by Norma Darcy
Outwardly, she threw herself into bringing Thorncote about. She spent most of her time in the garden, particularly the kitchen garden, attempting to restore some vestige of order. But privately she was planning to leave Worcestershire, the surrogate family that she had adopted, and the man whose smile had started to haunt her dreams.
It was time to move on again, to push the past even further away, especially now that Hal Holkham was back. It was so strange to see him again after everything that had befallen her. She had imagined that she would be angry with him for lying to her, or at least failing to volunteer the information that he was married. He had treated her shabbily, but they had both been so very young, both needing someone to understand and love them. Perhaps that was why she could no longer feel angry with him? Perhaps she recognized at long last that he had needed their brief affair as much as she had.
He was still handsome. He was still dashing and charming, and she had no doubt that half the young women in the neighborhood would be in love with him before the week was out. She remembered how persuasive he’d been, but she knew that she wouldn’t have acceded to his wishes had she not wanted to do it herself. He’d merely been a release for her unhappiness and made her feel that anything was possible if they were together. Would he tell Marcham of their history together? Would he disclose the innermost secrets of her heart? Miss Blakelow could not take the chance.
She needed to leave Thorncote, and soon. If Mrs. Thorpe had found her, after all these years, then very likely the man who was hunting her would too. He was not stupid, and although she had managed to evade him for many years now, he was nothing if not persistent. He had promised he would find her, wherever she went, and that he would never let her go until he had what he wanted—the whereabouts of his son. She and John were the only two people in the world who knew where the boy was; after all, they had rescued the lad from his father and brought him back to England all those years ago. But Miss Blakelow knew he would never give up until he had the boy back. She knew she could not wait for him to find her again. And now, with Hal’s return, it was only a matter of time.
Another new identity was forming in her head. A widow, perhaps . . .
Miss Blakelow’s three sisters wished to attend the dance at the assembly rooms in Loughton to practice their dance steps before the ball at Holme Park. Aunt Blakelow was concerned that Georgie was a little depressed and persuaded her to go, with the promise that it would cheer her up. In a moment of weakness, she reluctantly agreed.
Once at the event, she regretted her decision, as she spent a rather miserable evening sitting with her back against the wall amongst some of the older ladies, watching the dancers with haunted eyes. Her misery was compounded when, halfway through the evening, Lord Marcham unexpectedly arrived with another gentleman whom she did not recognize, Lady St. Michael, and Lady Harriet. Miss Blakelow wanted to sink through the floor.
His arrival caused much speculation; he had rarely attended such gatherings before, and within moments every matchmaking mama present had him firmly in her sights. That he was on the hunt for a wife became the chief topic of conversation amongst the ladies surrounding Miss Blakelow, and she could hardly keep her countenance as they teased her that her sister Marianne was by far the prettiest girl in the neighborhood and had no doubt caught his lordship’s eye.
Miss Blakelow hardly dared raise her eyes from the floor as he moved in front of where she was sitting, the memory of their argument still fresh in her mind. He asked a lady in a dark-red gown to dance, and Miss Blakelow could not help stealing a glance at him as he swept the woman onto the floor. He was exquisitely dressed in a black coat that hugged his shoulders and satin evening breeches. He danced well, his smile was as devastating to Miss Blakelow’s senses as ever it had been before, and he looked so handsome that she found herself jealous of every woman, beautiful or not, who came within a five-yard radius of him.
It was when the dance had finished and he was returning the lady to her chaperone that he caught sight of Miss Blakelow, who had at that moment gone to fetch refreshments for herself and her aunt. She froze in the doorway, nearly causing an elderly gentleman to smash into the back of her, and she slopped a little of the lemonade from one of the glasses onto the floor.
