Читать книгу The Arrangement - Lyn Stone - Страница 12

Chapter Four

Kathryn set aside her lap desk, glanced out the window of her second-story room and wondered again how poor Pip was getting on today. She didn’t think he had been seriously injured, but Chadwick surely would want to know about it.

She had left word with the landlady at Jonathan’s rooms the moment she arrived in town the day before. Since mid morning she had searched for him. She’d sent Thom to the servants’ entrances of the gentlemen’s clubs with questions, and contacted everyone Chadwick had performed for in the past few weeks. By midafternoon, Kathryn had decided to give it up and come back to Uncle Rupert’s. Either no one had seen Jon or they were helping him avoid her.

Perhaps she should have mentioned the reason she wanted to find him in the inquiries she made. Even then, everyone would probably believe she was only after a story for the paper. Her “secret” occupation was hardly a true secret.

Working did nothing to alleviate her worries. The article on Chadwick was a futile effort, anyway. All the way back to London yesterday, she had thought of little else. Aside from his obnoxious public arrogance, she had found nothing derogatory to write about. Of course, she could expose his secret about using Pip’s music. That, coupled with his nose-thumbing superiority, would have everyone believing him as reprehensible as she had at first. Such a story would set London on its collective ear. But it would destroy Jonathan, and probably Pip, as well.

She laid the pen aside and crumpled the paper in her fist.

Where the devil had Jon gotten to, anyway? She had turned the city upside down, and he was nowhere to be found. As far as she could discern, he wasn’t performing anywhere in town tonight. Kathryn thought again of poor Pip, wounded and waiting in that sorry excuse for a home, with no one but that crotchety old crone to look after him. She had half a mind to go back there tonight and make certain he didn’t go hungry. If there was no word from Jonathan Chadwick, she’d go first thing in the morning, she promised herself.

Right now, she had problems enough of her own to face. Uncle Rupert would fly into a rage when she told him she had decided not to make Chadwick her subject for the week.

If only she could beg off doing the column for two months, she wouldn’t have to write anything about anyone. She would be twenty-five and financially independent. Well, just how independent remained to be seen. But however much she received from her inheritance must suffice. Maybe she should be grateful to Uncle Rupert, but living under his thumb was becoming increasingly intolerable. There were times when she thought him a bit unbalanced, especially when he nagged her so about the articles. Chadwick did not seem to warrant ruining, as the others had.

In the beginning, she had reveled in the chance to knock some entertainer off his golden perch. If only she hadn’t done the exposé on Thackery Osgood six months ago, she wouldn’t be in this mess. The wretch had ruined three young singers fresh off the farm. Three in a row! Those poor girls hadn’t had a clue what the lecherous old sot was up to when he offered them parts in his musicale. Promises of fame and riches had turned to shame and degradation within days of their respective arrivals. Luckily—or maybe not so luckily, given her present predicament—Kathryn had virtually stumbled on one of the unfortunates, a vicar’s daughter, trying to throw herself into the Thames. Osgood’s admirers had nearly lynched him from the theater marquee after Kathryn’s column revealing what he had done appeared. She couldn’t regret having a hand in that. Hanging was too good for the bastard.

Then there had been Theodosia Lark. Lark, indeed! Sang more like a goose with a bad throat, Kathryn thought. The woman had abandoned her own children, infant twins, on the steps of a local orphanage just so that she could resume her career unencumbered. Lark’s return to the stage had lasted only until the next edition of About Town. The pathos Kathryn injected into the piece about the babies had inspired their subsequent adoption by a wealthy merchant’s family. Now the singing doxy had neither career nor motherhood to worry about. Public outrage had forced her retirement.

Other scandals had followed, dutifully penned by her alter ego, K. M. Wainwright. Kathryn knew that targeting entertainers had everything to do with her own mother’s profession. Maria Soliana’s operatic career flourished even today, but Italy’s darling had better not dare a return to London. Father had never quite recovered from his wife’s abandonment. Kathryn had adjusted to being motherless, but it had left her bitter. How could any mother put her career before her own child? No, Kathryn didn’t regret dashing Theodosia Lark’s career. Not for a moment.

