The Bluestocking and the Rake

by Norma Darcy

  All these reflections had passed through his head in a matter of moments, and he grimaced as the highwayman cried, “Stand and deliver!” from behind a red neckerchief—it seemed to his lordship that he shouted merely to set the bells ringing in his ears. As soon as he set foot on the road, he was pushed from behind into the door of his carriage, and a hessian sack was jerked down roughly over his head. He lashed out with his fists, but a blow to the back of his head silenced his protests. Now he found himself lashed to a chair and wondered what on earth they were planning to do with him and what their demands were.

  Footsteps approached, and the earl gathered that he was in a room with bare floorboards and the faint musty smell of disuse. It was hot and airless and dark. An attic, perhaps?

  “How is he?” said a third voice that was considerably older than the other two. Lord Marcham was surprised. He’d begun to think it was nothing more than a boyish prank, but the presence of an older man suggested something more sinister.

  “Coming around, we think,” said the older lad.

  “His head has stopped bleeding at last,” said the man, and Lord Marcham felt a hand on the back of his head and tried not to wince as it touched his wound.

  “Do you think we should give him some food?” asked the boy.

  “And have those fists loose again? No, I thank you,” replied the older youth. “Marcham, can you hear me?”

  His lordship was determined that if he ever got his hands on this young whelp, he would beat him so hard that he wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week. He raised his head, indicating that he was awake.

  “I’m going to take the gag off you to give you some water. If you make a sound, it will be very much the worse for you, do you understand?”

  As this was said into his ear as if the boy were talking into an ear trumpet, his lordship was hard-pressed to keep his temper, but he nodded his acceptance.

  “Here we go then. And remember, no noise.”

  Fingers fumbled at the back of his head and then the gag fell loose. His lordship felt the blood rush into his numbed lips and worked his mouth to ease the pain. A cup was pushed against his mouth before the circulation had returned to his lips, and he spilled most of the water down his chin. Slowly he found the right angle and drank deeply.

  “Where am I?” he rasped when the cup was cruelly taken away.

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “What do you want from me?” snapped his lordship. “Money?”

  The lad pulled up a nearby chair, and the earl heard it scrape against the floorboards. “Amongst other things.”

  “What other things? What am I to you?”

  “You are the man who killed our father.”

  There was a silence.

  His lordship frowned. “Who was your father?” he asked.

  “Sir William Blakelow.”

  The earl paused. “I think there must be some mistake.”

  “I think not, Marcham. You killed him.”

  “Master Ned, don’t say so,” said the man’s voice gently.

  “It’s true! He did, I tell you! Father would never have killed himself but for him. But if you don’t want to hear what I have to say to him, then you had better leave now and go back to your work,” snapped the lad.

  “Very well,” replied the man, and then his lordship heard the sound of his footsteps as he walked away.

  There was a pause before the lad continued, “But that wasn’t enough for you, was it, Marcham? You were not happy with that. You won’t be happy until our entire family is out on the streets. My brother Will is in debt to you so deep that we’re about to lose everything because of it. You’ve destroyed this family.”

  “What are you going to do with me?” asked his lordship.

  “We want your signature on some papers,” replied the youth.

  “Is that so? And do you imagine that any signature of mine without a witness is legal?”

  There was a pause.

  “Didn’t think of that, did you?” taunted the earl softly.

  “You will sign those papers.”

  “Or what?”

  The boy stood up and untied the blindfold around Marcham’s eyes. The earl winced at the sudden glare of candlelight in his face.

  “Or,” continued the lad, “you will be kept here until you do.”

  “And do you imagine such a fearsome prospect will have me breaking into a sweat?”

  The youth called Ned stepped forward until his face was inches away, and Marcham felt his breath on his face. “You are due to be married tomorrow,” he said, appearing to enjoy himself. “Breach of promise if you don’t turn up, isn’t it? Now who’s the one who didn’t think things through?”

  “You had better hope and pray that I don’t ever get my hands on you, boy.”

  Ned’s smile became a snarl. “Sign my sister’s papers or you will not be attending your own wedding.”

  He shrugged, unconcerned. “Then I will miss my own wedding. I will not give in to blackmail.”

  “Lady Emily will never believe you. She will think you jilted her.”

  “Perhaps I was about to jilt her anyway?” said his lordship with a hard smile.

  The lad looked surprised. “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t do that. You are not so blasé about your word as a gentleman.”

  “Do you honestly think a man like me gives a damn about that?” demanded the earl, laughing incredulously.

  “You are a man of your word, if nothing else. What do you think society will think of you when you jilt Lady Emily Holt at the altar? From what I hear, she was practically the only woman who would agree to marry you. You will never find a wife after that.”

  “Oh, the innocence of youth,” mocked Lord Marcham. “That just shows how little you know about women.”

  “Sign those papers.”

  “Go to the devil,” recommended his lordship.

  Two days later Miss Blakelow was drinking hot chocolate in bed, contemplating the morning ahead, when she heard the strangest noise. There was a loud thud, scuffling, and the distinct sound of a man’s voice yelling “George!” There was another bang, more scuffling, and the sound was quashed and the house was silent once more.