Their eyes met. In a fleeting glance, she saw his eyes flick downward to take in her ugly headdress, the glasses, the shawl, and the drab dove-gray gown and then move back to her face. He looked vaguely amused, as if he had expected her to be dressed in such a fashion and was not at all surprised at the less-than-stunning result. He opened his mouth to say something but then seemed to recollect their last meeting and the smile vanished from his eyes. He bowed with cold civility and immediately moved away.
Miss Blakelow was thrown into such a state of turmoil by this encounter that she did not listen to Aunt Blakelow’s conversation for a full five minutes afterward. The look in his eyes when he took in her appearance wounded her pride. The smirk on his lips told her that he knew she had deliberately chosen the most hideous dress in her meager collection to quell any rumors that she was encouraging his advances. She could not help but feel the gathered company would compare her attire to the exquisite garnet-colored gown of the blonde girl who was currently on his arm and find it wanting. She began to feel sick. The room was hot and airless and she was wearing a shawl that she did not need. She put a hand to her head as the room spun around her, the lights dazzling like a kaleidoscope.
“Georgie? Are you alright? You don’t look at all the thing,” said Aunt Blakelow, her voice coming to her as if down a long tunnel.
“Excuse me, Aunt. I need some fresh air.”
She moved swiftly toward the stairs, barging between two gentlemen and murmuring words of apology as she fled. The staircase was swarming with people, mostly moving upward toward the dancing, like a tsunami of feathers, satins, and jewels. Over the headdress of a middle-aged woman in a purple turban, she spied a familiar-looking face at the foot of the stairs. She gasped as recognition came thick and fast, like a tidal surge, pushing the events of the last thirteen years aside like driftwood, and she was momentarily paralyzed with shock.
He was here!
He’d found her. Oh, God, he’d found her at last. She felt fear prickle down her spine.
She had to get out of there, now.
The first step swam before her eyes, and the carpet loomed up to meet her. At the last moment, when she was sure she must fall, a strong arm grasped her waist, and she was clamped to the chest of an unseen gentleman following her down the stairs.
Miss Blakelow came to and found herself lying full stretch upon a sofa. She opened her eyes and memory flooded back. She focused on her aunt’s face, looking down at her with a concerned expression in her eyes as she chafed her hand.
“He’s here,” croaked Miss Blakelow.
“Yes, my love, don’t get up. You rest there for a moment.”
Miss Blakelow seized her arm. “No, Aunt, you don’t understand. The man who . . . He’s here.”
“Here?”
“Yes. I must get up. I must leave here. Tonight.” She swung her feet to the floor and gingerly sat up.
“My dear, you cannot leave in the middle of the night. Where would you go?”
“I don’t know,” whispered Miss Blakelow.
“He’s not here, Georgie. It’s your imagination.”
“He’s here, I tell you.”
“What would he be doing at Loughton on a Thursday evening? Since when did he ever leave London?”
Miss Blakelow winced, remembering the one time she knew he had left London—because she had been with him. She thrust the memory aside.
Aunt Blakelow picked up a glass of wine and put it to her niece’s lips. “Drink this. You have had a fright, that’s all. It’s just brought on one of your nightmares.”
“It was not a nightmare. I saw him.”
“Georgie, calm yourself. He is not here. My dearest girl, you have nothing to fear.”
“But, he was there . . . on the stairs,” said Miss Blakelow, confused. “He was coming up the stairs as I was going down. Someone caught me as I fell.”
“Lord Marcham caught you,” said Aunt Blakelow soothingly.
Miss Blakelow gaped at her. “Lord Marcham? How? I mean . . . really? Are you sure?”
“He carried you in here and laid you on that sofa himself.”
“Are you sure it was Lord Marcham?” asked Miss Blakelow, unconsciously looking at the glass in her aunt’s hand.
“I may be an old fool but I am not in my dotage yet. Now, you drink that wine like a good girl, and I will arrange for the carriage to take us home.”