Kathryn knew there were good and talented people in the business, but most of them were self-centered and uncaring. What began as a small crusade against the worst evils of the stage had simply gotten out of hand. She thought perhaps she had run out of truly ignominious individuals. Uncle Rupert would have to find himself another writer with a grudge. Hers had spent itself, at least for the present.

He could threaten all he liked, but Kathryn didn’t really believe her own uncle would set her out on the street without a farthing. And if he still intended to thrust her into a marriage with that pompous Randall Nelson, he could jolly well think again.

With her shoulders squared and her mouth firmly set, Kathryn went down the stairs to confront him with her resignation.

When she stopped on the first floor landing to brush out the wrinkles in her skirt and bolster her flagging courage, Randall’s voice drifted up from the open door of Uncle Rupert’s study. His words were indistinct, but his tone sounded angry. The fact that he was here wasn’t out of the ordinary. He owned a part interest in the paper and he and Uncle Rupert had been friends for years, despite the difference in their ages. This was no ordinary conversation between chums, however. Kathryn had been a reporter just long enough to heed her instincts. Quietly she descended just far enough downstairs to overhear without being seen.

“You ought to keep a tighter rein on her, Rupert,” Randall said. “I don’t like the idea of her haring off about town unescorted. Her reputation’s already in shreds since you let it be known she’s the one doing those columns in the paper.”

Rupert laughed; it was a nasty sound. “Hey, you can’t blame me for taking full advantage of her talents, now can you? She’s good at what she does—subscriptions have doubled! And you won’t mind all that talk when you get your hands on her inheritance, will you? Not every day a man comes into a fortune like that Eighty thousand pounds can sugarcoat the foulest little pill, can’t it?”

“Eighty thousand? But that’s only half! You said a sixty-forty split in my favor, Rupert.”

Kathryn grasped the stair rail. Her knees wobbled so violently she thought she would collapse right there, in a heap. One hundred and sixty thousand pounds! Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined her father had accrued so much in his lifetime! Ten or fifteen thousand at most, she had figured. She was a bloody heiress! She could live forever on that amount Like a queen! Drawing in a shaky breath, she made herself listen further.

“What if she refuses? We only have two months left to convince her, and so far she hasn’t given me a speck of encouragement,” Randall complained. “She won’t marry me.”

“Don’t you worry about it, my boy. A little laudanum in her wine will do the trick. I’ve got the parson in my pocket already. Old Tim Notchworthy’s not above a hefty bribe. We’ll have this marriage sewn up right and tight in a few days. All we need do is keep her groggy afterwards. Ain’t that unusual for women these days to fall slave to the opiates.”

Kathryn heard the clink of glasses. Good God, they planned to drug her, concoct a sham of a marriage and take over her inheritance? Her own uncle, for heaven’s sake!

Outrage overcame her shock, but, fortunately, not her prudence. Confronting them with their heinous knavery could be dangerous. With a quick shake of fury, she crept back upstairs to her room and stuffed a few clothes in a small carpetbag. Obviously, Uncle Rupert hadn’t heard her come home this evening. If she hurried, she could be away again before he knew she had ever returned. But where could she go that he or Randall wouldn’t find her and drag her back to complete their plans?

She had no close friends living near London, and no funds with which to travel far. Tearing open her reticule, Kathryn counted her money. The pittance Uncle gave her for fripperies wouldn’t hire fare to the next county. Taking Thomas and the carriage back out would draw attention. She would have to ride. With an angry sigh, she tore off her day dress and donned her sturdy blue riding habit.

With all the stealth of a practiced thief, Kathryn stole down the servants’ stairs and made a dash for the stables. Thomas was nowhere about, thank God. Not that he’d ever tell, but Uncle might dismiss him if he thought they had conspired in her getaway. Her stout little mare whinnied a greeting.

“You’re about to become a racehorse, Mabel,” Kathryn said as she struggled with the sidesaddle. “And God help me, you’d better go the distance!”

