The Earl's Marriage Bargain
Miss Newnham, who appeared to have no inhibitions whatsoever, was pulling the shirt out of the back of his breeches, the doctor, thank goodness, was tackling the front. He dragged it over Ivo’s head and stepped back.
‘A military man, I assume,’ Jamieson remarked after half a minute’s steady scrutiny from narrowed eyes. ‘You will have a matching pair of shoulders now, sir. What was this one?’ He touched cold fingertips to the old scar above Ivo’s right collarbone.
‘Splinter from a gun carriage that was hit by shot,’ he said tersely and glanced down to the left as a line of blood tickled, creeping down his chest. He could almost feel Miss Newnham’s gaze on his back. The effort not to move made sore muscles tense painfully.
‘If you could arrange for some warm water to be brought, ma’am?’ Jamieson asked.
That, thankfully, sent the woman out of the room. A maid came in with the water a few minutes later and Ivo closed his eyes, sent his consciousness as far away as he could and submitted to the doctor’s probing.
‘Nothing broken,’ Jamieson said eventually. ‘I’ve cleaned out that shoulder wound—not deep, nothing critical hit—and put two stitches in it. The ribs are badly bruised, but I am not a believer in tight bandaging so I’ve not strapped them. Your back will be black and blue before much longer, but there are no serious marks in the kidney region. Everything all right down below?’
Ivo had done what he could to protect down below. There would be bruises across his thighs and shins, but that was all.
‘Perfectly,’ he managed to say. Reaction was beginning to set in now, he could feel his overstretched muscles and nerves quivering with the need to tremble.
‘Here is a clean shirt. Let me help you into it.’
That was almost too much, but he hung on and the doctor did not attempt to tuck it in. Somewhere there was that strange scratch-scritch sound he had noticed in the chaise. His ears must be ringing from a blow at some point in the fight.
‘Now, time we got you into a bed, I believe,’ Jamieson said.
‘My wallet. Should be in my inside coat pocket.’
The other man held up the coat, searched the pockets. ‘Nothing here, I’m afraid. They must have got it when they attacked you.’
‘I have taken rooms for us,’ Miss Newnham said from behind him. The scritching sound had stopped. ‘Do not worry, brother dear, my reticule was quite safe, so we have no cause to worry about funds.’
Uno, dos, tres… Eyes closed, Ivo counted to ten in Spanish in his head. ‘Have you been in this room throughout?’
‘Of course, dear. Now, what do we owe you, Doctor?’
He told her, Ivo made a mental note, there was the clink of coins and then, oddly, the sound of tearing paper.
‘You might like that,’ she said.
‘Why, that is… Marvellous! Thank you, ma’am. What talent. Good day to you, sir. Rest and remain in bed for a day or so if you become at all feverish. You’ve got enough scars on you to know by now how to treat wounds sensibly, I imagine.’
The door closed behind Jamieson as Miss Newnham came around to face Ivo. ‘Your room is just at the head of the stairs on the right. Shall I get one of the grooms to help you?’
‘What were you doing in here?’ he snapped. ‘And what did you give the doctor besides money? And, yes, I can manage a flight of stairs by myself.’ He hoped. ‘Better than being dropped down it by that clumsy lump of a groom.’
Miss Newnham walked away behind him, then came back with a slim, flat book in her hand and flipped it open, holding it for him to see. There was a pencil sketch of the room, of his naked back, of Jamieson bending over him. It was rapid, vivid and anatomically accurate. Shocking, in fact, for a young woman to have produced. ‘I did a quick portrait of him, as well. That is what I gave him.’
‘Was that your pencil I could hear? Were you drawing in the carriage?’
In answer she turned back a page in the sketchbook. There he was, slumped in the corner of the chaise, eyes closed, hair in a mess, clothing disordered. She turned back another page to a portrait of a discontented female, tight-lipped and sour. ‘That is Billing. You can see why I sent her home. She was sending me into a decline, so goodness knows what effect she would have had on you in your weakened condition.’
Chapter Two
The man she had rescued looked at the portrait, then at Jane. ‘She was your chaperon,’ he said, in accents at odds with his battered, disreputable, appearance.
