The Bluestocking and the Rake

by Norma Darcy

  “Ten to one it is an infatuation that will be over before Christmas.”

  “You are very calm about it. But then, it would be in your interest to see him married off to a fortune, would it not? Your beloved Thorncote would be saved.”

  Miss Blakelow was amused. “My dear Aunt, with all due respect, if William’s object is to save Thorncote, he will need to look for a much richer heiress than your daughter.”

  Mrs. Thorpe bristled. “You will do nothing?”

  “I can do nothing. I have written to him and requested that he come home so that we may discuss what is to be done about the future of the house and that of the girls. When he comes I will speak to him.”

  “And when will that be? After he has spent all my daughter’s money, no doubt?”

  Miss Blakelow smiled and set down her cup. “That will depend upon whether Charlotte is willing to give it to him,” she said quietly.

  Mrs. Thorpe turned purple with anger. “Well, I begin to think I have come on a fool’s errand.”

  “I begin to think that you might be right,” agreed Miss Blakelow.

  “Oh, you are a cool fish, aren’t you? Sitting there with that smug smile upon your lips. Well, you will no longer be amused when you hear what I have to tell you. I could not believe it when I heard the story, and having seen you, I believe it even less.”

  Miss Blakelow raised a brow in silent inquiry.

  “It has been brought to my attention that you have been encouraging the attentions of the Earl of Marcham,” said Mrs. Thorpe.

  Miss Blakelow, despite her best efforts, blushed faintly. “Indeed, ma’am?”

  “It is being said that you have set your cap at him,” said Mrs. Thorpe, “and that he has set you up as his latest flirt. Now, miss, what do you have to say to that?”

  “That it is untrue.”

  “Do you deny that you have encouraged his society?”

  “I deny that I have done it through any other reason than to secure the future of Thorncote,” said Miss Blakelow promptly.

  “Has he offered to make you his mistress?” demanded her aunt.

  Miss Blakelow was beginning to lose her temper. “He would not insult me by such a suggestion, ma’am.”

  “No?” sneered Mrs. Thorpe very, very softly.

  Miss Blakelow struggled for calm. “His lordship has behaved toward me in a manner every inch the gentleman. He may have a reputation, but he has not laid a finger on me.”

  “He will,” replied Mrs. Thorpe assuredly.

  “You know the earl? You are in his confidence?” demanded Miss Blakelow.

  “Anyone may know what he wants. I know his type. And so, my girl, do you. None better.”

  Miss Blakelow paled. “You pain me, Aunt, by your language—”

  “Do you not remember? Are you so fixated with him that you forget everything you learned? God knows that it is abhorrent to me to speak of that time in your past—”

  “Then don’t speak of it,” flashed Miss Blakelow, her eyes blazing.

  “Your mother entrusted you to my care—”

  “My mother did no such thing,” replied Miss Blakelow coldly.

  “And in that capacity, I must counsel you against the folly of courting a man like Marcham.”

  “I am not courting him. We are friends.”

  “Friends? You cannot be friends with a man like him. Sanity precludes it. Honesty, decency, and delicacy preclude it. You must know that a woman who links her name to his, even in friendship, is finished in the eyes of society?”

  Miss Blakelow smiled coldly. “Lord Marcham has been a good friend to me.”

  “Do you have no care as to your reputation?”

  “I did. As you can see, I have taken great care of my reputation. I have crafted a new one to fool society.” Miss Blakelow paused and with a wan smile indicated the clothes she wore. “And now my pristine reputation has replaced the tarnished one I made in my youth. My reputation defines me as Lord Marcham’s defines him—even though we both loathe our public faces. In that respect we are very similar, he and I.”

  “Surely you are not foolish enough to believe he means marriage?” exclaimed Mrs. Thorpe, her pinched eyes as wide as they could be.

  “I believe that his lordship intends to marry someone,” replied her niece calmly.

  “Oh, I’m sure he does—he must, at any rate—but you?”

