Anna’s face began to fall, and her mouth opened in protest.
“...for if you do not remain here to make it look as though I am asleep in my bed, and tell Evangeline and Mrs. Gray that we have retired quite exhausted, then I cannot succeed. Your duty is most important to our success.”
Anna smiled. “And you must promise to tell me everything,” she said.
“Everything,” Lina said, kissing Anna’s forehead. “I promise most solemnly.”
Anna nodded gleefully, and spun around to busy herself at her task.
It was not the first time, after all, that Anna had helped Lina sneak off into the house late at night. Though usually, it was done in the name of fruit or cheese.
Chapter Five
Because the Harlowes could ill afford a governess, and because Mrs. Harlowe and Mrs. Gray had quite enough to do just keeping up the facade of the Manor and their social standing and their wealth, and because Lina was destined to marry a commoner anyway, she was left for much of her childhood to study by herself. It was why Lina’s embroidery, handwriting, and piano playing were all in such a disastrous state—not that it mattered. The Harlowes likely thought her slow-witted, but it was the result of Lina using her time to explore the vast Manor, and the many secrets it contained.
It was also why she was adept at least one thing, which was unlikely to ever be any use to her as a commoner: she could stealthily move about a sizable house unnoticed by all, and knew just where to place herself to overhear what went on in other rooms.
Which is how she arrived at the heating grate above the great stove of the secondary kitchen which was no longer used, where, by climbing atop the great stove and standing on her tiptoes, she was within reach of overhearing the two men, who, she was grateful, remained in the drawing room, speaking in hushed tones. As she had expected. She held on to the grate and strained to hear better.
“... as you require,” Mr. Harlowe was saying. ““But I can be certain that the girl has no option but to comply, and that shall be the end of it.”
There was a long pause, and Lina worried that the strange Mr. Blackstone’s voice would be too low for her to hear. But when she heard it, it was clear and low, and as before, it sent a sensation through her body that could not be described by any words in her possession.
“And what of the rumors that the girl is wanton?”
Mr. Harlowe appeared shocked by the sigh that came from him. “Mr. Blackstone, you may rest assured that they are merely rumors. Surely a man such as yourself knows how sharp the tongues of high society can be.”
“In my case, Mr. Harlowe,” the voice said coldly, sending another shiver through Lina, “those rumors are all quite true.”
Lina now felt a chill descend through her body—nothing like the other strange feeling Mr. Blackstone’s voice had inexplicably cultivated. She was breathing too rapidly, and she struggled to slow her racing emotions.
“Yes, well,” Mr. Harlowe said at last. “In the case of Miss Blanchet, there is something to the rumors that she is headstrong and quite... ill-mannered, though we have tried very hard, there is nothing one can do about good breeding, or lack thereof. You’ve heard her speak, of course. There is nothing to be done about her accent. And she is... well, the illegitimate daughter of a mariner and a French maid, so she is quite... French. But I assure you, Mr. Blackstone, that with reference to any rumors that circulate, inculpating Miss Blanchet with infractions more... serious... than these, they are most incorrect.”
Another pause made Lina’s stomach flip.
“Do you know, Mr. Harlowe, how I have made my fortune? A man like myself, with no title, no land, no social standing whatsoever? A man like myself, with such an unspeakable countenance?”
There was no reply from Mr. Harlowe. Lina squinted, as if it could make her hear better.
“By being clever, Mr. Harlowe. And one of the most clever things about me is that I am a very good judge of when a man is lying to me. Not because I am a great reader of minds, no no. I am simply a man with reason, and suspicion, and an utter lack of trust in the motives of others.”
The floor creaked, and Mr. Blackstone’s voice was much closer to Mr. Harlowe when next he spoke.
“You owe me a great deal, Mr. Harlowe, and you haven’t a thing of value in this house with which to pay me. I would say, then, that you have every reason to tell me a lie.”
Mr. Harlowe stuttered for a few moments, before managing to say, “I assure you, Mr. Blackstone, I do... I do not speak falsely.”