‘She was my gaoler. Never tell me you are shocked? You do not look like someone who would be scandalised by such a thing as a perfectly competent woman travelling alone.’
‘You are not alone,’ he pointed out. ‘And I must look like a complete thatch-gallows.’ He pushed himself to his feet and stood, swaying slightly.
‘I am not certain why anyone would want to thatch a gallows, but I can assure you that I can tell from your voice and your clothing—to say nothing of your concern for the proprieties—that you are a gentleman,’ Jane reassured him.
It was not a lie, he did make her feel safe for some reason. She put one hand on his arm. Even through the coarse linen of the shirt she had borrowed from one of the waiters, he felt cold. And hard—although she could feel the faintest tremor beneath her palm. He was exhausted, she guessed, and in pain, and the loss of blood cannot have helped. ‘You should go up to bed and rest now.’
He seemed to consider it, then nodded. At least she was dealing with a reasonable man and not a foolish one who felt he had to pretend to be invincible in front of a female. She gathered up his discarded clothing and opened the door. ‘Just one flight of stairs to manage. The door is open. If you drop all your clothes but that shirt outside, I will have them cleaned and repaired.’
He nodded again and made his way out. She left him to it, conscious of his pride, but watched from the foot of the stairs. ‘What is your name?’
‘Ivo,’ he said, then stopped on the next step up without looking back at her. ‘Major Lord Merton.’ He took two more dogged steps up, then stopped again, one big, scarred hand on the rail. ‘Or, no, I keep forgetting: Lord Kendall.’
‘But the Earl of Kendall died just a few months ago…’ Her brain caught up with her tongue. ‘I do beg your pardon—that was your father?’
‘Yes.’ He kept climbing.
Jane opened her mouth, then closed it firmly. The Earl would not want to stand there discussing his titles on the stairs or satisfying her curiosity about what the grandson, and now heir, of a marquess was doing fighting ridiculous odds in an alehouse.
She waited until the door closed behind him, then climbed the stairs and sat three steps down from the top, waiting for there to either be the sound of about six foot of man hitting the floor or for the door to open and the rest of his clothes to appear.
There was some thumping, but no thudding, and then a pair of boots and a heap of clothing were put outside and it was closed again, very firmly. Jane scooped up everything and carried the bundle down. Out of habit she shook each item out and checked the pockets and found only a handkerchief of plain, good linen and a crumpled bill from an inn dated a week before. She set that aside. Then, as she folded the coat, something crackled. Inside the breast pocket was a folded paper, creased and marked with dirty finger marks. It was unsealed. She smoothed it out and tucked it, along with the inn account, into the pocket in the front of the sketchbook that she used to keep notes and spare pieces of paper flat. Neither looked important and she could replace them in his pocket when the maid had finished setting the clothes to rights.
She found a chambermaid and arranged for whatever washing, pressing and brushing could be managed, then ordered herself a pot of tea in the tiny private parlour.
She was not going to fuss over Lord Kendall, she decided as she sipped. Nor, unusually in her experience, did he appear to expect her to do so. Her father and brother always wanted to be made much of when they were ill. Even a mild cold in the head was grounds for medicines, stream infusions, large fires in the bedchamber and much gruel.
In this case she had organised a hot brick for the bed, a jug of water and some willow bark powder for the bedside and His Lordship’s clothes would be returned to proper order—that, surely, was all that would be required of her.
If he was prepared—and able—to escort her to Batheaston in return for his rescue, then she would be happy to accept, because he was certain to be more entertaining than Billing and he would save her from any male annoyances on the journey.
Unless Lord Kendall proved to be a male annoyance himself… She pondered the question, adding sugar to her tea as she did so, aware that her own immediate instincts might not be reliable. But his manner had held nothing of either the predator, or the rake, and she was quite well aware that, although she was perfectly presentable, she was no beauty to tempt a man to try unwelcome flirting.
Goodness, but Melissa would be delighted with news of this accidental meeting, although Jane rather suspected that Lord Kendall was not good-looking enough to satisfy her fantasies. There was nothing wrong with his height or figure; his hair—and he had all of it—was thick and dark and his teeth seemed good. But he was not what one would consider a handsome man, exactly. He was too…too male for elegance. His brows were too heavy, his mouth set too hard, his jaw looked stubborn and his nose was not straight. The heroes of Melissa’s novels tended to be elegant, blond and modelled on Grecian statues—with the addition of clothing, of course.
