The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) (27 page)

“Do I? Then why are you trembling?” he asked.

“I’m not.”

“You are. Georgie…” he whispered with the ghost of a laugh. ”Don’t you think that as an inveterate gambler, I can tell when my opponent is bluffing?”

Her eyes fell away from his. “You describe your own imaginings, my lord, not mine. I have never thought of us
in that way.”

“I do not believe you. I think you have imagined yourself in my arms as I have imagined myself in yours,” he whispered. “Deny it if you dare.”

His mouth swooped down to lock with hers in a kiss that shook her almost to her knees. His arm was an iron bar around her waist, holding her tightly to him as if he would never let her go. His other hand lay tenderly against the angle of her jaw, caressing the skin of her throat and the hollow above her collar bone. She felt as if she ought to breathe, but it was beyond her; he had robbed her of the ability to function in a normal manner. Her arms were trapped between their chests; her hands laid flat against the lapels of his coat and of their own volition, crept up around his neck. He showed no sign of relinquishing his hold upon her, nor of breaking the kiss, rather he took it deeper, tilting his head so that he could have greater access to all of her mouth.

As he felt her arms return his embrace, his tongue found and entwined with hers and the kiss went into another stratosphere. He groaned at the pure pleasure of it. God, this was wonderful!  She was kissing him back with a passion and intensity that staggered him. The rake in him wanted to carry her over to the bed and make her his. But he wouldn’t. She deserved better than that. She deserved the best of him and he would not dishonour her by relieving a need that had become in the last month, almost unbearable.

He kissed her and went on kissing her even as someone entered the room behind them and gasped at the sight of Miss Blakelow locked in his lordship’s arms.

It was Miss Blakelow who came back to reality first and started to pull away.

“You cannot deny it, Georgie,” his lordship said, staring down at her with eyes the colour of a stormy sky, his breathing slightly laboured. “Marry your Joshua Peabody if you wish, but don’t expect me to watch you do it.”

He turned without another word, pausing only to retrieve his gloves from the bed.

Aunt Blakelow stared in shock from her niece to the earl and back again as he strode from the room. Their eyes met. Miss Blakelow saw the condemnation in her aunt’s face and turned away.

“Oh, Georgie…” said her aunt.

Miss Blakelow held out a hand as if to keep the disapproving words at bay, tears starting in her eyes. “Don’t,” she whispered.

“My dear girl, what can you have been thinking of?” she demanded.

Her niece shook her head, momentarily unable to speak for the choking sensation in her throat.

“He was in your bedchamber…I cannot…you
must
see the impropriety of such behaviour. My dear Georgie, you of all people should understand the very great danger of―”

“Please, Aunt. Don’t,” begged Miss Blakelow, steadying herself with hands
upon the dressing table. She touched her fingers to her lips. Her mouth still tingled from his lordship’s kiss; her body yearned for the comforting warmth and strength of his embrace. Georgiana Blakelow hadn’t been kissed like that in a very,
very
long time.

Tears swam before her eyes. He was right. How could she deny it? She had responded to his caresses willingly enough, indeed she had returned them most ardently. She was in very great danger of losing her heart to him, if she hadn’t already. All her determination not to succumb to his charm had failed. She was as vulnerable now as she ever had been in the past, to the joy of having a love and keeping it for her very own. She had learned nothing. The brutal, painful lessons of her youth had not rid her character of its passionate will. And she had realised it in the earl’s arms. He had awoken feelings in her that she had convinced herself no longer existed. She had put them out to pasture, buried them deep. But one kiss was enough to rouse her longings. She looked around her, seeing the familiar drapes, the wall hangings, the portraits on the wall, as if for the first time.

“You were
kissing
him,” said Aunt Blakelow in a low voice, coming further into the room. “Tell me at once what has happened in this room.”

Miss Blakelow made no answer. She closed her eyes in pain.

“Georgie?”

“Nothing!” cried Miss Blakelow. “Nothing save a kiss.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes, I am certain!”

Aunt Blakelow looked relieved. “He is a…a libertine. You cannot honestly expect that a man like that will come to care for you―?”

