The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) (6 page)

“Lady Emily Holt is no more than an inch or two above five feet and she is
not
my fiancée.”

“Oh, dear…well, it cannot be helped, I suppose. And is she pretty? No, you need not answer that. I cannot believe a man like you would marry a
woman who was not. Her father was a handsome man in his day, you know. Blonde, isn’t she? Voluptuous too. But she won’t age well, Marcham, you can be sure of that. She’ll be fat by the time she is thirty, but I suppose you won’t mind that once she has given you a house full of little Hockinghams and then you can take a mistress.”

His lordship choked on his tea. He opened his mouth to reply and then thought better of it and closed it again.

“My dear Aunt,” interjected Miss Blakelow, torn between mortification for her aunt’s manners and amusement at the resulting effect on their esteemed visitor. “Lord Marcham is here to discuss business.”

“No he isn’t,” replied his lordship, bluntly.

Miss Blakelow coloured faintly and looked at him through the thick lenses of her glasses. “No?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps you are here to see the estate?”

“I have no interest in your estate, pretty though it may be.”

“Oh. Then why are you here? Mr. Healey has gone to Harrogate on family business.”

“I am not here to see Mr. Healey. I am here to see you.”

“
Me
?”

“Yes,” he replied smoothly, setting down his cup. “I so enjoyed your visit the other day that I became determined to repay the compliment.”

Miss Blakelow, remembering the manner of their last meeting, lowered her gaze. “I think that a little unlikely, my lord.”

“Do you? Why should you indeed?”

“Because you never make social calls,” she said.

“I make social calls when I
wish
to make social calls,” he retorted.

“Would you like some more tea, my lord?” asked Aunt Blakelow.

“If your niece will consent to pour it for me,” the earl replied smiling.

Miss Blakelow kept her eyes lowered as she shifted forward on the edge of her chair and took the cup from his hand. Her fingers trembled slightly as she sensed his eyes upon her and she picked up the teapot and began to pour.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “I think at least some of the tea has made it into the cup.”

Her eyes flew to his and she struggled to keep her countenance. “I beg your pardon?”

His eyes twinkled. “You will allow me to tell you, ma’am, that your spectacles do you no favours.”

She raised a brow. “Indeed?”

“You must own that they neither improve your looks nor your eyesight.”

“I will own nothing of the kind. My spectacles suit me well enough, my lord, and I will ask you to keep your observations to yourself
―”

“I rather suspect that you would see a good deal better without them,” he added, leaning back into his chair. “And your appearance would be vastly improved.”

Miss Blakelow stared calmly back at him. “I was not aware that I had asked for your opinion on the matter.”

“You would look less bookish and I venture to think, much prettier.”

“And I should take the advice of such a worldly connoisseur, is that so?”

He shrugged. “You might listen to worse.”

“For your information, my lord, I have no interest in looking pretty―”

He gave her a sceptical look.

“You disagree, my lord?”

“In my experience,” he replied, “
every
woman wants to look pretty, be they five or ninety-five.”

“Did you come here for a reason, Lord Marcham,” she asked? “Or merely to make me lose my temper?”

He smiled unperturbed. “Tempting, though that is, I did in fact come to find out what the morally improving Miss Blakelow is doing tomorrow morning and whether she would consent to drive out with me.”

Aunt Blakelow beamed. “Well, I should be honoured, my lord. Such an honour to be taken up by you.”

The earl, who had in fact meant the younger Miss Blakelow, was momentarily lost for words. From somewhere he found his manners. “I would be honoured, ma’am.”

“And so you mean to look over the estate, I suppose?” asked Aunt Blakelow. “Well I’ll be happy to show it to you, of course. Might we prevail upon my niece to join us?”

“If you wish it,” murmured his lordship dryly.

Miss Blakelow coloured faintly. “Me?”

“Yes, why not, my love? His lordship would like to see the estate and who better to show him than you?”

She offered him a plate of very rustic-looking cakes and his lordship, used to the fine skills of his French chef, examined them with a fascinated eye but refused them.

“I don’t think you would find that at all enjoyable, my lord,” she said.

“On the contrary,” he murmured. “Anyone who can do what you did to Harry Larwood is likely to prove very entertaining.”

Her eyes flew to his and found that they were dancing.

“Yes, ma’am. He is worried that his son and heir may be an only child as a result of your…er…ministrations.”

Miss Blakelow blushed and was forced into a reluctant laugh. “He deserved it.”

“He did indeed.”

“But if you do not like him then why did you invite him to your house?”

“I didn’t. He invited himself and organised his party at my expense. His nickname is Leech. He spends most of his time bleeding the pockets of the people he calls his friends.”

“My niece and I would be delighted to drive out with you, my lord. She will show you the orchard and the home wood and the water mill. It was once so very fine and so very prosperous and with your help I hope it will be so again. You will find the estate enchanting, I believe. It has the reputation as one of the finest houses in the county. So well proportioned and handsome. I don’t doubt that you will agree that there is none as fine as Thorncote. Not that I mean to say that it is finer than Holme Park, you understand, for everyone knows that your father added much to the house and it has a deer park and a lake and―”

“Aunt,” interrupted Miss Blakelow hastily. “I think his lordship is well acquainted with the virtues of his own home.”

“Yes, my dear, of course he is. I was merely pointing out that Thorncote need not be the poor relation. It can be the equal of Holme Park given the will of those wishing to make amends.”

A silence greeted this speech and Miss Blakelow hardly dared look at their visitor. She did not know the Earl of Marcham but felt sure that nothing was less likely to succeed with him than forcing his hand. She sneaked a peek at his face and saw the hard shuttered look and knew that her aunt had done their cause no favours.

