The Bluestocking and the Rake

by Norma Darcy

  “He is not debauched,” said Miss Blakelow firmly, “merely bored.”

  Lady St. Michael raised a brow politely. “Indeed? You know him so well on only a month’s acquaintance?”

  “I know that he has been a good and kind friend to me.”

  “Friend,” scoffed Lady St. Michael. “Is that what you call it? Trust me, when a man’s primary motive is to bed you, it is not friendship that he’s offering.”

  Miss Blakelow threw back the bedcovers and swung her legs over the side. “I’m not listening to this.”

  “How long do you think he is going to be happy living here in the middle of the country with you and nothing for entertainment but sheep and fresh air? He is an inveterate gambler, my dear. He spends days of his life in one gaming hall or another. He drinks to excess. He frequents the homes of opera dancers. Rural Worcestershire will not hold him for long and neither, to be blunt, will you. Be warned, this is no green boy you trifle with.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Miss Blakelow demanded as she disappeared behind a screen and whipped the nightdress over her head.

  “Because I don’t want to see my brother unhappy . . . or you, for that matter. Whatever I may think of you, I would not wish to see you trapped in an unhappy marriage for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m touched by your concern,” said Miss Blakelow coldly as she pulled on her shift, “but you are suffering under a delusion. I have no intention of marrying your brother or anyone else.”

  “I am relieved to hear it, Miss Blakelow.”

  “I have not given Lord Marcham any reason to believe that we are anything other than friends,” she said, throwing on her gown.

  “Then you had better reassert that intention. My brother is looking for a wife and he seems to have chosen you.”

  “Only because he has not found a replacement for Lady Emily Holt,” said Miss Blakelow. “To be frank with your ladyship, he wants a brood mare to give him a son. And that is . . . not what I want. He had best look in another direction for his wife and so I have already told him.”

  “You are not then in love with him?” asked Lady St. Michael.

  Miss Blakelow struggled with the fastenings on her dress. “I . . . I am not.”

  Her ladyship seemed to relax. “And you have no intention of accepting him were he to make you an offer?”

  “I have already refused him,” said Miss Blakelow quietly.

  “You relieve me, Miss Blakelow. I have to own that you relieve me a great deal.”

  “But he will marry one day, my lady, and you had best get used to the fact. He needs an heir and that is something that even you cannot give him.”

  There was a chilly silence.

  “And what do you mean by that remark?” demanded Lady St. Michael.

  “Merely that you will not always be the first woman in your brother’s life,” said Miss Blakelow, as she pulled on her boots. “I suspect that you are rather used to having him all to yourself . . .”

  Lady St. Michael gave a scornful laugh. “If you say so.”

  “. . . and you don’t like the thought that one day he might choose his wife over you.”

  Lady St. Michael simmered with anger. “I want him to be happy.”

  “With a lady of your own choosing, no doubt,” said Miss Blakelow, wrapping her cloak around her half-fastened dress. “A lady who won’t answer back. A lady who you may order around as you choose.”

  “How dare you?”

  “Does your brother continually flout your choices for him?” mocked Miss Blakelow, pulling her hair into a bun and thrusting it under the hood of the cloak. “Poor Lady St. Michael. You try so hard to choose him someone you think he should be happy with and, drat the man, he’d rather choose his bride himself.”

  Miss Blakelow came out from behind the screen, dressed in haphazard style but decent nonetheless. Her appearance would not pass public scrutiny, but her cloak hid the unfastened buttons of her gown from view. “I won’t stay in this house with you for another second, Lady St. Michael. I am going home. I will let you explain to your brother the reason why I have gone. Good day.”

  Miss Blakelow found an entrance to the servants’ staircase and yanked open the door. She flew down the rough stone stairs, her hand gliding along the cold metal banister rail, her boots echoing on the steps as she ran. She did not want to be caught by his lordship or anyone else; she was so close to tears that any further confrontation would completely overset her composure.

  She followed the stairs down and down until she emerged in a small lobby. The servants’ hall was to her left, the great long table empty, a huge clock on the wall above it, no doubt to remind them that even their leisure time belonged to the master. She sped out of the door in front of her and found herself in the stable yard.

  A stable hand was looking at her curiously from one of the stalls.

  “Can I help you, miss?” he asked, wiping his fingers on his trousers.

  “My horse was brought here two days ago, a black mare with a white flash—”

  “Down its nose. I know, miss. Were you the lady that had the accident?”

  She smiled. “Yes. But I am recovered now and should like to go home. Would you be able to saddle her for me?”

  “Right away, miss.”

  Miss Blakelow was in an agony that his lordship would find her at any second and ask the reason for her departure. And she could not face him. She could not let him know that his sister had chased her away by reminding her of the thing she already knew: Lord Marcham was not the man for her.

  Lord Marcham stood behind his desk in the library, bracing his fists on its surface so that he leaned over it and could look into his sister’s face. “What the devil was all that about?”

  Lady St. Michael bristled. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You decide to tell an innocent female that I have a mistress in town and another in Loughton, and you tell me it was nothing?”

  “May I remind you, Robbie, that she broached the subject? She wanted to know how debauched you were.”