The floor creaked again.
“But, Mr. Blackstone, my good gentleman, if there is but a flicker of concern about the honor of the young Miss Blanchet, you know I have another daughter, my lovely Evangeline...”
A low laugh emanated from Mr. Blackstone. It was sinister, and chilled Lina yet again. “Mr. Harlowe,” Mr. Blackstone rumbled. “You would give your own daughter to a man like me? To a monster? When I have just told you... the rumors you have heard are true? Every. Last. One.”
“I... I would... Mr. Blackstone, I merely wish for you to understand that I must... we must, we are indebted to you, and we must—”
Mr. Blackstone laughed again, and the way he did so cut Mr. Harlowe off. It seemed to Lina as though the air had become chilled as well.
“Your daughter Evangeline is rumored to be plain, rotund, and in possession of a very docile personality, Mr. Harlowe.”
Mr. Harlowe made a noise that sounded a bit like a hiss.
“I am not the sort of man who wants a plain, rotund wife with a docile personality. I am quite taken with Miss Blanchet, who surely you can see is a great beauty and shall not be a hippopotamus within the year. I cannot... properly discipline a hippopotamus, can I? Nor would I have much reason to do so if she is perfectly docile and utterly dull. No. Miss Blanchet is what I want, and Miss Blanchet is what I shall take, or you shall have to repay me with property. This is, of course, provided that Miss Blanchet is not... defective in some way. Is she, to your knowledge? And I pray thee speak the truth.”
“She is... she is not, Mr. Blackstone. Not... not to my knowledge. I give you my word of honor.”
Another pause, while Lina shivered beneath the vent.
“Your word of honor,” Mr. Blackstone repeated. “I suppose that is a very good word, indeed, for it is upon your honor that you have undertaken the guardianship of this girl.”
There was another shift of bodies above, and then the sound of footsteps. “I dare say that honoring your word may be your salvation, Mr. Harlowe. I shall send instructions for the girl’s transfer to London, and the preparations for the wedding, which will be a small and quiet affair. In the meantime, be advised: I have eyes and ears everywhere, and should rumors of Miss Blanchet’s behavior not accord with what you have told me, well... we shall return to this topic only if necessary, as it is quite unpleasant to think about.”
Footsteps echoed above Lina’s head, indicating that Mr. Blackstone had taken his leave.
Lina let out the breath she had been unconsciously holding in a slow and steady stream, her head swimming. She crouched to regain her balance on the precarious stove and lower herself to the floor, pausing to take a few deep breaths and steady herself.
Snippets of the overhead conversation flew about in her mind, detached from each other. She felt a spell coming on, quite like the spells that Evangeline described. Wedding... monster... discipline... defective in some way... discipline, discipline, discipline.
The funny feeling that had taken root in her abdomen earlier in the evening at the sound of Mr. Blackstone’s voice gripped her anew, and she steadied herself with a few deep breaths.
Just as she was about to lower herself carefully, hopefully without sound, to the floor and return to her quarters, footsteps above her crossed the floor with the heavy, characteristic sound of Mrs. Harlowe’s trudge.
A feminine whisper hissed above her. Lina rose again to get closer to the vent, and strained to hear the discussion above
her.
“My darling wife, there is no option but to accept the conditions of Mr. Blackstone’s request. He is an eccentric, and I daresay a madman, but we are left with no choice. Caroline will be a burden upon us until she is married off. If she is wed to Mr. Blackstone, we shall recuperate our debt and then more, allowing a modest dowry for Evangeline.”
There was a long pause. “I am perplexed, wife. Was it not you who thought this arrangement acceptable when it was proposed?”
Mrs. Harlowe’s whisper was high and sharp, and Lina strained to hear her response. “That was before I... should not say, but surely you have heard of the... rumors.”
Mr. Harlowe sighed loudly, and above her, Lina heard the loud clatter of a glass whiskey snifter upon the table. “Sharp tongues abound, even in polite society.”
“But what if they are true? What if...?”