A plan began to gel as she threaded Mabel through the back streets at a steady clip. She would call in a favor, or resort to blackmail, if necessary, but Jonathan Chadwick was going to be her savior, one way or another. He was the only one she knew with a great place to hide. If no one had discovered Pip in all this time, no one would be able to find her, either.

Jon exited the lane onto the main road, carefully keeping Imp to a walk. Wouldn’t do to arrive at the Turkingtons’ affair covered with road dust and sweat. As it was, he would probably smell of horse, but there was no help for it. He hadn’t been able to scratch up enough to hire the coach this time. Perhaps his smell would keep the female leeches at a distance. He resisted the urge to wipe his forehead. Already the powder was beading up there and threatening to run down his face in rivulets.

A rider approached and stiffened in the saddle as he watched. The woman sped to a canter, and he recognized her, even at a distance. Kathryn Wainwright.

“Chadwick?” she called, reining to a halt several lengths away. “Thank God it’s you. I need your help!”

He dismounted and strode over to assist her down. She pushed herself away from him and brushed tousled blond ringlets out of her eyes with the back of her hand. He wondered if she knew how fetching she looked in her disarray.

“If it isn’t Miss Wainwright! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Jon inclined his head in a mocking bow.

She drew in an unsteady breath and looked at her feet. Even in the fading light of sundown, he noticed the fierce blush on her cheeks. “I really need your help.”

“So you’ve said. My wish is your command, of course, but I’m in rather a hurry. An engagement, you see.” He took her hand and felt it trembling. “Come now, speak up. I haven’t got all night.”

Her hand turned palm up to grasp his in a death grip. “Let me hide in your house, sir! Please!” She rushed on before he could think what to say. “If you will, I won’t write a word about you. Ever. My oath on it. Just let me stay for two months. I can look after Pip for you, cook, clean, whatever. Please say I may!” Her other hand joined the first and worked frantically over the stretch of his ostrich-skin gloves. “I will pay you, too. Soon I’ll have lots of money and I’ll pay you well.”

Jon looked down into the wide, teary eyes. They darkened to near black. Deep, rich chocolate. Her brow furrowed and her lips trembled as she waited for his response.

While nothing in the world would have pleased him more than holing up in his house with this spicy little morsel, Jon knew he couldn’t allow himself that. How could he explain Pip’s absence? Even if he could concoct an explanation, Grandy wouldn’t keep her mouth shut. She’d give away the whole ruse, and Kathryn would have the story of his life. So would all of London. “That’s not such a good idea, Miss Wainwright.”

Her face crumpled. Two giant tears trickled down her cheeks and dripped off her chin before she got herself in hand. He led her over to a large boulder just off the road and settled himself beside her. “Now then, why don’t you tell me what’s prompted this unseemly suggestion of yours?”

Kathryn cleared her throat. She drew her hands away from his and smoothed them over her corseted waist. “My uncle plans to marry me off to his wretch of a partner. They want my inheritance, and I don’t mean to let them have it.”

“Inheritance?” Jon hoped his greed didn’t show. Not greed, he reminded himself. It was need that prompted his interest. Need, and his healthy sense of self-preservation. “They cannot make you wed if you refuse to.”

“Yes! Yes, they can! I overhead them planning to drug me and bribe some minister to perform the deed. Oh, please, Mr. Chadwick, you have to help me!” Her breath shuddered out, and he feared she was about to begin weeping in earnest.

“Your own uncle is party to this scheme? It must take a frightful amount of money to inspire that sort of thing,” Jon said, probing none too tactfully.

She didn’t seem to notice his lack of subtlety. “One hundred sixty thousand pounds!”

Jon’s mouth dropped open. “Good Lord! I’ll marry you myself!”

Her wits seemed linked to her anger. At least they both returned to her at the same time. “Ha! What makes you think I’d let you get your long-fingered paws on my money, when I just ran away to prevent such a thing?” She stood up and paced furiously back and forth in front of him, twisting her fingers and shaking her head.

He hadn’t really believed she would entertain his half-baked proposal, but perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to push a little further when the time was right. For now, he would be the helpful friend. “Well, then, it seems to me you should simply take your fortune and make yourself scarce,” he suggested amiably.