  “She was asking me about the duel, not my mistresses,” he said furiously. “But you took great delight in telling her, didn’t you? I could see it all over your face. No matter that I haven’t had a mistress for some considerable time.”

  “Oh, poor foolish Robbie. Do you expect anyone to believe that?” she mocked.

  He paused, a muscle pulsing with anger in his cheek. “What else did you tell her?” he asked, controlling his temper with an effort.

  Her ladyship adjusted the shawl around her shoulders. “I told her nothing that she could not have heard from anyone else.”

  “What else did you tell her?” he demanded again, more insistently.

  “That you gamble and drink and see opera dancers. She needs to know what you are, Robbie. She has some nonsensical notion that you have reformed yourself for her, just as every other female did who ever set up a flirtation with you. They all think they can change you. And they are all wrong.”

  He folded his arms and sat on the edge of his desk, staring coldly down at her. “You think that you know me so well, don’t you?”

  “I know you better than she does.”

  “I don’t think you do. You have no idea what I want. You have no conception what my thoughts are on anything. The man you have described so exhaustively to her was the man I was ten years ago. You are intimately familiar with my reputation, but you do not appear to know me anymore.”

  “She has addled your brain. Your lust for her has clouded your judgment. You cannot tell me that you are serious about this woman?” said her ladyship, rounding on him. “Who is she? Who are her family? A second-rate baron with a gambling habit? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Why are you determined to ruin this for me?” he demanded.

  “Because she’s lying. She’s hiding something and I don’t trust her.”

  He rolled his eyes and flung himself away from the desk. “Just because you don’t remember sled
ging with her? For God’s sake, Sarah, grow up.”

  “I was telling the story about how you broke your leg sledging on Thorn Hill.”

  “It was Hal who broke his leg, not me,” replied his lordship.

  “Exactly!” she cried triumphantly. “Exactly right. And yet she said that she remembered it was you.”

  “It’s hardly a crime, Sarah.”

  “Do you remember her from when we were children?” Lady St. Michael demanded suddenly.

  “I have to confess that I don’t.”

  “No, and neither do I. The point is that she lied. She said she lived here all her life and then changed her tune. Why would she do that unless she has something to hide?”

  “I have no idea,” he said, throwing up his hands. “Maybe she’s forgetful. I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  Lady St. Michael stood up and came toward him and laid her hand upon his shoulder. “I’m only doing this because I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  He shrugged her hand away and moved toward the door. “Leave Miss Blakelow alone and keep your nose out of my affairs. I won’t warn you again.”

  “You can’t keep away from her, can you?” said her ladyship, her voice rising with hurt and anger. “Look at yourself, running up to see her like a lapdog. Well, she’s gone, so you are wasting your time.”

  “Gone?” he thundered, pausing with a hand on the doorknob.

  “She went home the best part of an hour ago.”

  There was a silence.

  “Why you little—” He broke off, controlling himself with an effort. “I mean it, Sarah, leave her alone.”

  “She’s not in love with you, Robbie,” said Lady St. Michael as she watched him wrench open the door. “You’re deluding yourself. She doesn’t want you. She told me so herself—”

  But his lordship had gone.

  CHAPTER 18

  MISS BLAKELOW SPENT THE next few days in a kind of torpor.

  She told herself and her Aunt Blakelow that she was resting; the bruise to her eye made her an unsightly companion, and she spent much of the time in her room, reading and pondering her future. She stared listlessly out of her bedroom window, looking at the unkempt gardens with frustration, almost as if she could hear the weeds growing in the October rain as she languished in her room, wondering what she should do.

  His lordship did not visit the day after she had returned to Thorncote, or the day after that, or any time during the week that followed. He seemed to have decided to keep his distance; perhaps his sister had managed to persuade him to drop their acquaintance. Perhaps he had realized for himself that she was unremarkable and was quite prepared to forget her. In any event, she missed him and could not quite fathom why his absence affected her so.

  It was two weeks after her riding accident when a traveling chaise appeared at the front door and her aunt, Mrs. Thorpe, stepped down onto the gravel drive. Miss Blakelow had always been fond of Mr. Thorpe, her mother’s elder brother, but she had failed to understand what he had seen in his wife, a cold, selfish woman with a hard, bony core where her heart should be. When Mr. Thorpe, her kind, gentle uncle, had died, Miss Blakelow had been left in the care of his wife, who had made it her mission to marry the young Georgiana off at the first opportunity.

  Miss Blakelow and her aunt had never been close; it was this aunt who had been pushed into bringing her out all those years ago and who was intimately acquainted with everything that had befallen her since. That Mrs. Thorpe disliked her, she knew; that she had only agreed to champion her because she had married the brother of Miss Blakelow’s mother, she also knew. So it was with trepidation that Miss Blakelow reluctantly went down to the parlor, where the woman was examining the thickness of dust on the mantelpiece.