Jane picked up her sketchbook and studied her drawings. He did have admirably defined muscles which would be both educational, and a pleasure, to draw in more detail. Although that pursuit of accurate detail was what had landed her in trouble in the first place…
I am an artist, I must not be hidebound by convention, I must be prepared to suffer for my art, she told herself. If drawing Lord Kendall naked could be defined as suffering, exactly. As if I could ever pluck up the courage to ask him to pose in any degree of undress.
When the clock struck six Jane decided to order her dinner and to send one of the waiters up to see whether Lord Kendall was awake and, if so, whether he wanted anything to eat. The parlour appeared to have no bell, so she opened the door. ‘Oh!’
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Newnham.’ The Earl stepped back so that her nose was no longer virtually in his neckcloth. ‘I was about to knock.’
‘You have your clothes back,’ she said.
Idiot, of course he has!
‘As you see.’ A fastidious valet would probably shudder, but the inn staff had done an excellent job and had even managed to iron the neckcloth into some semblance of crispness.
‘Would you like to come in and sit down? I was just about to find someone and order dinner. It is early, I know, but I have to confess to feeling decidedly hungry.’
‘Thank you.’ He stepped into the room just as a maid appeared behind him, looking harassed and wiping her hands on her apron.
‘The missus says, sorry the bell isn’t there, but a gentleman in his cups fell over and pulled it out of the ceiling last week and would you and the gentleman be wanting anything in the way of dinner, miss? Only the London stage is due in about ten minutes and the Mail half an hour after that and the kitchen will be in a right bustle when they get in.’
‘We were just about to order. Do you have an appetite, my… Ivo dear?’
He gave her a look down that not-straight nose. ‘I do indeed, Jane dear.’
‘Well, we’ve got game pie or a roast fowl or there’s some collops of veal in a cream sauce. And oxtail soup to start and an apple pie and cream.’
‘Everything, if you please,’ said His Lordship. ‘And send in the cellar man.’
‘Should you be drinking wine or spirits if you have had a blow to the head?’ Jane enquired. ‘I am not nagging,’ she said hastily when she got The Look again. ‘Merely concerned that you do not throw a fever, because that would hold us up.’ She sat down at the table to demonstrate her lack of desire to fuss over him.
‘Us? I was not aware that there was an us.’ Lord Kendall drew out a chair and sat opposite, both hands flat on the table like a man ready to jump up and leave at any moment.
Jane found herself studying the grazes across the knuckles, the neatly trimmed nails, the tendons and veins, the plain gold signet ring, and jerked her attention away. This was no time to wonder about making a series of studies of hands.
‘You have no money, I do. If I had not rescued you, goodness knows what would have happened to you. As a result of that rescue I am without my maid. You could escort me to Batheaston.’
‘It would be scandalous for you to travel with an unrelated man. If I had any confidence that I could ride that distance just now, then I would offer to escort you on horseback and you could hire a maid to travel with you in the carriage. As it is, the option of staying here together until I am strong enough to ride is an even more outrageous proposition.’
‘You are very honest about your strength,’ she remarked, intrigued. ‘Most men would pretend they were perfectly capable, whatever the truth of the matter.’
‘If we encounter trouble and my right arm is not strong enough to use a pistol—not that we have one—or otherwise deal with an attacker, then I would have put my self-esteem above your safety.’ He studied her for a long moment. ‘Are you acquainted with many gentlemen?’
‘My father, my brother, the local gentry and their sons. Oh, and the Bishop of Elmham—the retired one—and his secretary and the Duke of Aylsham. I was a bridesmaid at his recent wedding.’
‘You move in very respectable circles, Miss Newnham.’
‘You mean the Duke being such a pattern card of perfection? I can assure you, marriage to my good friend Verity, who is the Bishop’s daughter, has changed him considerably.’
‘Why am I not surprised by that?’