“I don’t expect anything,” replied Miss Blakelow.

“Indeed? And is that why you have been encouraging his advances?”

Miss Blakelow swung around. “
Encouraging
him?” she repeated blankly. “How can you talk so? Have you not heard me refuse him repeatedly? Have I not told you on several occasions that I have no interest in wedding him?”

“You have,” Aunt Blakelow agreed, folding her hands primly before her, “most emphatically. But I am not a fool. I have seen the way that you look at him. And so it seems has his lordship. I feared how it would be. He seemed determined to set you up as his latest flirt from the start of your acquaintance. And doe-eyed looks to a man of his kidney
―”

“I did not give him
doe
-eyed looks,” flashed Miss Blakelow, annoyed and embarrassed.

“Georgie, have you learned nothing?” asked her aunt, coming towards her. “Are you still so easily lured by a handsome face?”

“You pain me, Aunt, by speaking so.”

“I tho
ught you had more sense.”

“
You
encouraged me to go out driving with him! You seemed
very
keen on his company,” retorted Miss Blakelow.

“Yes,” said her aunt, “but only because it was a means to an end. I thought our primary motive was saving Thorncote. Had I any inkling of your feelings… Had I known you were foolish enough to fall in love with the man, like the very greenest schoolroom miss
―”

Miss Blakelow could stand no more. She swiped her cloak from the chair and ran from the room.

“Caroline?” asked Lord Marcham, two days later, as he walked to the window of her drawing room and looked out across the narrow London street. “When will you let me take you out of this house?”

“I
like
this house,” his sister replied as she set a stitch in a shirt she was mending. She looked fondly at the garment in her hands, her son’s shirt, her lad who was fast growing up before her eyes.

“It’s small,” said his lordship crushingly. “And wouldn’t James like to live at Holme with all the animals and miles of parkland to call his own?”

“I am sure he would. But I am no sponge, Robbie. We are happy here and it’s perfect for my needs. We don’t all need a palatial mansion you know.”

“You are living like a pauper when you don’t need to.”

“Hardly,” she said, smiling and setting aside her stitchery.

Lord Marcham nodded at the pile of young James’s books on the table. “Does Julius give you anything to help with the upkeep?”

She turned her eyes upon him. “Julius? What, pray, has he to say to this?”

“He is the father, isn’t he?”

Mrs. Weir coloured faintly. “
George
is the father.”

“George had been dead six months when you conceived James. Either yours was the longest pregnancy in history or your arithmetic is sadly awry.”

“Why are you here, Robbie?” she demanded.

He held up his hands. “Alright, alright, I’ve said my piece. I just think you could do with a little financial help now and again, that’s all. You won’t take anything from me.”

“George left me amply provided for.”

“He left you with a small competence,” the earl corrected gently.

“Robbie, are you here for a reason other than to criticise my housekeeping arrangements?”

“Do I need a reason?” he asked, turning and leaning his hips against the window sill.

“No,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “But you have one all the same and I don’t imagine that you were just, well…passing. So? What brings you here?”

“Damned if I know,” he muttered, running a hand over his jaw.

Mrs. Weir looked at him quietly, her head on one side like a watchful bird, observing the tired look about his eyes and the pensive look on his face.

“Are you in trouble?” she asked, watching him.

He looked surprised and for a moment the frown on his brow lifted. “Me? God no…well not the sort of trouble you mean.”

“I see.”

He fell once more into brooding silence.

Mrs. Weir folded her stitchery and placed it in the work basket at her feet. She smiled. “Who is she?”

He moved away from the window and came to sit beside her. “Is it that obvious?”

“A little,” she replied, patting his knee. “Tell me all.”

“You said you wanted to see me make a fool of myself over a woman?” he said bitterly, “well now you have your wish.”

“I don’t wish to see you unhappy, Robbie. Never that.”

He put his head in his hands. “She won’t have me.”

Mrs. Weir blinked in surprise. “Oh.”

“I’ve never felt like this…I mean…oh damn it all, she’s different. This time it’s different.”

“I see. And is she beautiful?”

