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The Arrangement
Praise for Lyn Stone’s first book,THE WICKED TRUTH Kathryn must make her feelings about their union absolutely clear this very moment Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Epilogue Copyright
Praise for Lyn Stone’s first book,THE WICKED TRUTH
“...Stone has an apt hand with dialogue and creates characters with a refreshing naturalness.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A great adventure...witty dialogue and bold subjects... Lyn Stone could well be a writer ahead of her time.”
—Affaire de Coeur
“...a skillfully written mystery laced with passion and humor that intrigues and delights.”
—Romantic Times
Kathryn must make her feelings about their union absolutely clear this very moment
She might never be able to muster the courage to approach the subject later. Especially when this newly regained confidence of Jon’s wreaked havoc with her body’s needs. He was terribly appealing at his worst, and this looked as though it definitely might be one of his better days. With a sharp intake of breath, she prepared to speak.
He interrupted. “There can be no further incidents like last evening.” Kathryn noted the blunt determination in his voice as he continued. “If we are to succeed in this endeavor, nothing personal must get in our way. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Kathryn raised her chin and stared. Damn him, that was supposed to be ber line. She had expected him to argue when she refused him his rights, but apparently he didn’t even want them...!
Dear Reader,
Lyn Stone’s first book, The Wicked Truth, was one of the featured titles in this year’s March Madness promotion and earned the author a favorable review in Publishers Weekly. Her second book, The Arrangement, is another unique and touching story about a young female gossip columnist who sets out to expose a notorious composer and winds up first agreeing to marry him, then falling in love with him. Don’t miss your chance to enjoy this exciting new talent.
Kit Gardner’s The Untamed Heart, a Western with a twist, has a refined English hero who happens to be an earl, and a feisty, ranch hand heroine who can do anything a man can do, only better. And this month also brings us a new concept for Harlequin Historicals, our first in-line short-story collection, The Knights of Christmas. Three of our award-winning authors, Suzanne Barclay, Margaret Moore and Deborah Simmons, have joined forces to create a Medieval Christmas anthology that is sure to spread cheer all year long.
Our final title is Susan Amarillas’s new book, Wild Card, the story of a lady gambler who is hiding in a remote Wyoming town, terrified that the local sheriff will discover she’s wanted for murder in Texas.
Whatever your tastes in reading, we hope you enjoy all four books, available wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Harlequin Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
The Arrangement
Lyn Stone
LYN STONE
A painter of historical events, Lyn decided to write about them. A canvas, however detailed, limits characters to only one moment in time. “If a picture’s worth a thousand words, the other ninety thousand have to show up somewhere!”
An avid reader, she admits, “At thirteen, I fell in love with Brontë’s Heathcliff and became Catherine. Next year, I fell for Rhett and became Scarlett. Then I fell for the hero I’d known most of my life and finally became myself.”
After living four years in Europe, Lyn and her husband, Allen, settled into a log house in north Alabama that is crammed to the rafters with antiques, artifacts and the stuff of future tales.
For my mother, Louise Pope, who encouraged
me through all those years of music lessons.
You were right—no bit of learning is ever wasted.
This one is for you.
Chapter One
London, September 1889
“Follow that carriage,” Kathryn Wainwright ordered as her coachman folded up the steps and closed the door. “Make certain the driver doesn’t notice. When he gets where he’s going, drive on by without stopping. All I want is his destination.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man answered, climbing up to his seat.
Two hours later, they passed through a tatty, run-down village. A mile past the outskirts, the carriage ahead turned off onto a small side road through the trees. Kathryn knew she couldn’t follow it without revealing her presence, and probably her purpose, if the rutted track was no through road.
She tapped on the inside roof and stuck her head out the window. “Drive on up that rise, Thorn, and see if we can look down and see where that road leads.”
When the carriage reached the top, she could indeed see quite clearly, with her father’s old field glass to one eye. In the moonlight, an old manor house rose out of the summit of the adjoining hill.
No welcoming lights shone in the windows, nor could she see anyone about the place. She watched until she saw his carriage pull up to the wide circular drive. Jonathan Chadwick alighted, spoke with the driver, and then strode into the dark house. Kathryn collapsed the spyglass and clapped her hands in glee. So this was his lair.
She had followed him before, always to a modest set of rooms near the theater district. And she knew from trying to bribe her way past the landlady that he rarely stayed there, except on the nights when he was performing somewhere in town. He disappeared for days on end, sometimes a week or more, the woman had said. Now Kathryn knew where he had gone.
This must be his family home, she guessed. From the deserted look of the place, he must live alone.