“No, I can’t do that,” she declared. “Father left it in trust to me, and I can’t touch it until I’m twenty-five. He didn’t trust me to manage it until I’d passed my youth. Not even then, if you want the truth. He thought I needed a husband, of course.”

Jon smiled. He wanted to jump up and down. “Then take a husband you can manage, sweetheart. I promise I’ll be the soul of cooperation. You call the tune, and I’ll play it. What say?”

She stopped pacing abruptly and faced him. A light came on in her eyes, turning them almost amber. An unsteady little laugh escaped, and she clapped her hands. “Genius! I knew you were a genius, Jon Chadwick!”

“So you’re proposing to me now? I accept!” He laughed, too, amazed at how easily he had solved both their problems.

“Dream away, Chadwick,” she said smoothly, and raised that square little chin of hers. “You’re going to arrange a marriage for me, all right, but not with yourself. I’m going to marry Pip.”

His speechlessness lasted for five whole seconds. “Over my dead body!”

“What’s your objection?” she asked. “I could look after him for you while you’re away performing. It wouldn’t be a marriage in the real sense, of course. I understand that he has a child’s mind.” Her face grew earnest. “I do feel affection for him, Jon. He would never want for anything, I promise. You must know I’d never take advantage of his...” She faltered and dropped her head.

“His idiocy?” Jon finished, with a dark look. He felt a sharp pang of guilt for what he was about to do, but he had learned long ago to grab an advantage wherever and whenever it presented itself. This one had virtually fallen into his lap and screamed, Take me!

“Please, Jon,” she implored, resting a hand on his arm. “If you have one scrap of compassion in that black soul of yours, do this for me.”

He sighed. “All right, Kathryn. I’ll do it, but I want something for my trouble.”

“Anything!” she promised, and then obviously thought better of the offer. “What?”

“Six thousand pounds,” he stated baldly.

Kathryn’s mouth worked soundlessly. She looked irate.

Jon tried to explain, “It’s not so mercenary as it sounds. I’ll never ask you for another groat, and I’ll pay you back with interest before year’s end. Five percent. My word on it.”

She looked doubtful, considered in silence for a few moments. “Eight percent,” she countered.

“Six.”

She bobbed her head once. “Done.”

Jon held out his hand, and she gave it a firm shake. He tried to disregard the disappointment in her eyes.

“Come with me,” he said. “I’ve a friend in Lakesend who’ll perform the ceremony without the banns. He owes me a favor. It’s probably best if I stand proxy for Pip.”

Kathryn hesitated, tugging her hand away from his and remaining where she stood for the moment. “Well, I suppose that would do. Are you certain that will be legal?”

“Binding as a hangman’s noose. Sure you really want to do this, Kathryn? Pip’s not exactly every lass’s dream come true.”

“I think it’s the only solution,” she said with a sigh.

“We’d best get on with it, then,” he said, ushering her toward her mare and providing a boost up. “If we hurry the ceremony, I can still make the Turkingtons’ do by nine o’clock, and you can put your bridegroom to bed by ten. Let’s ride.”

All the way to Lakesend Jon watched her with a wary eye. She could call the whole thing off at any second. He prayed. He promised whatever gods were watching that he would make this up to her. He would face her wrath when she discovered what he had done, and give her her freedom whenever she asked for it. And, in the meantime, Pip would be the most docile, undemanding husband any woman ever had. No, Kathryn would never suffer because of this night’s events. She would be saved from the machinations of that avaricious uncle, and Jon could pay off Bunrich. A perfect scheme.

Kathryn was right. This was the only way.

Darkness had fallen and the full moon risen by the time they arrived. “You wait outside and let me talk to the vicar first,” Jon suggested as they reached the outskirts of the village. The old stone chapel snuggled comfortably at the edge of Lakesend Common. Unthreatening moon shadows bathed the churchyard that flanked the parsonage. A weak light shone through the window signaling the presence of Reverend Carl Lockhart. Thank God Carl was home tonight. Jon thought it a good omen.