He shrugged. “She is beautiful…to me anyway. She is not what you’d call…obvious. But her figure is good.”

“I’m sure it is.”

He glared at her. “I have not laid a finger on her.”

“Do I know her?” asked Mrs. Weir, wisely changing tack at that moment, “what is her name?”

“Georgiana Blakelow. Daughter of Sir William Blakelow of Thorncote.”

His sister raised a brow in surprise. “Blakelow? That’s one of your neighbours, isn’t it?” At his nod, she frowned. “Georgiana…I cannot place the name.”

“No,” he said gloomily, “and neither can anyone else.”

“A mystery, Robbie?”

“A mystery indeed.”

“Describe her to me. Is she blonde like the other Blakelows?”

“Not in the least,” he said getting up again to pace around the room. “She has brown hair and green eyes.”

Mrs. Weir blinked at this very un-lover-like appraisal of the woman’s attributes. “Is she tall? Short? Round? Elegant? Really Robbie, you are hardly painting a portrait for my imagination. How do you expect me to remember her on such a description as she has brown hair and green eyes? You have just described a good percentage of the women of Worcestershire.”

He sighed and rubbed his fingers across his brow. “She is tall and very slim…perhaps too slim if you listen to Sarah. She is intelligent and pretends that she is bookish for reasons that I have yet to discover. In fact, she plays the bluestocking very well and most of society is fooled by her little act. She would have the world paint her as a recluse, a moralising bore and wears those infernal spectacles to keep the world at a distance and I might add, to aggravate me…” he said, pausing as his eye kindled with annoyance. “But I have seen the laughter in her eyes and I know that she is not as strait-laced as she would have us all believe. It’s an act, a ruse. She dresses continually as if she is in deep mourning, wears a hideous cap upon her head so that no one can catch a glimpse of her hair and plays the part of the governess and guardian to her younger brothers and sisters when I suspect that she would like nothing better than to waltz the night away in a man’s arms. She is hiding something from me…from the world…and I do not know what it is. She won’t tell me what troubles her when she knows that she might confide in me and I will do my best to help her if I can. I have asked her to marry me countless times and she has refused me on every occasion. I suspect that she would like children of her own and I want nothing better than to give them to her, but she pushes me away. She has built a thirty-foot thick wall around her heart and as fast as I tear it down, she rebuilds it again.”

He flung away to the window and leaned his shoulders against the wall. “We are good friends…or at least we were until last Wednesday…and I hoped that perhaps she was beginning to feel something for me…but she doesn’t. She manages very well to keep me always at arm’s length. She teases me…actively flirts with me sometimes…and then retreats behind her shell again. She frustrates the hell out of me, she doesn’t believe that I am in earnest and she won’t believe that my intentions are honourable. She’s damnably infuriating
―and…and I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Mrs. Weir stared at her brother in amazement. “Well,” she said at last. “That has given me a picture now, to be sure.”

“So? What’s the verdict?” he asked grimly.

“You certainly seem…
taken
…with her.”

He gave a sho
rt laugh as he picked up a small vase and examined it. “Taken…yes, I think you could safely say that I am
taken
with her.”

“But Robbie, are you certain? I would hate for you to make a mistake. Do you desire her?”

“Undoubtedly. I spend far too much time thinking about our wedding night.”

“But is that
all
you feel?”

He went very still; thinking, and then he spoke softly, “I want to protect her. I want to take her troubles off her shoulders. I want to sleep next to her every night for the rest of my life.” He came back to the middle of the room and sat down beside her once more. “What am I to do, Caro?”

She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. “Have you kissed her?”

He looked so uncomfortable that his sister was hard put to it to repress a smile. “I’m not really sure that that is relevant
―”

“Of course it is relevant!” she cried. “If you want me to help you then I need to know what has happened…
have
you kissed her?”

“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly.

“And?”

“And what?”

She rolled her eyes. “How did she react? Did she like it?”

He shrugged. “I
don’t know…we had argued and I…I forced the kiss upon her to prove a point. I was angry, jealous too, I suppose, and I let my temper get the better of me.”

“I see. And did she slap your face?”