Kathryn smelled a fine story here. Perhaps there was something to the gossip that he was of some impoverished noble family. No one seemed to know very much about him, except that he had once been a child prodigy, traveling Europe since he was in short coats. Then, on reaching manhood, he had dropped out of sight. He had returned this summer with a vengeance. London’s drawing rooms and concert halls fought to book him, while he stubbornly played hard to get. The ploy had worked nicely for him. He accepted only the plummiest offers.
Even if his music was not as marvelous as it was, the man’s mystique would have put him in demand. Yes, there was a grand old mystery about Jonathan Chadwick and she meant to uncover it.
Excited by the prospect, Kathryn knew exactly what she had to do. “Turn around, Thom, and let’s make for the village. We’ll see if they have an inn.”
They did indeed, a squalid little two-story hovel that barely deserved the name. Its sign, vaguely resembling a starving rabbit, swung precariously from uneven chains. The Hare’s Foot Inn.
Kathryn quickly dismounted, went inside, and secured a room—the only private one available.
Thomas Boddie, her driver, protested in a loud whisper, “Ye can’t be stayin’ here, Miss Kathryn. Look at th’ place! More ’n likely got bugs.” He glanced around again, tsking and scratching his head to emphasize the warning.
“Buck up, Boddie. You’re getting soft in your old age.” Kathryn giggled when he looked indignant and a sight younger than his twenty-four years.
She waited until the innkeeper disappeared upstairs to change the linen before she spoke again. “I want you to bring one of the coach horses around after they’re fed and rested. Oh, and get me your breeches.”
“Breeches, miss?” he squeaked.
“Yes, and the shirt, too. I know you keep a change in the boot for when you stash your livery. We’re about the same size, don’t you think?”
“Ye can’t wear me breeches! That’s scan’lous! Indecent!”
Kathryn smiled at his outrage. “No, it’s necessary. I need to get to that house and do some snooping if I’m to get this story. I can’t ride bareback in an evening frock.” She swatted behind her at her cumbersome bustle.
Thorn groaned and rolled his eyes. “Oh, Lord save us. Your uncle Roop will skin us both. I’ll have t’ come, too.”
“No. You’ll wait here with the coach.” When he started to argue, she placed a hand on his skinny arm to silence him. “If I should get caught, somebody has to get me out of this. Agreed?”
“Might as well,” he grumbled. “You’ll sack me if I don’t.”
“Precisely,” she admitted cheerfully. Then she punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Ah, c’mon, Thom. Where’s your sense of adventure? You used to dare me to do things like this!”
“We was children then, Miss Kathryn. Yer father—God rest ‘im—was a sight more understandin’ about yer pranks than yer uncle will be. Stealin’ round a strange man’s home ain’t no game. He’ll have th’ law on ye. Worse yet, shoot ye fer a thief.”
“That prissy wretch wouldn’t know one end of a pistol from the other.” Kathryn hoped he didn’t, anyway. Somehow, the composer didn’t strike her as the type to wield a firearm. In the only duel that she knew anything about, Chadwick had used a sword. Apparently he’d been rather young when it happened, but a French immigrant attending the last concert evening had resurrected the story. Probably embellished it, as well. He’d said Chadwick was the best swordsman in France at the time.
Well, the silly rogue wasn’t likely to run her through without getting close enough to notice she was a woman.
“Calm down, Thorn. He won’t even know I’m there, and I’ll be back before you can blink. All I want is a look around.”
“Lord save us,” Thomas groaned, and went for the breeches.
Kathryn decided the third time would be the charm. Twice before tonight she had attended Chadwick’s performances. And twice she had failed to find out a thing about him other than how well he could compose and play.
He was a genius, and an odd duck all around. Everyone said so. And everyone came to see, as well as to listen. His appearance intrigued his audience as much as the music. The cream of London society talked of little else these days, when the subject of music arose. He could do no wrong, no matter how hard he tried. And, no mistaking it, he certainly did try. Tonight he had been haughty to the point of obnoxiousness. Arrogant, even insulting.
The social scale apparently meant nothing to the man. Kathryn wondered whether she might have been the only one in attendance tonight without a title. Certainly she was the only member of the press, though no one admitted knowing what she did to earn her keep. They did know, of course. If the hostess, Lady Ballinger, was not an intimate friend of Uncle Rupert’s, Kathryn knew she’d have been snubbed at the door. Even then, her welcome had felt distinctly cool. Female news writers, even those who published discreetly under a male nom de plume, hardly qualified as guest-list material in the upper echelons of society.