He dismounted and looped his reins over the spiky wrought-iron fence. “I’ll be back in a few moments,” he promised with a pat on her knee.

Lockhart answered immediately, and after a perfunctory greeting, Jon stated his case. “Carl, I need a hasty wedding performed. The lady outside doesn’t know she’s to be a countess, and I’d as soon you didn’t make any reference to it. For my sake, just do the pretty and say only what’s necessary, will you?”

Duplicity didn’t sit well with the good reverend. “I don’t know, Jonathan. Doesn’t seem right, somehow.”

If you only knew, Jon thought with a grimace. He lounged negligently on the corner of the parson’s desk. “Why? She needn’t know just yet about my title. She’s perfectly willing to marry me thinking I’m Nathan Chadwick Lyham, a simple musician. If she knew the rest, she’d balk. Her attitude toward the nobility could make this marriage impossible, and then I’d be done right out of my heir. The chit has no notion how difficult it would be to rear a bastard. Her parents will throw her out. No telling what she might do then. Best we marry and have done with it. I promise I will tell her the rest when the time’s right.”

The vicar shot him a suspicious look and began to shake his head.

Jon held up a gloved hand to forestall any denial. “Bear with me on this, Carl. We were fast friends as children. Still are, eh? Didn’t I see that Edward gave you the living here when your father died?”

Lockhart snorted. “Such as it is. You’re a sporadic landlord, at best. Better than Edward was, but still...”

Jon brightened. “Well, you’ve the best music in three counties, haven’t you? Draws ’em in like flies. We’ll build that school of yours by next summer, too. Things are looking up.”

“Sounds like bribery, milord,” Lockhart replied with an infectious grin.

“We always did understand each other, Carl,” Jon said. “You fix the papers. I’ll get the bride.” He turned on the way out. “Don’t mention the child. She’s dreadfully embarrassed about it.” Again he paused. “And thank you, friend. I won’t forget this.”

Kathryn took the whole thing rather well, Jon thought with relief. The words were said in a rush, witnessed by Carl’s sleepy housekeeper and the resident gravedigger. Jon punctuated the ceremony with a brief kiss he dared not prolong.

The taste of her soft lips lingered in his mind as he handed her the pen to sign her name on the church register. When she had done so, he handed her the marriage lines. She pored over the document for a moment and then scratched her name with a flourish.

Her eyes rested on his hand as he boldly wrote J. Nathan Chadwick. dropped down a space and wrote Lyham a little to the right. He handed her the paper. She looked at him then, with a helpless little smile, as though she’d only just realized what Pip’s real name was. No mistake there, Jon thought with a wry twist of his lips, only a few letters missing. A lie of omission.

He waited until Carl drew her away to congratulate her and then turned back to the church register. Jonathan Chadwick, Fifth Earl of Lyham, he wrote clearly beneath Kathryn’s signature and quickly closed the book.

God help him, it was done. He had wed Kathryn Wainwright for her wealth, an act of desperation and wicked deception. Hell was too good for him, but at least he had postponed that destination for a while. Ah, well, he’d march along the path of survival, as out of step as ever, and hope one day to find the rhythm that always eluded him. This was only another stumble.

“We must away now, Reverend. Our thanks to you,” Jon said with a nod to the housekeeper and the gravedigger. “Come, my dear, and leave these good people to their rest.”

Kathryn laid her hand on his arm and preceded him through the door. “What now?” she asked as they reached their mounts. She placed her tiny boot in his hand and let him boost her up.

“I’ll ride back with you as far as the Hare’s Foot Inn, and then you’re on your own. Say what you will to Pip, but see he gets to bed at a decent hour. If I don’t show at Turkington’s affair tonight, he’ll let his stork of a daughter sing. The whole county will heave up its supper, and they’ll be blaming me for it.”

She laughed hard, leaning forward in the saddle and almost unseating herself. Jon grinned up at her, wishing it was him she would be putting to bed later on. Actually it would be, but certainly not in the manner he fantasized. Curse his luck.