“No.”

“Ah. So then, did she kiss you back?”

He cleared his throat.

She patted his knee. “So, this is good. She is not adverse to you.”

“Then why has she accepted Peabody?” he demanded.

Caroline blinked at him. “Mr. Peabody? She’s going to marry that dreadful man of the lavender pantaloons?”

“The very same,” said his lordship gloomily.

“Oh, dear.”

“Quite,” he muttered.

She thought for a moment, her head on one side and took a deep breath as if coming to an astounding conclusion. “She doesn’t believe that you mean marriage.”

It was the earl’s turn to roll his eyes. “I
know
that! I told you only a minute ago that she won’t believe me to be in earnest. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother―”

“Have you told her?” she asked.

He stared at her, somewhat taken aback. “Told her what?”

She laughed. “Heavens, Robbie, of all the numbskulls…that you’re in
love
with her.”

He glanced at her, then at his hands and then at the floor but said nothing, los
t in his thoughts.

She squeezed his arm affectionately. “While you debate and hesitate, she is no doubt forming the opinion that you are amusing yourself with a little flirtation while you are in the neighbourhood. She needs to know how you feel.”

“Will you come to this wretched ball and meet her?” the earl asked.

“Do you wish me to?”

“Yes. You may convince Sarah that Miss Blakelow is not a she-devil who has come to emasculate me. Do come, Caro, if only to prevent me from drowning Mr. Peabody in the white soup.”

* * *

His lordship left his sister and went immediately to his club where he was hailed by several of his friends who wished to know where the deuce he had been hiding himself for all these weeks. He smiled faintly and refused an invitation to dine, but on finding one of his particular friends, Sir Julius Fawcett seated by the bay window reading a paper, requested the address of the lodgings where one Sir William Blakelow was currently residing. Sir Julius, citing boredom, folded the newspaper and declared that he would come with him.

It took the earl some time to track his quarry to earth, Mr. Blakelow having spent all the previous night at the card table and much afraid to return to his rooms for fear that creditors would find him there. His losses had been heavy, his consumption of alcohol even heavier and the earl eventually found him sleeping off his excesses under the table at his friend’s lodgings.

His lordship walked into the room, assessed the situation with one swift look, and stripping off his gloves, kicked the boots of the sleeping man to wake him up. The man groaned and grumbled but did not open his eyes.

“He’s not very awake, Rob,” commented Sir Julius, following his friend into the room and observing the young man on the floor through his quizzing glass. “Gad, what a waistcoat.”

Lord Marcham went to the stand, picked up the pitcher of water and emptied it into the face of Mr. Blakelow. Then he calmly laid his gloves upon the table, sat down, crossed his booted ankles and waited.

William
Blakelow surged to his feet in a storm of bluster and foul language. He looked about him as if trying to find his assailant and on spying his lordship, stormed forwards. “
You
!” he cried. “What are you―? How dare you come in here?”

His lordship nonchalantly
reached across for a towel, picked it off the wash stand and flung it in the face of the young man. “Dry yourself off, Mr. Blakelow. You are dripping water all over Mr. Boyd’s floor.”

“He’s rather pale, March,” drawled Sir Julius, observing the young man at length through his quizzing glass. “He’s not going to part company with his breakfast is he?”

“I would be very much surprised if he hasn’t already parted company with it,” replied the earl. “Do sit down, Julius, you are frightening Mr. Blakelow.”

Sir Ju
lius did as he was told, stretching his extremely long legs out before him. “And how do you know this young puppy? Does he owe you money?”

“In a manner of speaking,” murmured his lordship.

“
You
―what do you mean by coming in here and accosting me in such a manner?” demanded Mr. Blakelow, absently plying the towel to his red and dripping face.

“I wished to speak to you. You were…ah…indisposed. And that method seemed to be the most effective.”

“You will meet me for this,” said Mr. Blakelow, lifting his fists menacingly.

Sir Julius put up his brows. “Good God, is he actually threatening you Rob?” he asked, astounded.

His lordship smiled faintly. “He seems to have a penchant for violence—against me, anyway.”