  “I have a headache, Aunt. I hope you will excuse me, but I must go and lie down for a while. I will ask John to bring your carriage to the door.”

  “Take a good long look at yourself, my girl,” said Mrs. Thorpe, who stayed seated in her chair, continuing as if her niece had not spoken.

  Miss Blakelow stood and went to the fireplace, where she pulled the bell cord. “I have no desire to do so, however, and I must ask you to leave.”

  “You have lost your youth and your looks and much more besides—heaven knows who will take you now. Your course is run, Sophie. You had your chance and you threw it away, and now you live upon the charity of a family who are not yours—”

  “John, please be good enough to bring Mrs. Thorpe’s carriage to the door.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  Her aunt stood but made no move to leave. “I did my best by you. I made you the hit of the season, didn’t I? I promised Mr. Thorpe that I would. I did it for his sake, because he loved his sister so, and when she died he wanted nothing more than to see her daughter creditably established. You had gowns and bonnets and lace. You had suitors vying for your hand. You had all of London at your feet. You might have had anyone—anyone you wanted! And how did you thank me? You threw it all back in my face! I tried to see you suitably established with a man of means but you rejected him—”

  “He was nearly fifty,” put in Miss Blakelow hotly, “and I was barely nineteen.”

  “And you might now have had a home of your own instead of living upon someone else’s charity,” flashed Mrs. Thorpe. “Do your so-called brothers and sisters know what you are? Does Lord Marcham?”

  “Your carriage is nearly ready, Aunt. I must beg you to leave.”

  “Does he know? Do you think he will want you after that? And what do you think your friends in Worcestershire will think of you once I tell them who you are?”

  “I care not for your threats. You may have fired me off very creditably, but the thing that I wanted from you most, you were unwilling to give: affection. The only person in your house who gave tuppence about me was my uncle. But he was ill and dying. And once he had gone, you and Charlotte and my other cousins treated me like the village leper. One of the reasons I did what I did was to escape from you, ma’am.”

  The butler appeared and fixedly stared at the floor, awaiting further instruction.

  Mrs. Thorpe drew on her gloves. “You see to it that your brother stays away from my daughter, or I will make it impossible for you to live in this county or any other.”

  The woman stalked from the room, leaving a wake of sickly perfume behind her.

  Miss Blakelow sat down heavily in a chair and put her forehead into her hand.

  “Here, miss,” said a gentle voice. She looked up to find John offering her a glass of wine. She smiled her thanks and took it.

  “John?”

  “Yes, miss?”

  “I think it’s time that we moved on again.”

  “Yes, miss. Begging your pardon, miss, but where will we go?”

  The young woman sighed. “I don’t know, John. I honestly don’t know.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “AND SO, MISS BLAKELOW, have you missed me?” Lord Marcham asked, casting a swift smiling look at her profile. He had stayed away purposely, hoping that his absence might make her heart grow fonder.

  He was taking her out for a drive in his curricle. It was a beautiful but cold November day, the sky a cloudless swath of blue, the sunlight golden upon the autumn leaves. They had reached the boundary of her father’s estate and had taken the road up into the thickly wooded hills.
Lord Marcham had left his groom to kick his heels at Thorncote until his master returned. If Miss Blakelow noticed this improper behavior, she did not mention it. It might be improper, but the moment of privacy was the perfect opportunity to tell his lordship that the neighborhood was gossiping about them and that it would be best if they didn’t see each other for a while.

  “Given that I only saw your lordship a couple of days ago, I rather think that unlikely, don’t you?” she replied, looking away from him and out at the fields that rolled away to the hills. Her spectacles impeded her sight, and she peered over the top of them when she thought that her companion was distracted enough with his driving not to notice.

  “Oh, too cruel. It has been at least a week. And when I think how I have lain awake thinking of you.”

  “Pooh. What nonsense.”

  “Lain awake, I tell you. In an agony to know if I have featured in your dreams.”

