore under his breath.
“Exactly!” fumed Miss Blakelow, clawing at a particularly stubborn buttercup root.
“And why has that put you in such a foul temper?” he demanded.
“Because my sisters are obsessed with having new dresses for the occasion and there is no money. Not a penny. And they have talked of nothing else all week.”
His lordship looked down at his boots. “And, if there were a ball . . . and if there were money to be found for your finery . . . would you come?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What would I do at a ball? Sit and make polite chatter with the old tabbies? No, I thank you.”
“You would dance and enjoy yourself like all the other young women.”
“I am not a young woman,” she said, wrestling with a clod of couch grass. “I’m not a child, my lord. I don’t want a new dress, and I don’t want to dance at your ball. My problems are far bigger than that. Look around you. Thorncote is on its last legs. How Marianne and Kitty and Lizzy can think about your stupid ball when they are soon to be turned out of their home is beyond me.” She wiped a tear away angrily with one gloved hand.
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Hush, love.”
She shrugged him off. “Don’t you hush me! It’s alright for you! You have more money than you know what to do with. You are not about to be turned out of your home!”
“And neither would you be if you had accepted my offer.”
She paused, staring at him. “What offer?”
“Thorncote in exchange for my hand in marriage,” he said simply. “I believe I made it perfectly clear that I was willing to help you set this place back on its feet but that I want something in return.”
“You are already getting a return. A very good rate of return,” she pointed out hotly.
“It will be a number of years before Thorncote is paying me the interest you offered me. I want something else while I wait.”
She stared at him and he smiled. “A bribe,” she said caustically.
“I wouldn’t quite put it that way . . .”
She bent over and tidied all the escaped weeds into the bucket.
He watched her, waiting. “Well?” he asked, inclining his head, a gentle smile on his lips. “Do we have an agreement?”
She straightened and picked up the bucket, walking toward him. She looked him straight in the eye. “I told you before that I am not one of your lightskirts. I am not for sale, my lord.”
She brushed past him onto the gravel path, and he rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“What do I have to do to get through to you?” he complained.
“You have done enough already,” she flung at him over her shoulder. “You have ruined my life!”
“Hardly.”
“You have!” she cried, yanking on a buttercup root with all her might. “You have taken my father’s estate away from us so that we are forced to s
plit the family up and move away—no, let me finish! You have refused to help us with Thorncote so that we may keep it for ourselves and have given us three months to leave. Look at these gardens! How am I supposed to look after them on my own? And the house? And the farm? How can one woman set to rights the mismanagement of twenty years? I cannot do it alone. I can’t. And I asked for your help, but you were too selfish to give it, because you never consider anyone but yourself. And so I watch as day-by-day my home rots around me. And you come here expecting me to joke with you when you have shamed me in front of my neighbors by saying that you wished to perform the marital act with me, and now you are holding a ball, which has taken such a hold over my sisters that I cannot get a sensible word out of them from morning until night!”
Where the tears of Lady Emily had left him unmoved, even irritated him, he found the angry tears of Miss Blakelow upset him to such a degree that he had come forward while her tirade was in full flow and laid his hands upon her shoulders, intending to pull her into his arms.
But she shook him off, slapped his hands away, and glared at him, leveling the fork at him as if it were a weapon. His closeness unsettled her, and she stumbled away from him until several feet of bare earth were between them.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He held up his hands and backed away. “I was merely trying to offer you comfort, that’s all.”
“I don’t need comfort from you. I don’t want anything from you, do you understand me? Ever!” she cried and choked on a sob.
“Perfectly,” he replied stiffly.
Miss Blakelow had held her emotions in check for so long that now that they’d broken through the surface, she gave them free rein. “I never want to see you again as long as I live. You have brought nothing but misfortune to my door. I wish I had never laid eyes on you!” A part of her knew the lion’s share of her anger was directed at her father and her brother, but since neither of them were there, she used the next best available target: Lord Marcham.
There was a long moment of silence while his eyes scanned her face as if looking for confirmation that she really meant the words that had just left her lips. His jaw worked; a muscle ticked angrily in his cheek. “Very well, ma’am,” he said coldly, “as you wish.”
Miss Blakelow put a hand to her mouth, watching his broad back as he walked away, and the sobs came. She put out a hand to call him back, to say that she did not mean it, but he had gone.
CHAPTER 15
LORD MARCHAM STORMED INTO his house half an hour later and made straight for the drawing room, where his two sisters and his mother were seated by the fire.
“Robbie, there you are. Davenham said you had gone to visit our neighbors at Thorncote,” said Lady St. Michael. “How do they do? Dreadful business about the father. Gambled away everything, or so I’ve heard. But Miss Marianne Blakelow is as pretty as a picture, so perhaps she’s the reason you spend all your time over there?”
His lordship was definitely not in the mood for his sister’s prying questions. “You have, all three of you, disobeyed my wishes,” he said, standing before them and speaking with cold controlled anger. “You have spread the news abroad that this damned ball of yours is going ahead when I expressly forbade it. You have forced my hand. Very well. You may have your ball. But I am not parting with one single servant to organize it nor one single penny to pay for it. I do not wish to hear about any of the arrangements, and I do not wish to be consulted on anything. This is your ball. You will organize it and you will pay for it. And for God’s sake open some windows. It’s like a Turkish bath in here.”