Miss Blakelow had determined that she and John would leave Thorncote while the rest of the family were attending the ball at Holme Park. They had slowly and discreetly been packing away their things and moving them one trunk at a time to a disused outbuilding, where they were stacked neatly against the wall, awaiting the time when they would be loaded onto a carriage and borne away along with Miss Blakelow and John.
Over the years living at Thorncote, she had accumulated many things, some of which she would take with her, many of which she would leave behind. She would take her mother’s portrait, her father’s fob watch, and her meager collection of jewelry, but the wooden trunk that contained Miss Blakelow’s fine clothes that she had worn at her come out, she would leave behind. The dresses that her sisters had coveted, she bequeathed to them, giving them permission to alter them how they chose.
She had written several letters—to her Aunt Blakelow, to her brothers and sisters at Thorncote, and to William—but one letter in particular she found impossible to write. A week after the dance in Loughton, she tried yet again, writing to Lord Marcham, that she was sorry, that she had to go away, and that she would always consider him to be—she screwed it up and hurled it into the fire.
To add to her misery, Mr. Peabody arrived midway through the afternoon, resplendent in a strawberry- and white-striped waistcoat that assaulted the eye in such a manner as to test the limits of even Miss Blakelow’s self-control. Aunt Blakelow made an excuse and retired to her bedroom, leaving her niece in high temper that she would abandon her to this man’s relentless ardor. That Aunt Blakelow thought that she should marry him was becoming increasingly clear. Thorncote’s future was by no means certain, and if she became Mrs. Joshua Peabody, both of the elder Blakelow spinsters would have a roof over their heads.
“My dear Miss Blakelow,” he said, coming into the room as the door closed behind him. “Your aunt is feeling indisposed and has gone for a lie-down. I hope that nothing serious is amiss?”
“Nothing at all,” she replied blandly, her eye kindling with irritation as she remembered the way her aunt had hastily vacated the room. “Won’t you sit down, sir?”
“Thank you,” he said, taking the chair she had indicated, which was half the room’s length away from hers.
“Are you alone this afternoon?”
“Yes, the girls have walked into Loughton to purchase some ribbon, and the boys are gone fishing. Since his lordship bought Ned and Jack fishing rods, they seem to have found a love for it. And they go to escape from talk of the ball,” she added, smiling.
“Ah yes, the Holme Park ball. Well, I have received my invite. Do you go, ma’am?”
She shook her head. “No. I do not go to parties.”
“I am sorry that you shall not be there, but knowing your peculiar circumstances as I do, I cannot wonder at it.”
Miss Blakelow felt her temper rising. “Indeed? Do my circumstances mean that it is unseemly for me to dance?”
“Oh, no, no. I merely meant that you would not want to draw attention to yourself, giving rise to the sort of gossip that one must deplore. For although I condemn the nature of ‘our little secret’ and its having come about, I would wish to protect you from the harsh lash of public opinion. And it is on this subject that I come to you today . . . No, no, my dear, do not look so vexed . . . Your aunt wrote to me and asked me to come.”
“My aunt?” repeated Miss Blakelow.
“Yes. She is worried for you. Apparently you had a mishap at the assembly rooms last week.”
“I was a little hot and felt faint, that is all,” she replied, becoming a little annoyed at her aunt’s interference.
“She said you were hallucinating.”
“Mr. Peabody, I was hot and I fainted,” said Miss Blakelow. “That is the sum total of the events.”
“And I understand that Lord Marcham used the occasion to foist his attentions onto you,” said Mr. Peabody haughtily, looking down his considerable nose at her.
“Hardly,” she retorted, “he stopped me from falling down the stairs.”
“And had his arms about you. Your aunt is concerned that his attentions are becoming very marked and that you return his affections. Is that so, Georgiana?”
Miss Blakelow severely doubted that her aunt thought any such thing, or, even if she had, she would not have said as much to Mr. Peabody. Her aunt had made it perfectly clear that she thought Georgiana should encourage his lordship’s attentions to save Thorncote, but that was where her admiration of the earl ended. It was one thing to use her feminine powers of persuasion to obtain his participation in a business investment, but quite another to be foolish enough to fall in love with the man.