His lordship was distinctly annoyed. He decided at that moment that nothing would prevail upon him to further the cause of this impertinent woman and her staid niece. He did not know what had possessed him to visit in the first place. He had been on the way back from Loughton and had been on the road to Thorncote before he had even formed the thought in his head. The estate was exactly as he had remembered it; a modest house set in the middle of good but unremarkable farmland. He had no interest in seeing it returned to its former glory or in assisting two women who had done nothing but lecture him since he had been unfortunate enough to make their acquaintance. But to have this woman try and force him to part with his money had set his back up and had decided him at that moment to take his leave as swiftly as possible.

He put his cup down. “Well, I regret to say that I must be going.”

“So soon?” cooed Aunt Blakelow.

“Yes, forgive me, but I have business to attend to,” he said curtly.

Miss Blakelow also rose to her feet. “Of course,” she replied quietly, thinking that his business probably involved half naked women. “I will see you out.”

“There is no need. I know my way.”

She clasped her hands before her. “Very well, my lord.”

They walked towards the door together and Miss Blakelow took the opportunity that was afforded her now that she was out of her aunt’s earshot.

“I must apologise for my aunt, Lord Marcham,” she said in a low voice.

He raised a brow at her but said nothing.

“She means well but she can be a little forthright.”

“Why should you apologise? She is old enough to make her own apologies, after all.”

“I think that she angered you,” she said quietly.

“What could possibly bring you to that conclusion, ma’am?” he asked, his tone caustically sarcastic.

She bit her lip. “She is old, my lord, and has been a spinster all her life. She has been used to her own way.”

“She has been used to no one telling her that her manners are appalling.”

“Even by your standards, my lord?” she asked sweetly.

The sting was taken out of his temper by the teasing tone in her voice. He glanced at her and a reluctant laugh was drawn from him. “You will allow me to tell you that I find you impertinent, ma’am.”

She dimpled. “And you are a great deal too ready to fly up into the boughs. You have an appalling temper, sir.”

“I know it,” he replied ruefully.

“Are we still adhering to our truce?”

“Just. Although it has been stitched and mended on three occasions already.”

She flicked a quick look at her aunt who had fallen asleep. “Are we forgiven then?”

“Yes, Miss Blakelow with the very kissable lips, you are forgiven,” he said softly.

“I wish that you would not keep saying that.”

“What, that you are kissable?”

She blushed painfully. “You know very well―it is a good deal too bad of you to mock me.”

“Mock you?” he asked innocently. “Am I mocking you?”

“You no more wish to kiss me than I wish to be the centre piece at your next dinner party,” she hissed tartly. “I wish that you may stop trying to pretend that you have any interest in me.”

“
Have
I shown any interest in you?” he asked, much surprised. “I thought I had only asked to drive you out to see your father’s estate. Forgive me if you misconstrued my meaning. It seems that all I have to do is shake hands with a woman and she is already planning our wedding.”

She took the implication in his tone.
Is it likely that a man like me should show an interest in a woman like you? Why should a handsome man of property like me fall for a drab squab of a girl with no more to recommend her than a pretty mouth and a head for farm machinery? You have flattered yourself that I find you attractive because I meant that you should do so, but now I am punishing you for your folly.
She had laughed at him and now he was punishing her and in her mortification, she walked into a small table and knocked an ormolu clock flying. She caught it again before any damage was done and set it back upon its base and reddened with embarrassment.

He took out his pocket book, took several notes from it and handed them 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.

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 Hockingham family pew at the front of the church where their esteemed neighbour was sitting, seemingly ignorant of the stir he was creating by his presence. She could only see the back of him from where she was seated and was trying to detect from staring at the back of his noble dark head, whether he had in fact fallen asleep.

Lord Marcham was not a religious man. He was to be 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 neighbourhood 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 which passed his clergyman’s lips, was anyone’s guess. The rector seemed particularly flustered by the presence of his lord 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 rumoured 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 softly. “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 and 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, 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. “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 far 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 rose bush 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 have found time to come to church this morning. I am usually…
otherwise
occupied on a Sunday,” he murmured, looking at Miss Blakelow with a wicked glint in his eye.

She took his meaning; women, drinking, carousing or nursing the after effects of all of the above. “Indeed?” she replied, meeting his eyes 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 as she answered, “Oh. But I see now that it was not plural. One lady in particular…a favourite 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…philanthropi
c
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 did not.”

“Including you?” he asked softly.

“Undoubtedly. I would not wish to be made a fool of.”

“And if I told you that rumours 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?” she 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. 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?” suggested Aunt Blakelow.

“Thank you ma’am. We will see,” he murmured 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,” replied Miss Blakelow hastily, colouring up as she spoke.

Lord Marcham bowed as Aunt Blakelow gave him her hand. “Of course, ma’am, I would be honoured.”

“Of course there is a need, my dear,” said her aunt. “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 she, addressing her niece.

Miss Blakelow was mortified to be dragged into the conversation, gave rather 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 in extreme distaste. “Indeed, ma’am? Then you must be exceptionally clever for you have divined something which 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,” murmured 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.

She managed to shepherd her aunt towards 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 publically on a couple of occasions.”

“I rather think it was more than that. It is your behaviour which has set tongues wagging, sir. Your attentions have been quite marked, you know.”

“Hardly,” he replied caustically. “By the same token, they might say that I was in love with you, for I have known you a comparable length of time.”

“Ah,” smiled Miss Blakelow, “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 murmured. “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 have 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 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.”