by Norma Darcy
She smiled and untied the bow at her waist. “Not fit to be seen, am I, John?”
“You are without your glasses, Miss.”
“Oh yes, thank you.” She fished in the pocket of her gown for the hated spectacles and put them on. The cap followed, smothering her mass of red-brown curls under its frills until not a wisp of hair could be seen. Tying the white cotton strings under her chin, she was almost instantly transformed, and she wondered not for the first time how society was so easily duped by her simple disguise. It had served her well over the years, and she was not about to undo all her hard work by giving in to vanity in a weak moment. She sighed, satisfied that she had once more assumed the role of prim Miss Blakelow of Thorncote, and moved toward the door.
His lordship was standing by the fireplace when she entered the room, a cup and saucer in his hands, looking as if he were having a tooth pulled. His gaze shot to her face as she opened the door, and for a moment he looked so intensely relieved by her arrival that she was amused. Nothing could exceed Miss Blakelow’s disapproval of their lordly neighbor, but to see him so uncomfortable appealed to her ready sense of humor. She had been angry with him at their last meeting for refusing to keep their appointment and goading her into losing her temper, but a period of calm reflection had done much to restore her usually buoyant spirits, and as she met him now, slightly chastened by her behavior the last time she had seen him, she was determined to show him that she could be reasonable. Aunt Blakelow was keeping him up to date on the health discoveries she had made when she was last in Bath. These had been many, and by the expression on his lordship’s face, he was desperately seeking a means of escape. He set down his cup and saucer and bowed, then opened his mouth to greet her, but his words were drowned out by her aunt’s unstoppable tide.
“. . . mustard plasters are the thing for that . . . and of course I do recommend the waters at Bath for the gout, you know,” remarked the elder Miss Blakelow. “They taste quite awful, but I believe them to be very beneficial to a man suffering from that affliction. Do you suffer from gout, my lord?”
His lordship looked so much taken aback by this very direct question that Miss Blakelow, gently closing the door, was hard-pressed not to laugh.
“Er, no, ma’am. I am fortunate enough to be in the possession of excellent health,” he replied.
“Hmm. Well, I am surprised,” continued Aunt Blakelow. “From all I hear, it is a wonder to me that you are not riddled with it. Drink and idleness are the enemies of a gentleman, you know. A man should be busy. And if he cannot keep himself busy, then he should find other things to occupy his mind and his time.”
His lordship, wrestling with the urge to give this impertinent woman a much-deserved set-down, happened to glance at Miss Blakelow and saw that she was close to laughter. She appeared to be so in danger of losing control that she resolutely refused to meet his gaze, and a devil lurked within him at the thought that he would overset her gravity if it took him the rest of his visit to do it.
“Oh, I have no difficulty occupying my time,” said the earl and darted a swift look at Miss Blakelow to see how she bore it.
She did not mistake his meaning: women, drinking, and all-night orgies. A gleam stole into her eyes. “I think my aunt meant philanthropy,” said Miss Blakelow.
“I am sure she did,” he murmured. “But I am very philanthropic. I provide a good living and plenty of work for those under my roof.”
“Plenty of work, sir?” she asked, meeting his eyes through the thick glass of her spectacles.
“I have needs, ma’am.”
“Indeed?” she choked.
“I have a large estate and there is much to be done. My dear Miss Blakelow, what else did you suppose me to be speaking of?” he asked innocently.
“An idle man may very easily give in to corpulence,” said Aunt Blakelow at that moment, unconsciously rescuing her niece as she adjusted the arrangement of her considerable bulk upon the sofa.
“So may an idle woman,” murmured his lordship, and had the satisfaction of hearing quickly stifled laughter emanate from the other side of the room.
“Remember that,” said Aunt Blakelow, waving a finger at him. “But I hear that these days they can do much with corsets, although they are prone to creak just when one wishes that they would not. Mr. Grantham wears one, and you can hear him enter a house even before he has been announced. You might consider corsets when you have a need of them, Marcham.”
“I’ll bear them in mind,” said his lordship.
Miss Blakelow, much amused by the thought of his lordship in a corset, was moved to take a firm hold on her bottom lip with her teeth and went to sit by the fireplace, narrowly missing upsetting the tea tray on the small table.
“How does your mother do?” her aunt asked, and continued without waiting to hear his answer. “Dear Lady Marcham, such a fine woman and such excellent taste. I have often remarked upon it that one rarely finds a person with a better eye for color than the countess. I haven’t seen her in an age. Pray, does she not live up at the Dower House?”