As soon as they reached the village inn, Jon blew Kathryn a kiss and waved goodbye. He kicked Imp to a gallop and cut through the woods to the manor. Old Turkington would have to hum for his guests tonight. There were only moments to spare before his wife arrived at the house, expecting a wedding night of some sort. He supposed music would have to suffice.

Kathryn took her time approaching Timberoak Manor. Moonlight did nothing to disguise the ragged condition of her new home. Half-dead vines hugged the stones as far up as the second-floor windows. The ivy appeared to be all that was holding the place together. Paint-peeled shutters hung precariously, threatening to drop to the ground with the first strong breeze. Knee-high grasses probably concealed all manner of debris around the weed-infested gravel of the driveway. Still, one could clearly see the ghost of former grandeur. Perhaps, with care and a hefty portion of her inheritance, she could resurrect that ghost.

Kathryn clung to the newly realized ambition. Such as it was, she now had a home to call her own. She had always craved a home, a family and a husband. Timberoak, Jon Chadwick and Pip weren’t exactly what she’d had in mind during all those wishing sessions, but at the advanced age of almost twenty-five, she could hardly hope for much more.

After she located the stable and fed Mabel, Kathryn walked around front again. The heavy door swung open at a touch. She strode down the entrance hall and entered the littered ballroom with forced confidence and determined hope. She had always heard it was best to begin as one meant to go.

Pip sat on the floor with his back to her, humming along with the small harp he strummed. His tattered green robe was bunched around his hips, and his outstretched legs were bare. “Pip,” she called softly, afraid she would startle him. “It’s Kathryn.”

He turned with a wide, vacant smile. Simply beautiful, she thought with a catch in her breath. And beautifully simple. Regret and sympathy streaked through her, leaving in their wake a need to do something, anything, to improve the quality of his life.

“May I join you?” she asked as she knelt beside him.

“Want to play?” Pip handed her the child’s harp.

She pushed it back into his arms. “I don’t know how, dear.”

“I play. You sing,” he ordered, and began to pluck a folk tune she vaguely remembered from childhood.

“‘Winnowing Away,”’ she remarked as the title came to her. Her mother had sung it to her when she was little. Before...

“I don’t sing. Ever,” she said. The words came out more sharply than she had meant them to. His mouth drew down in a pout.

Before she thought what she was doing, Kathryn reached up and brushed his hair back, uncovering the dark bruise on his temple. He had scrubbed it nearly raw. The whole of his face and neck looked freshly washed, his sun-kissed hair still damp around it.

She wondered whether he shaved his own face. Perhaps Jon or Grandy did it for him. At least he made some attempt at cleanliness on his own. She caught a faint whiff of cologne and smiled. He must have dabbled in Jon’s things out of curiosity.

“Sing to me,” he mumbled, stroking the harp strings.

Kathryn sighed. She hadn’t sung in thirteen years. The last time had gained her the only beating her father ever gave her. After that, even humming had drawn dark scowls from him.

“My mother used to sing,” she said, almost to herself and noticed Pip’s head cock to one side as though he were interested.

Kathryn realized then that she now had a confidant. Pip could listen to all her woes and would promptly forget them. She had talked to her cat when she was small and had no one else to listen. Whiskers had probably saved her sanity after Mother left and Father grew morose and distant. Come to think of it, Pip’s curious expression had a certain similarity to her feline friend’s.

She smiled and clasped her hands together in her lap. “Mother sang like a nightingale, Pip. Still does, I expect.”

“Mother died,” Pip said bluntly, catching a bass string with one fingernail. The note bonged and then faded to silence.

“Your mother died? Mine went away. Sad, isn’t it?” Kathryn leaned against his shoulder, and Pip grunted softly in assent.

He began to play again, this time a piece she didn’t know—one of his own, she suspected. The soft music soothed as a maternal caress was meant to. Perhaps Pip had invented his own consolation for the loss of his mother and was sharing it with her. What a lovely thought that, despite his disability, he possessed such sensitivity, such natural goodness.

She lay back on the chilly floor and covered her eyes with one arm. Pip’s sweet, comforting sounds enfolded her, warmed her, and eventually lulled her to sleep.