Miss Blakelow struggled to keep her anger in check at Mr. Peabody’s continued interference in her affairs. Was this man to know everything about her? Was there no part of her life that was sacred? Had someone told him about everything she did? Who she saw? When she used her chamber pot? She remembered that painful scene when he had first discovered her past; he seemed to revel in every detail of the affair, as if he somehow derived pleasure from imagining her so vulnerable and entirely alone with a man.
“Mr. Peabody, you have been good to us since Father died. Indeed, you have been very good to me too, but that does not give you the right to question my private life.”
“Oh, but I think it does. Your father bade me look after you.”
“Yes, and you have done so. But I am a grown woman, and I am quite capable of making my own decisions.”
“Forgive me, Miss Blakelow, but I must disagree. Given your past transgressions, I hardly think you can know what is best for you. Your decisions have been anything but successful thus far.”
“I was nineteen, sir,” she said indignantly.
“Yes, nineteen and innocent as to the ways of men.”
“Indeed,” retorted Miss Blakelow. “But I am fully alive to them now, I can assure you.” You and your groping hands have educated me to that, Mr. Peapod, her mind added furiously.
“But I am willing to put your past behind us. I am willing to put your youthful follies down to inexperience, and although many a man could not forgive such an outrageous slip from delicacy, I am prepared to put my reservations aside and offer you the protection of my name. I am convinced that your passionate tendencies have been cured and that you are now a reserved young woman who I would be pleased to call my wife. I am aware that there will always be this awkwardness between us arising from the knowledge of your past indiscretions, but I promise you that I will do everything in my power to evict them from my mind.”
“You are too good,” she answered with barely disguised sarcasm.
“I have been brought up to see the good in people where others believe all hope is lost. I understand that your brother is to be married and intends to bring his bride to live at Thorncote. Your aunt has asked me if I will take your brothers and sisters into Goldings. And I replied that I would. And your aunt too, if you wish it. My mother is concerned that your brothers and sisters will plague her, but I have assured her that they are well-behaved and pleasant young people—although Ned is a little belligerent and Jack needs schooling to whip him into shape and Marianne is a little too vivacious for a young woman of her age—” He stopped and smiled. “But we may discuss all this once we are married. You will wi
sh to order bridal clothes, and to that end I will leave you some money—”
“Mr. Peabody,” she interrupted hastily, “you hardly allow me to answer. Indeed, I am grateful for the very great honor that you have done me by asking me to be your wife, but I must tell you again that it is impossible.”
“You have no choice, my dear,” he replied. “Where will you go? You have run from one relative to the other until they are all used up. You are penniless. You are friendless. You have no one.”
A steely light entered her eyes. “I have a little money and my own wits, and I can assure you that they will serve me well.”
“Perhaps they might. But what of your family? Do you have enough money to feed and clothe and house a family of seven? Never mind about the debts that young William is piling up in London.”
“Mr. Peabody, I don’t wish to pain you, but I don’t love you.”
He looked at her blankly. “Love? My dear Miss Blakelow, of course you don’t. I wasn’t expecting that you did.”
“You do not love me?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Yes, yes, women like to hear things like that, don’t they? Certainly I do, my dear, I’m very fond of you.”
Miss Blakelow turned away. “I must be allowed to think.”
“Naturally, I will leave you to make your preparations.”
“Mr. Peabody, I have not accepted you, nor have I agreed to my family living with you. I must have time to consider. You do understand?”
He rose to his feet. “Of course, of course. I understand that it must be a difficult decision for a woman who has been single for so many years. So now I will leave you, my dear, and return tomorrow.”
“You can’t do it!” cried Marianne. “I won’t let you!”
Miss Blakelow sighed. “I have not yet decided that I am going to do it.”