“I suggest, Mrs. Harlowe, that if these rumors are those which I believe them to be, they are most inappropriate for a woman to speak of or so much as sully her mind with the thought of. Surely you are not behaving or thinking with such wanton indiscretion?”
There was a long pause.
“No, husband.”
“The matter is closed, then. We are left with no choice but to send Caroline to Mr. Blackstone. Dear wife, don’t pout so. I have not even told you the most marvelous aspect of our arrangement.”
There was another shuffling of feet, and Lina strained to hear the voices of her two guardians, but nothing was said for some time and she began to tire of holding her precarious stance on the stove. She crouched again, and waited, as the clink of crystal and a feminine giggle emanated from above.
“You shall be very pleased with this,” Mr. Harlowe teased, at last.
“Come then, dear husband, do not keep it from me.”
“Mr. Blackstone has arranged, dear wife,” and there was another long pause, presumably while Mr. Harlowe sipped his drink, during which time Lina’s heart raced and her impatience made her skin damp with sweat, despite the chill of the abandoned kitchen. “For our triumphant return to society. We shall attend balls in London, my dear.”
Mrs. Harlowe squealed quite audibly. “But how...?”
“My dear, a great deal can be brought to effect by the possession of wealth, and Mr. Blackstone, while he is without title or bearing, has much of that. These are new times we live in. But I digress. Think not of how such a change of fortune has occurred, but what it will mean for Evangeline, who shall at last be presented to society, and with any fortune, married off.”
Mrs. Harlowe’s excited breathing could be heard by Lina, and she could almost see her guardian clutching her chest in delight, eyes glittering.
“But... but... whatever shall we wear?” she said suddenly, in a cry of despair.
“But my dear wife, you should know that I would have thought of everything. The entire family shall be seen by the finest tailors in London, at Mr. Blackstone’s expense, as part of our arrangement.”
More heavy breathing punctuated a pause, as the furniture shifted above Lina, a result, no doubt, of Mrs. Harlowe’s ecstatic, and unladylike, collapse in her chair.
“A return to society,” she breathed. “Oh, I simply must tell Evangeline!”
Lina carefully climbed down from the stove with her heart racing, lest Mrs. Harlowe entertain the idea of performing this last act that very evening, which, judging by her breathless demeanor, was a distinct possibility.
Her skin tingling, her thoughts in a flurry, Lina worked her way back to her quarters, where she found Anna asleep and pillows piled beneath her own blankets. Shaking, though she knew not what from, Lina blew out the candle and tucked herself beneath the covers, struggling to breath more softly, lest Mrs. Harlowe burst into the room at any moment.
Chapter Six
“Oh!” Evangeline exclaimed, not for the first time on the very long journey to London, “this is ever so long and arduous!”
She fanned herself dramatically.
Lina smiled and looked out the window. Already they were passing the towns at the outskirts of the city, and no matter what lay ahead for her at the journey’s end, there was plenty to watch and see, all of it new and delightful. The road had become smooth, but even when they had traveled down the bumpy, poorly maintained roads from the Manor, the ride had never been arduous. Mr. Blackstone had sent for the family, and they were ensconced now in two gleaming carriages like the one he had arrived in months ago, when his peculiar proposal had been accepted by Mr. Harlowe.
Lina’s protestations about the marriage—which itself was described to her in only the barest of terms—had fallen upon deaf ears, and the Harlowes had all but threatened to turn her out into the street if she did not obey. Only Evangeline, surprisingly, had been receptive to Lina’s complaints about the marriage, which Mrs. Harlowe had dismissed out of hand as “utter foolishness” and “the silly fantasies of a little girl.”
“You must dismiss out of hand these ridiculous notions that women who marry for true love come to any end except unhappiness. Love, my dear girl, fades within a year. Poverty does not,” Mrs. Harlowe had declared imperiously.
Lina had kept to herself the fact that she knew Mrs. Harlowe’s concerns were not only for Lina’s financial fortunes, but her own.