Jane felt the sudden heat in her cheeks. ‘Might I suggest that we do not quarrel, Lord Kendall? Otherwise I might be inclined to take myself—and my money—elsewhere.’
‘I meant,’ he said, with only the faintest twitch of bruised lips, ‘that Aylsham doubtless required enlivening.’
Hmm, Jane thought. That was as neat a piece of foot-removal from mouth as I have ever heard.
‘Of course you did,’ she said cordially. He stared back, his expression blandly innocent. ‘You are not at all what I expected an earl to be like.’
‘No? I have spent the last nine years in the army, perhaps that accounts for it. I have had only three months’ practice at being an earl and only two weeks of that in this country.’
‘Nine? My goodness. How old are you?’
‘Twenty-seven. I joined as an ensign.’
He looked older, she would have guessed at thirty, but perhaps that was the bruises and cuts and general air of hard-won experience. ‘I am twenty-two,’ she offered in an attempt to elicit more confidences.
‘And fresh from the Season, I presume?’
‘I have not had a London Season. Papa considered that local society would be quite sufficient, although Mama disagrees.’
And I have an expensive older brother, she could have added, but did not.
‘And was it sufficient? There is no fiancé or a string of beaux left behind in London?’
‘They would be in Dorset if I had any, which I do not. We were only in London visiting Aunt Hermione for a month because she has been unwell. Not that I want a beau, let alone a betrothal.’
Lord Kendall stopped tracing a crack in the planked table top with his index finger and looked up sharply. ‘Why ever not?’
‘Marriage and husbands seem to complicate life so much. They restrict it. I am an artist. Matrimony and art are not compatible—unless one is a man, of course.’
It was the first time she had said it out loud, the thing she had been thinking secretly. It felt momentous, just to say the words, I am an artist, and to mean them, not as a description of what she enjoyed doing as a pastime, but as something that defined her, Jane Newnham. Artist.
‘Surely that is not what you should expect of marriage. You certainly draw with great proficiency and insight, but what has a husband to do with that? Most ladies sketch and paint in watercolour and I assume you all have drawing masters or governesses to teach you.’
‘I am not interested in a mere genteel pastime,’ Jane explained. The strange sense of recklessness her declaration had produced seemed to sweep through her, take over her voice. ‘I want—I need—to improve, to paint in oils to be as good as I want, to be able to paint portraits to a professional standard.’
‘You mean, earn your living as a portrait painter? Impossible,’ Lord Kendall said flatly.
Is that what I meant? Could I do that?
It was a terrifying prospect, something that had never occurred to her. Then his look of disapproving incredulity struck home.
Anyone would think it was the equivalent of earning a living on my back.
Jane almost said so, swallowed, and recited, ‘Artemisia Gentileschi, Elisabeth Vigée le Brun, Angelica Kauffman, Mary Beale, Sofonisba Anguissola—’ She wished she could think of more female artists, especially modern English ones.
‘Exceptions that prove the rule. I refuse to believe in that last one and, besides, you are an English gentlewoman of tender years. You must have a husband.’ There was an edge to that statement, some hint of scorn, almost. Whatever it was, it made her bristle. If he had not thought it a possibility, why had he suggested it? And the thought was tantalising, alluring and dangerous. Could she?
‘I must have a husband?’ Jane snorted inelegantly, almost drunk on the terror of her own rebellion, on the possibilities his careless, scornful suggestion had thrown up. ‘I shall be an independent artist and I neither need nor want a husband. Men are dull or unsuitable or untrustworthy. Or lacking in originality and imagination.’
‘Thank you.’ This time his lips showed no sign of that amused twitch.
‘There is no need to take it personally. You are an earl and heir to a marquess,’ she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘You are certainly more than suitable. For all I know you might be exciting and faithful. But it is academic, I am not talking about you.’
‘We might be if your family discovers that we are spending the night here.’ That was said without the hint of scorn.
Aha, there was definitely an amused twinkle in his eyes just now.
And they were rather nice eyes, dark blue, long-lashed. His best feature, in fact, although there were those shoulders… It was gratifying to make the blue sparkle and it would be a challenge to catch that in oils. But one battered earl was not the problem.
How much could I charge for a portrait? Could I really make my living?