“No, ma’am,” he replied. “She likes to divide her time between Longfield Park and town.”
“London is very well for entertainment, but I dare swear one grows tired of it after a while. Come and sit by me, young man,” invited Aunt Blakelow, patting the sofa beside her.
Lord Marcham, who had not been called young man since he was in short coats, resisted the urge to let fly the retort that sprang to his lips. This imperious, forthright woman was fast making him lose his temper, and Miss Blakelow was laughing at him for it. The words of his friend Sir Julius Fawcett came back to him, that the biggest punishment to an uptight bluestocking who had little experience of men was to be the object of the attentions of a notorious rake. He smiled inwardly, took the offered seat by the spinster aunt, and sipped his tea.
“You are a well-looking man . . . although no longer in your youth,” remarked the elderly Miss Blakelow. “How old are you?”
“Six and thirty, ma’am.”
“Well, you don’t look it. Oh, yes, I might be in my dotage, but I can still appreciate a pretty face.”
“Thank you,” replied his lordship meekly.
“Although you are rather too tall to be considered handsome. Your fiancée is a tall woman, I take it?”
Lord Marcham took the remark with a tight smile. “I have no fiancée.”
“Lady Emily Holt.”
“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 Holkhams, 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 colored 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? My father’s man of business, Mr. Healey, is away on family business.”
“I am not here to see Mr. Healey. I am here to see you.”
“Me?” she replied, astonished. She was unable to think of what he might wish to speak to her about if it was not her business proposal to save Thorncote, for w
hat else could they possibly have in common?
“Yes,” he replied smoothly, setting down his cup. “I so enjoyed your visit the other day that I became determined to repay the compliment.”
Aunt Blakelow’s jaw fell open. “My dear girl, am I to understand you went to visit his lordship unaccompanied?”
Her niece blushed. “I was not unaccompanied. John came with me.”
“John?” the earl repeated blankly.
“My father’s manservant. I am sure you must remember.”
The earl met her gaze, realized he was supposed to be going along with this version of events to save her from a scolding, and tried to recover the situation. “Er, yes, I remember John. Capital fellow. Knew farming inside out, did he not? A very capable fellow, I should imagine.”
“He’s our butler,” Miss Blakelow said as her aunt’s face took on an expression of extreme confusion at the notion of John knowing the first thing about farming.
The earl appeared to be struggling to maintain a straight face. “Ah, how convenient it must be to have a man skilled in a great many things. I’m sure Davenham, my butler, wouldn’t know one end of a scythe from the other.”
Miss Blakelow, remembering the manner of her last meeting with Mr. Davenham and how she had forced her way past him, lowered her gaze. “I think it a little unlikely, my lord, that my visit inspired anything more in you than the desire to box my ears.”
He laughed at that. “Do you? Why should you indeed?”
“Because I behaved abominably.”
“On the contrary, ma’am, you were touchingly concerned for your family and your home. Your passion did you credit. Now, shall we forget all about our previous meeting? When might I expect you in to receive a social call?”
“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. 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 favors.”
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 skeptical look.
“You disagree, my lord?”
“In my experience,” he replied, “every woman wants to look pretty, be they five and twenty or five and ninety.”
“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 honored, my lord. Such an honor 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 honored, 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,” said his lordship dryly.
Miss Blakelow colored 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,” Miss Blakelow said.
“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 an orangery 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 favors.
In fact, 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 found himself 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 to force him to part with his money had set his back up and had decided him to take his leave as swiftly as possible.
He put his cup down. “Well, I regret to say that I must take my leave of you.”
“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, 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 toward 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 apologize 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 apologize? She is old enough to make her own apologies, after all. Besides, I wouldn’t have thought you’d worry overmuch for my feelings.”
“I think that she angered you,” she said. “And I think that I angered you too.”
“What could possibly bring you to that conclusion, m
a’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. And I have a frightful temper. That is the truth of it.”
“She has been used to no one telling her that her manners are appalling.”
“Even by your standards, my lord?” she asked sweetly.
He felt his anger dissipate at the teasing tone in her voice. He glanced at her and laughed somewhat reluctantly. “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—almost as deplorable as mine.”
“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 glance 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?” he said.
She blushed painfully. “You know very well—it is a good deal too bad of you to mock me.”
“Mock you? Am I mocking you?”
“You no more wish to kiss me than I wish to be the centerpiece at your next dinner party,” she hissed under her breath. “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 smile at a woman and she is already planning our wedding.”
Just as he said this, 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, reddening with embarrassment.