  Frowning, she climbed out from under the bedclothes, walked to the door, and opened it. Standing still for a moment, she paused to listen. Suddenly Jack burst into the corridor from the stairs that led up to the attic. He held a bowl in his hands and nearly dropped it at the sight of his eldest sister.

  “What are you doing, Jack? What was that noise?” asked Miss Blakelow.

  “What noise?”

  There was another bang from the attic and Jack coughed noisily.

  Miss Blakelow’s eyes narrowed. “What is going on in this house? Food disappearing from the kitchen, bloodstained rags in the laundry, noises in the attic. Do we have a hermit living up there?”

  “George! George, can you hear me?” shouted a man’s voice from upstairs, followed by another loud bang and the sound of scuffling.

  Miss Blakelow barged past her brother and ran lightly up the curved stairs to the attic. She burst in upon a scene of disarray.

  A man was bound tightly to a chair that had toppled over onto the floor, and he was struggling to move the chair against the floorboards, presumably trying to break free of his bonds, making as much noise as possible in the process. He was being ruthlessly gagged by Ned, who was sitting astride him, using his weight to try to quell his struggles, as if he were breaking in a horse. A jug of water was set on an old trunk, and food was scattered all over the floor, the plate smashed into pieces.

  “What on earth is going on here?” demanded Miss Blakelow, who picked up a candelabra from where it sat on an old chest and held it aloft so that she might survey the room.

  Everyone froze. Ned turned to his sister with a face of resignation. Then his gaze slid to the face of his younger brother, and he glared at him with disgust.

  “Well done, Jack. Now look what you’ve done. I knew
I should never have told you about this.”

  “Who is that man?” asked their eldest sister in a frigid voice.

  She moved the candelabra and gasped as she recognized the face of the Earl of Marcham. He lay on the floor and turned his head to look at her as she stared back at him.

  “What is he doing here?” Miss Blakelow demanded.

  “We’ve kidnapped him,” said Jack.

  Ned Blakelow glared at his brother for that admission. “We’re keeping him here, until he agrees to our demands.”

  Miss Blakelow moved farther into the room. “What demands?”

  “That he hand over Thorncote to us,” said Ned belligerently.

  “Give me strength! You foolish boy, this is not the way—surely you must see that. Untie him at once.”

  “Oh, but George, you will ruin everything!” cried Jack.

  “To be sure I will,” replied Miss Blakelow, setting the candelabra back down. “And you, Ned, will not be going to stay with Uncle Charles in London unless you release him this minute!”

  Lord Marcham observed this scene with mild amusement. The bluestocking had turned into a tigress. He could hardly believe his eyes. Who was this woman? Surely not the prim and prudish Miss Blakelow? The voice was the same. The lips were the same. But where were the cap and glasses? Where the garb of the widow? Before him was a young woman with chestnut hair about her shoulders, her threadbare nightgown momentarily backlit by the light from a branch of candles, showing him in one heart-stopping moment what he had already suspected: Miss Blakelow had a very pretty figure.

  “Release him at once,” demanded Miss Blakelow.

  “But George! You don’t understand!” cried Jack.

  “Untie him this instant,” she said. She moved toward his lordship and crouched on the floor. “He’s been bleeding. What have you done? What can you have been thinking of? Do you wish to land us all in Newgate?”

  “He was hit over the head,” said Ned.

  “I can see that, thank you,” replied Miss Blakelow dryly, reaching forward to untie the gag at his lordship’s mouth.

  “George?” asked Lord Marcham once the gag was freed.

  She smiled apologetically down at him. “It’s a family pet name.”

  “I thought . . .” He coughed. “I assumed that the George they spoke of was a man. An older brother, perhaps.”

  “And if you are disappointed, my lord, and think that because I am a woman they will escape a sound chastisement, you much mistake the matter!”

  Jack and Ned stared sheepishly at the floor at this remark.

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Lord Marcham, laying his head back against the floorboards.

  “Jack, bring me that water,” commanded Miss Blakelow.

  Her brother hurried to obey.

  “George,” repeated his lordship with eyes closed. “I like it. It suits you.”

  Ned and Jack untied the bindings at the earl’s hands and feet, and they helped him into a chair. His lordship gingerly stretched out his legs and arms to ease his cramped muscles.

  Miss Blakelow looked him over carefully. He looked pale, and his clothes were much creased, and there was blood on his shirt.

  “Jack, find John and have him take the bath up to Will’s room. Then find a clean shirt—one of Will’s will have to do, I hope that it might be big enough—and have Betsy bring up hot water for his lordship to wash. And some food too. Oh, and Jack, before you go, check that Aunt Blakelow is still in bed. We don’t want her stumbling across Lord Marcham in her nightgown.”

  “Are you intending to bathe me as well, Miss Blakelow?” asked Lord Marcham, an imp dancing in his eyes, his question spoken so softly that his words reached her ears alone.

  “Be quiet,” she replied, avoiding his eyes.

  “I would welcome your assistance.”

  She dipped a cloth into the water. “You wouldn’t, for I would scrub you from head to toe.”