  “In my nightmares, quite possibly,” she muttered.

  His lips twitched appreciatively. “Now that is not very charitable of you, Miss Blakelow, is it? When I have dreamed of holding you close in my arms—”

  “And my knee in your unmentionables?” she put in sweetly.

  “I see that I will have to purchase a pair of iron breeches.”

  She turned her head aside to hide a smile. “They would be in very great danger of rusting from disuse, my lord. I’m quite sure you spend a considerable portion of your life—” She broke off hastily, suddenly realizing that she was once again engaging in a highly improper conversation with this man.

  “You were saying, ma’am?” he prompted.

  “Nothing.”

  “You were about to say that I spend a considerable portion of my life without any clothes at all?” he suggested, a teasing smile around his mouth.

  She stared at the distant trees, a swath of red mounting up her neck. “No, my lord, I was not.”

  “Well, I should hope not, indeed. To hear a woman of your unimpeachable character talk in such a shocking manner—”

  “Don’t,” she said quickly, a little more harshly than she had intended, her recent encounter with her Aunt Thorpe still very much on her mind. To be accused of encouraging a man like Lord Marcham, to be thought fast, to have the neighborhood into which she had been welcomed, criticizing her for a flirtation with a rake was intolerable. How had Mrs. Thorpe known about her friendship with the earl? Someone must have told her.

  “And to think you wrote a pamphlet condemning my morals,” he added, a gleam of unholy amusement in his eyes.

  “I said don’t!” she cried.

  He frowned at the very real distress in her voice. The laughter in his eyes vanished as he brought the horses to a sudden halt and turned on the seat so that he could see her face. “Now what’s amiss?” he asked.

  “Nothing, my lord,” she replied, averting her face and trying valiantly to compose herself once again. She knew he was only jesting, but the manner of her conversation with her aunt was so fresh in her mind that any reference to it was like a finger jabbed into a gaping wound. That he should mock her for her past indiscretions when she had already suffered that and worse from others was simply too painful. She could endure anyone else’s ribbing on the subject of her folly, but not his. “Please drive on.”

  “Not until you tell me what’s wrong. You must know that I was teasing you,” he demanded, utterly perplexed by her consternation. Where was the Georgie of old? Where the woman who gave quite as good as she got? Something was wrong, and his lordship would not rest until he found out what it was.

  “I wish that you wouldn’t,” she replied in a small voice.

  He tried to look into her face, but it was cast into shadow by the deep brim of her bonnet. “Miss Blakelow,” he said quietly. “You must know that I would not willingly give you pain for all the world.”

  She swallowed hard on a curious lump that seemed to have formed in her throat. The gentleness in his voice was nearly her undoing. “Please drive on,” she said again. “We are blocking the road.”

  He watched her for a long moment, looked as if he might say something further, and then appeared to let it go. He flicked the reins and the horses moved forward. “Well, we shall confine our discourse to safer waters then. What say you to crop rotation?”

  She was relieved and grateful to him for changing the subject. “Must we?” she asked, dutifully looking mortified at the proposed topic of conversation.

  His face took on a look of mock horror. “Crop rotation and the espalier training of soft fruit trees.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “I am relieved to hear you say so, Miss Blakelow. You may tell me instead the history of your life.”

  She pulled a face. “I do not consider that subject any improvement on crop rotation.”

  “How is it that you have lived at Thorncote all these years, and yet I have never before met you there?” he asked, guiding the horses with an expert hand over a narrow humpbacked bridge.

  “There is no mystery, my lord. You were not often at Holme Park before this summer, and I am not often away from Thorncote. We did meet once, in Loughton, I believe, at an assembly-room dance a number of years ago.”

  “Did we? I do not remember. Did we dance together?”

  “I believe you only danced with the prettiest girls, my lord,” she murmured.

  “Then I feel sure we must have danced together.”