With that he strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Well,” said Lady St. Michael. “That went well.”
“At least he has agreed to it,” said Harriet.
“Yes, but who’s going to pay for it?” groaned their mother, holding vinaigrette to her nose.
Lady St. Michael gave a self-satisfied smile. “Robert.”
“Robbie?” repeated Harriet. “But he just told you in no uncertain terms that he would have nothing to do with it.”
“He did.”
“Then how are you going to persuade him?” demanded her mother.
“I’m not. But the delectable Miss Blakelow is,” said Lady St. Michael.
“Sarah, what are you up to?” asked the countess through narrowed eyes.
“Since Robbie is determined that none of us will sway him from marrying the wretched female, then let us use her to our advantage. He is hoping to fix his interest with this girl, is he not? All we need to do is make her think that he has arranged the ball just for her and she will do the rest. Rapturously happy females usually assist gentlemen in parting with their cash.”
“Yes,” said Harriet, frowning prettily. “But how do you know that Miss Blakelow wishes for a ball? According to what Mama says, she is dreadfully straitlaced.”
“I think it’s all a ruse. I think it’s Marianne Blakelow he’s interested in. Since when did you know Robbie to fall for any but the most stunning blonde? I am going to take a drive over to Thorncote this afternoon and see her for myself. The rest I will leave to human nature.”
Miss Blakelow, having watched his lordship’s back as he walked away until he was no longer visible, allowed herself a hearty cry in the privacy of the rose arbor, wiped her puffy eyes, and sniffed inelegantly. It had started to rain softly, the tiny droplets bouncing gently on the leaves of the climbing roses. But she remained there as the bench grew dappled with wet around her and her old black gown grew damp.
She knew that she had been unreasonable. It was not his fault that there was no money. It was not his fault that her father had gambled it all away. If it had not been Lord Marcham who had won the estate at the card table that day, then it would have been some other gentleman. And would she have turned up on his doorstep demanding reparation? Probably not. His lordship just happened to live within the neighborhood, unluckily for him. He owed her nothing at all.
She had been unreasonable and not only to Lord Marcham. He had turned up not ten minutes after she’d had a blazing row with the girls—that was what had put her in a foul mood, and she had taken all her frustrations out on him.
Miss Blakelow had caught her three younger sisters going through her solid walnut trunk in the spare bedroom that had once belonged to her mother. The lid of the trunk had been opened and the layers of diaphanous tissue paper cast aside. Shawls of fine lace were strewn across the floor; ribbons of every color exploded from the wrapping like fireworks; opera cloaks and glasses, fans, reticules, and slippers languished everywhere. The carpet was covered in flashes of scarlet ribbon, white lace, deep-blue velvet, and green satin. Dresses had been pulled from the armoire, dresses that Miss Blakelow had worn during her season over a decade before. Marianne was trying on a riding jacket of wine velvet that the young Miss Blakelow had worn when riding in Hyde Park. Kitty was wrapping herself in a cloak of dark-green wool, and Lizzy, unknowingly the worst offender, was holding up to herself a Grecian white gown trimmed with exquisite pink rosebuds.
On seeing the gown again, Miss Blakelow was transported back what seemed like a hundred years to the innocent girl she had been at the age of nineteen. She had worn it on the night of her first party, when she had been presented at Lady Carr’s ball. That was the first time she had met him, the man who had so completely broken her heart.
“Oh, Georgie, look!” had cried Marianne. “See how the color suits me. It is terribly old-fashioned, of course, but it could be altered.”
“Take them off,” snapped Miss Blakelow, suddenly gripped by anger out of all proportion to the crime committed.
“This gown is so beautiful, Georgie,” breathed Lizzy. “May I borrow it to wear to the ball?”
“No, you may not.”
The words cracked through the air like a whip, and the three younger sisters looked at each other in confusion.
“We were only having a look, Georgie,” said Mari
anne. “We meant no harm.”
“Take them off this minute. They are not playthings,” said Miss Blakelow, picking up a pale-pink satin slipper from the floor and flinging it angrily back into the trunk.
“Let us put them away for you, the way we found them,” coaxed Kitty, sensing their eldest sister’s mood.
“I don’t need your help. Please just leave me alone.”
Marianne laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’re sorry—”
“Don’t any of you ever think of anyone but yourselves?” demanded Miss Blakelow, her cheeks flushed with anger. “Do you never think of anything but your own pleasure? It hasn’t even registered with you that we are going to be thrown out of Thorncote in eight weeks’ time, has it? You should be worried about your future and where we all will live. Instead of that, all you can think of is dresses and balls. You have no comprehension of the problems we face. You have no comprehension of what I feel, because you never ask and you do not care. You have no respect for my property. You have no respect for my feelings. These are not your things. These are not your toys. They are mine, and you had no right to go through them without even asking my permission. You assumed control over them as if they already belonged to you. Trying them on, telling me how they can be altered to fit you. I don’t want them altered. They were cut to fit me, and they will stay that way. If you have to go to that wretched ball in a hessian sack, I will not give you my things. Now get out, all of you, before I say something I regret.”
Tears flowed, doors slammed, recriminations would follow. Ned sternly chastised the three girls for their stupidity.
Perhaps the strain of the last few months had finally taken their toll. Perhaps her anger was born out of frustration that she could not afford to buy the girls new dresses herself. Perhaps.