  He smiled at some secret thought, and the look he gave her brought the heat into her cheeks.

  “Just what I was thinking, ma’am . . .” he replied, “but if I am not to have your ministrations at my bath, might I request a razor instead?”

  “Of course. Now keep still while I bathe your head,” said Miss Blakelow. “Ned, how came you not to tell me about this? I would expect a prank of this nature from Jack but not from you. I thought you were the sensible one.”

  Ned colored. “Marcham sent that damn popinjay and his man of business to go through all of our possessions, Georgie. How could I do nothing when we are about to be evicted from our home?”

  “Well, that explains it then,” agreed Lord Marcham without a moment’s hesitation. “The perfect reason to kidnap a member of the peerage.”

  Miss Blakelow glared down at him. “Sir, will you be quiet?”

  He spread his hands. “What? I am showing remarkable consideration, under the circumstances.”

  “You are not helping, so please be quiet. Ned, why is Lord Marcham here?” asked Miss Blakelow in a voice that froze the blood in his lordship’s veins. He looked at her leisurely while she was distracted by the task at hand, thinking that while she was not an Incomparable, she could have been said to be a very attractive woman. Her eyes were green and set under dark arched brows, her skin smooth and bronzed by the sun, her nose small and straight, her chin firm, and those full lips, which he had thought quite remarkable from the beginning of their acquaintance, were parted in an unconscious invitation to be kissed. He acknowledged within himself a desire to know what those lips felt like beneath his own and found that it was not a new sensation. Why, when he could have his pick of society beauties, was he fantasizing about a slip of a girl without fashion, exceptionable beauty, fortune, or position? In short, she had nothing that should attract him. And yet attract him she certainly did.

  “We did it for Thorncote,” said Ned belligerently. “I could not just stand by and watch Will’s inheritance—oh, dash it all, I didn’t want to see you out on the street, George. Jack and I and the girls could live with some relative or other, probably not together, but we would have had a home. But you have no one. You have no money. You would have ended up in the workhouse.”

  “Well, I hope not,” said Miss Blakelow brightly. “I might have become a governess or . . . or something.”

  “Or something,” echoed his lordship, his eyes twinkling at the very improper image that flashed into his mind.

  She glared at him, knowing what he was thinking. “Or something respectable.”

  “But where would be the fun in that?” he teased.

  Miss Blakelow decided there and then that Lord Marcham was every bit as depraved as his reputation had suggested. She deliberately slapped the wet cloth around his face and had the satisfaction of hearing him gasp at the cold. “A seamstress.”

  “With your eyesight? Oh, no,” said his lordship.

  Miss Blakelow froze.

  Her eyesight. She groped for her pocket and her glasses and suddenly remembered that she was wearing nothing but her nightgown. She folded her arms self-consciously across her bosom.

  “Too late to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted,” he said, smiling faintly at her obvious embarrassment.

  “Ned, help his lordship downstairs. I must get dressed.”

  “Must you?” murmured the earl.

  Miss Blakelow looked around for something to throw at him.

  “And I am happy to say that I was right,” he continued as the lad helped him to his feet. “You are much improved without those wretched glasses. You appear to me to be able to see without them perfectly well.”

  “Ned, I am sure that his lordship would prefer a cold bath after being cooped up in this hot attic all this time,” said Miss Blakelow, glaring at their noble neighbor. “Pray see to it.”

  CHAPTER 9

  HIS LORDSHIP, MUCH RESTORED by a bath and a fresh change of linen, was making a hearty breakfast in the parlor with the Blakelow family looking on with vary
ing degrees of trepidation.

  He was making them await his decision, savoring every mouthful of the fare that had been placed upon the table for his enjoyment.

  Miss Blakelow was quite astonished, watching him from the other end of the room as he steadily packed away a considerable amount of cold meat and bread and washed it all down with a tankard or two of ale. Her brother William had a healthy appetite, but nothing at all compared with this man. She stared at him, rather wondering at his athletic physique; it was amazing to her that he was not round enough to rival the Prince Regent.

  The earl leaned back in his chair and popped a grape into his mouth, watching with some amusement the faces of the Blakelow family, evidently all gathered to watch him eat as if he were a freak act in a traveling show. They all looked expectantly at him, as if fearing that the Bow Street Runners would arrive at any moment and cart them off to prison.

  His eyes flicked around the room. The aunt had finally put in an appearance at the breakfast table, concentrating on demolishing the huge sweet pastry on the plate in front of her. Plus Ned, Marianne, Catherine, and Elizabeth, every one of them blond-haired and pale-eyed, like peas in a pod. There was another brother, his lordship remembered, William. He recalled that he was like the others. Jack was darker in coloring, more like his eldest sister, and his eyes fell upon Miss Georgiana Blakelow, her chestnut-colored hair once more hidden under her thick white cap, her glasses perched upon the end of her nose, and her figure once more swathed in the black, featureless mourning dress that he was fast learning to despise. Another image came all too readily to mind, the image of her in a threadbare nightgown, the curve of her waist and a breast silhouetted by the candlelight, her long slender legs moving toward him with seductive grace, and her glorious hair down around her shoulders.