He was still regarding her quizzically.
‘They will not discover it,’ she assured him. ‘Why ever should they?’
‘Miss Newnham—’
‘Call me Jane, then we do not risk tripping up in our pretence of being brother and sister,’ she suggested. Wrestling with the practicalities of their present situation was at least calming.
‘Very practical, Jane. And I am Ivo, although I think you may forgo the frequent dears. Siblings are rarely so affectionate from what I have observed.’
That was true, in her experience at least. She and Hubert, her brother, had quarrelled their way through childhood and had nothing in common as adults.
The maid came in, unfurled a large white cloth across the table, replaced the tea things when Jane clutched at the tea pot, produced cutlery from her apron pocket and bustled out again.
‘Ivo is a nice name. An unusual name. Mine is so dull—Plain Jane.’ She poured herself more tea. ‘Shall I ring for another cup? No? If I am to succeed as an artist, I think I should change it.’ Already in her imagination a picture was forming of a studio, an easel, a chair and a chaise longue for her subjects, a scattering of tasteful props and drapes, herself in a flowing smock, paintbrushes stuck in her elegant but artistic coiffure. The dream of achieving elegance with her mousy, rather fine and wayward hair was perhaps the most improbable element of that vision.
‘Like a nom de plume?’ Ivo queried. ‘That would be nom de pinceau, I think.’
‘Paintbrush name?’ She found herself smiling at him. ‘I should have to find something, certainly. Bath would be an excellent place to set up a studio, don’t you think?’
‘No, I do not. How much money do you have, Miss Newnham?’ The sudden switch to seriousness wiped the delightful imaginings from her mind and, with them, the flutter of happiness.
She did not want to be serious. Laughter kept the nerves about what she had just discovered about herself from tying her stomach in knots. Jane raised her eyebrows with mock hauteur. ‘It is surely somewhat early in our acquaintance for you to be considering dowries, Lord Kendall.’
He did not rise to her teasing, the irritating man. ‘I could not agree more,’ he said with unflattering emphasis. ‘I meant, how much money do you have at your immediate disposal?’
‘Thirty pounds. Sufficient for the journey and contingencies.’
‘That is ample to hire a respectable maid for the remainder of your journey—and to sleep in your bedchamber tonight. I am sure this inn could supply you with a suitable young woman for a few days.’
It was what she had told Billing to do, not what she wanted to hear herself. ‘We have already established that there is not room for three in that chaise. Not in any comfort.’
‘I remain here, of course.’ The bruises, which were beginning to colour up nicely, did nothing to make his expression any more amiable.
‘With no money, no means of identification, a wound in your shoulder and the visage of a not very successful pugilist, my lord?’ He was unsettling her and it helped to hit back. ‘Unless you have an acquaintance living nearby, I suggest that it might be a long walk to wherever you might be known.’
‘I am aware of that. I am also aware that I have placed a lady in a compromising position. What becomes of me need not concern you.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake.’ Jane jumped up. The tea things rattled and she just managed to stop the milk jug from tipping over. Lord Kendall got to his feet, but she flapped one hand at him, irritated. ‘Sit, do. I want to pace up and down so as not to throw the sugar bowl at you. I did not haul you into my chaise and prepare to fend off ruffians with my parasol to leave you battered and destitute here. Those louts may have followed us for all you know.’
‘Indeed. Another excellent reason why I want you to go. It is not too late now for us to find you a maid and for you to drive to the next inn for the night.’
‘I am not leaving you like this. You are patronising, irritating and, just at the moment, a thorough nuisance, but I refuse to have you on my conscience.’
‘And I will not have your ruined reputation on mine.’ He stood up again, clearly furious at having to grab at the back of a chair for balance.
‘Poppycock,’ Jane pronounced inelegantly. ‘I will feel much safer with a gentleman’s escort than with an unknown maidservant. And do sit down, you are swaying. No one knows me and, with you having been abroad until recently and with your face like that, I doubt anyone would recognise you either.’ A fleeting memory of something Cousin Violet had been gossiping about when she had last seen her came to mind. ‘And your grandfather has an estate close to Bath, does he not? Exactly where you need to be.’