  She smiled but the expression did not reach her eyes. She was all too familiar with the cheap flattery of men and had become immune to it. “Do you think so indeed? For everyone knows me to be a great beauty, do they not?” she mocked gently.

  He looked at her sharply. “Now what have I said? I gave you a compliment, ma’am.”

  “So you did,” she agreed and clasped her hands in her lap. “I think you should stop the carriage, Lord Marcham.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Because we are about to have an argument, and I do not wish to upset you.”

  “Too late for that,” he replied, his mouth set hard. “You have already accused me of being the sort of man who bandies false flattery about to suit my own ends. I will take leave to inform you, ma’am, that I may be a man of a certain reputation, but I am not a sycophant.”

  “I apologize if I offended you, my lord.”

  “And what would be the point of an apology that you do not mean?” he demanded, giving rein to his anger. “You think me vain and idle and selfish, do you not?”

  “No, my lord,” she said softly, and her heart broke a little at his tone.

  “You think that I spend all my time drinking and gambling or seducing women. You don’t think me capable of a sensible thought on books or politics or art, do you?”

  She shook her head, hating herself for making him think that way about himself. “That is not true.”

  “You think my sole aim in life is fleecing men like your father of their property for the amusement it affords me. It has not occurred to you that the reason that your father was so determined to sit down at the faro table with me was to fleece me of my property. I had already told the man to go home twice, but he would not listen. He was on a winning streak and was convinced he would add a great deal of my fortune to his winnings. Well, my naive Miss Blakelow, he was wrong. I have lost a great deal of money to men a lot cleverer than your father.”

  “Put me down. I wish to walk home,” she said coldly.

  “Does it upset you to confront what he was? I told you before and I will tell you again, Sir William Blakelow was a fool. He was a moderately well-off man who lived life as if he were as rich as a king, and you and your family have paid for his folly.”

  “Please stop the carriage,” she insisted, her voice dripping with icy disdain.

  “But you, ma’am,” he said, turning to look at her, his eyes on her face. “You baffle me exceedingly. Why do you never wish to talk about your past?”

  “Stop this carriage at once, my lord!”
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  “For reasons I have yet to fathom, you are hiding behind those spectacles and hideous clothes of yours to stop anyone getting too close. Heaven forbid that a man should be able to see beyond the mask and admire the woman underneath. Heaven forbid that a man should desire you. What now, Miss Blakelow? I have seen past your disguise. What else will you throw at me to push me away?”

  She made no answer to this and looked stonily at the road ahead. What could she say? She could no more deny the truth of his words than the need to breathe in and out. He was right, after all.

  “Do you suppose that thick spectacles will stop me from kissing you if I want to?” he demanded.

  She spun around to face him with a gasp. “If you want to?” she repeated incredulously. “What about me and what I want? For your information, I don’t want to be kissed by you or anyone else.”

  “No?” he asked softly, his eyes on hers. “Would you like to put that theory to the test?”

  She stared back until she lost the battle and looked away. “Let me down at once.”

  He brought his horses to a standstill under the shade of an apple tree and looped the reins over his knee. “You do not answer me because you know it is not true. Look at me, Georgiana . . .”

  She kept her face averted, her hands clinging to the side of the curricle, as if it were a raft in a storm. “Please, my lord,” she whispered. “Don’t.”

  He pulled off his driving glove and reached a hand across to gently cup her chin. “Look at me.”

  She turned reluctantly to gaze into his eyes.

  “What have I ever done to make you fear me?” he whispered.

  “N-nothing, my lord,” she stammered, struggling to keep her emotions in check.

  “Have I ever given you cause to mistrust me?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then what is the matter?” he asked. “Why do you pick an argument with me?”

  “Because I cannot do this,” she said.

  “You cannot do what?” he asked.

  “Please, my lord. This . . . acquaintance of ours . . . must be at an end.”

  He shook his head in bafflement as if to clear it of cobwebs. “Why? I don’t understand.”