Evangeline, on the other hand, had taken Lina aside and clasped her hands firmly, her eyes brimming with tears. “You must never abandon your hope of marriage for true love, Lina.” She had even used Lina’s true name, and squeezed her hand with heartfelt sympathy. “When we go to London, you shall attend balls and meet all manner of dashing men, and so shall I. Oh, you will be so very wealthy when you marry Mr. Blackstone, and you will invite me to all of the most beautiful balls and parties! You will see, he is not so very monstrous as he is rumored to be.”
Well. Evangeline was at least somewhat sympathetic to Lina’s problem, even if much of that concern was rooted in self-interest.
“How long,” Evangeline complained, “until we arrive?”
“Isn’t it grand?” Anna commented.
It was grand, indeed, Lina thought, and she smiled at Anna.
As for herself, Lina thought, her fate was not sealed, though thinking of her options made her stomach turn and flop. There was the matter of the sensation low in her belly—shamefully lower, where her naughtiest parts were—when she thought of Mr. Blackstone’s authoritative, crisp voice as he uttered the word “discipline.”
But she was not going to be married off to a monster, if in fact that is what he was. Though discovering what these “rumors” about Mr. Blackstone were was proving itself to be quite difficult. Evangeline did not know, and Mrs. Harlowe had been a locked box since the day of Mr. Blackstone’s departure—he had gone without so much as a goodbye or even breakfast.
Lina worried that loneliness awaited her with Mr. Blackstone.
On the other hand, she owed a great deal to the Harlowes, who had taken her in when her father had died. She did not want to be a burden on them.
There was, though, the matter that they seemed quite keen selling her off, and a great deal of money appeared to be being exchanged for this transaction, which only led an inquisitive mind like Lina’s to ponder why a man like Mr. Blackstone would pay great money for a girl with no family and no title, and for that matter, the albatross of being a bastard child hanging about her neck.
Unless there was something truly monstrous about him, which made all women of good standing refuse his offer.
When she saw the dense yellow fog hanging about the murky gray buildings of London in the distance, she did not bother to let Evangeline, who had asked at least ten more times if they would ever arrive, know. She smiled, and lifted her chin.
Because while she had not made any decision thus far, if she was in London, she was a great deal better off than at Green Grove Manor.
She had gone so far as to entertain the idea—the very wicked idea, certainly—in her mind, of disappearing, in the middle of the night,
into the streets of London, wearing a ball gown that she would be able to sell for a modest amount that would surely enable her to go... somewhere.
Her heart dropped to think of what such a wicked action would lead to for the Harlowes, and so the idea was one of last resort.
But should it turn out that Mr. Blackstone was a monster, she would have no choice. After all, if the Harlowes were so willing to throw her beneath the wheels of the carriage for their own gain, she would be blameless for having done the same to them to save herself.
For now, it was a game of strategy, much like chess, which Lina played in the attic against herself, as women did not play games such as chess in the Harlowe household. Anyway, none of them would have been able to even amuse her, if Mr. Harlowe’s chess game as she had spied it one evening was as terrible as it had then seemed.
Chapter Seven
Mr. Blackstone had arranged for the Harlowe family, and Lina—Evangeline rarely failed to point out to anyone within earshot that Lina’s surname was not Harlowe—to take up temporary residence in a townhouse in the ultra-fashionable Grosvenor Square, in the home of a man who had no family and had set off for Europe.
Lina had been required to take Mrs. Harlowe, and subsequently, Evangeline, at their word when they told her the area they were to be staying in was “very nearly exclusive.” She had supposed that it would be quite something. She had not expected the seemingly endless rows of white marble homes, all curiously interconnected, nor the bustle of the upper-class women strolling about in the most fantastical and, to Lina’s own mind, ridiculous costumes imaginable.
Evangeline ceased her endless complaining about the journey as soon as they arrived within the limits of the city, and became silent in awe, until they reached the wealthier neighborhoods and she began to heap praise, in a breathless, high-pitched voice, upon the fashion sense of the women she saw from the carriage window.
Theirs to Train: A Victorian Menage Romance Page 3