  The woman had her back to her as Miss Blakelow entered the room and gave a cold smile to no one in particular. Mrs. Thorpe was a thin woman—all bones and sharp edges—with pronounced cheekbones, a beak of a nose, small dark eyes buried deep in their sockets, and an oily curl of iron-gray hair resting immovably against her forehead as if it had been dipped in melted butter and had set hard. She wore a pewter-colored pelisse of satin and a small mean bonnet with a wilted, semivertical feather.

  “So this is where you’ve been hiding yourself,” remarked Mrs. Thorpe, turning at last to examine her niece. Then she froze. She gaped. She stared. She looked her over from head to toe and could do nothing but blink at her.

  “Hello, Aunt,” said Miss Blakelow in her calm, quiet voice, smiling vaguely at the reaction.

  “Good God . . .”

  “Won’t you please sit down? Can I offer you some refreshment?”

  Mrs. Thorpe opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again. Her mind drifted back the decade since she had last seen her niece—a young, vivacious, and beautiful girl—and tried to reconcile that picture with the staid, drab woman who stood calmly before her.

  “Well,” said Miss Blakelow with a kind smile, “I have already arranged for some tea, and then you may decide when it arrives.”

  “But you . . . you look so . . . I would not have recognized you for all the world.”

  “I am a little older, ma’am.”

  “Yes, to be sure . . . so are we all . . . but Good Lord. I would never have imagined . . .”

  “No,” replied Miss Blakelow, “and I hope that others do not ‘imagine’ either.”

  “But this . . . I mean, I came here after news reached my ears concerning you, Sophie—”

  Miss Blakelow winced at the use of the name from her past; it reminded her of her youthful folly. She was Georgiana now. “My name is Georgiana Blakelow. I would be grateful if you would commit it to memory.”

  “Yes . . . of course.” Mrs. Thorpe sat down heavily. “Good Lord, if your uncle could see you now.”

  Miss Blakelow smiled. “He would be a good deal surprised.”

  “He would indeed . . .”

  “And so, Aunt? What is your reason for coming all this way?”

  Mrs. Thorpe gave herself a mental shake. “I have come to speak to you on a delicate matter . . . concerning my daughter.”

  “And how is my cousin?” asked Miss Blakelow. “She must be seventeen by now.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “And . . . and has she had her come out, ma’am?” Miss Blakelow blushed faintly as she asked the question; the memories of her own disastrous come out were still fresh in the minds of both women and pervaded the air like a stench.

  “This season gone was her first,” replied Mrs. Thorpe somewhat awkwardly. “And you may imagine that she was a great success. I hope she may achieve a very good match indeed.”

  There was a silence. Miss Blakelow could not help but feel that her aunt was making the comparison. There was no doubt that the young Miss Thorpe would obey her mother’s wishes, even if her cousin had not.

  “I wish Charlotte every happiness,” said Miss Blakelow.

  John then appeared with the tea tray and several moments passed in silence while Miss Blakelow saw to the refreshments.

  “It is her happiness that concerns me. It has come to my attention that your brother is on the lookout for a wife,” said her aunt.

  Miss Blakelow blinked. “William is four and twenty, ma’am. He is old enough to decide for himself when he wishes to marry.”

  “That he may be, but all of London knows that he does not have two shillings to rub together,” said Mrs. Thorpe, twitching the skirts of her gown over her knee.

  “He has an allowance, which I believe his mother put in trust for him.”

  “Yes, expressly to keep it from the grasping hands of his father,” returned Mrs. Thorpe somewhat acidly.

  “Well, whatever the reason,” replied Miss Blakelow in her calm way, “he has a little money for the future.”

  “He is on the hunt for a fortune. Surely you must know that? From all I hear, he is well on the way to establishing himself in debtors’ prison unless he finds himself a wife with means.”

>   “I know nothing of that. I think that William will marry for love when the time comes.”

  “Love? You still prate of love? And where, pray, did all that talk of love get you?”

  “We are not discussing me, Aunt—we are discussing William, although why he is any of your concern, I cannot imagine.”

  “When he is chasing after my daughter, then it is very much my concern,” retorted Aunt Thorpe.

  There was a silence.

  “I see,” said Miss Blakelow gravely.

  “He has been seeing her behind my back. Secret assignations. Meetings in the park, and Charlotte without even a maid to lend her respectability.”

  Miss Blakelow was silent. She had heard from Lord Marcham that William was hanging out after a fortune, but never had she supposed the object of his desire to be Miss Charlotte Thorpe.

  “I need not tell you the seriousness of the situation. You may imagine how concerned I am as a mother. And William without anyone to guide him, in short, as much a loose cannon as ever his father was. Charlotte is to come into a considerable fortune. I will make no secret of the fact that Sir William Blakelow is not the man I wish to see her married to.”

  “If money is his true object, then very likely someone richer will come along and your Charlotte will be safe.”

  Mrs. Thorpe gaped at her in an expression that always reminded her niece of a trout. “And is that all you have to say?”

  “What do you expect me to say?” asked Miss Blakelow, sipping her tea.

  “That you intend to do something.”

  “And what do you imagine that I may do? I am not William’s guardian. He is a grown man and may marry where he wishes.”

  “He may not marry where he wishes,” said Mrs. Thorpe, her small pearl earrings bobbing violently under her earlobes.