Given the usual content of her column in Uncle Rupert’s popular gossip sheet About Town, she could certainly understand why the elite kept up their pretense of ignorance in regard to her occupation. They wanted to stay on her good side. So far, her barbs had nicked only those in the professional limelight, but they all knew that could change overnight.
If only she could become self-supporting, she would much prefer doing novelettes or short stories to the entertainment column. But Uncle Rupert insisted on her articles for his paper, and he did pay the bills. About Town rated only a jot above the scandalous rag Tit Bits, but both were avidly read and both competed fiercely for the latest ondit. Kathryn supposed she should be happy for the opportunity to be writing anything so eagerly received.
However, this latest assignment worried her. She had nothing substantial for the article on Chadwick. Apparently he had been the darling of the Continent during his youth, performing privately, as well as in concert halls in Milan, Rome, Vienna, Paris, even Germany. But never in London, until now. She wondered why? As far as she could determine, there were no lurking scandals, and no social life apart from performances such as this one. Rumor had it he was working on an opera.
Kathryn had interviewed a few people who recalled seeing him perform as a child and a young adult. He certainly appeared to be a man of the world now. She’d covered all the back issues of the major publications from around the civilized world, and the last mention of Chadwick had been over five years ago in Florence, Italy. Then he seemed to have vanished.
If she meant to get any kind of story out of the rascal for About Town, she needed a personal interview. He had refused her in no uncertain terms, the belligerent lout.
Who would think a head like his could conjure all that beauty? Well, it was a beautiful head; she had to give him that. That unfashionably long hair looked quite the rage on him, its wild mahogany waves tumbling over his brow as he played, the back locks negligently clubbed with red velvet. Except for that scarlet ribbon and white ruffles at his throat and wrists, he dressed all in black, as had been his custom the two times she saw him. It set off the false whiteness of his skin to a fare-thee-well. That mask of powder he wore only emphasized the stark handsomeness of his features.
His eyes were remarkable; cold and arctic blue, much too light, even for his powdered paleness. One expected them to be black, like his rotten attitude. The nose was noble—it was the only possible description—with its straight prominence and slightly flaring nostrils. And he did flare the things at every opportunity. His lips were slightly redder than Kathryn thought natural, wide and finely chiseled, almost voluptuous in repose. If one could ever catch him relaxed long enough to notice. Usually he set them in a forbidding line that defied anyone to question his overwhelming superiority.
Well, his size would take care of establishing that, even if his looks didn’t. He was enormously tall, with shoulders like a dockworker. She’d bet her last farthing he worked as hard at keeping those muscles fit as he did at perfecting his music. His apparel, the face paint and the long hair only served to underscore his masculinity. He obviously concocted the whole getup as a bizarre private joke on the public. They knew, of course. And they loved it.
She loved it, as well. The thought surprised her.
Considering her attraction to the man, wisdom told her to forget the story on Chadwick. Reason stopped her. She had a job to do, if she wanted to continue life as more than a decoration for Randall Nelson’s arm and a broodmare for his nursery. God forbid she should forget that. Uncle Rupert certainly wouldn’t. If she failed in this assignment, Kathryn figured, she might as well use that wicked little pen of hers to start addressing her wedding invitations.
It wasn’t that she was diametrically opposed to marriage—only to marriage to a man like Randall. Aside from the fact that her skin had crawled the few times he touched her, there was also the matter of his having mentioned all those children he would give her. As though that might encourage her to accept his suit. Ha!
Randall wanted only to use her. Perhaps all men were users; certainly all the men she knew were. Her father had expected her to take her mother’s place in ordering his household at an age when most girls still clung to their dolls. When he died, she’d had to argue with his old solicitor until she was blue in the face for funds to attend college. Thank God the will had provided that she complete her education without specifying where or at what age. They’d had to sell her father’s house to finance it, but she’d won in the end.
Uncle Rupert had righteously insisted on her moving in with him after graduation and put her straight to work editing copy. Until he found that she could write better than his best reporter. Now the only suitor she’d ever had, with her uncle’s eager blessing, wanted to station her in his bedroom and only let her out to push a pram full of babies around the park? Not bloody likely.
Surely, somewhere in the world there lived a man willing to share her life, rather than direct it like a dictator. Love wasn’t a necessary requirement, though a modicum of physical attraction certainly was. If she had to bear the indignities she and her school chums had discussed so thoroughly, it would damned well be with a man who didn’t turn her stomach.
She smiled as an image formed in her head. The man she chose would be witty, above all. And handsome as sin itself. Maybe, he’d fill out his evening clothes as did Jonathan Chadwick. Lord, that man cut a sharp figure! She could well imagine submitting to certain indignities with a fellow built like that. Oh, never Chadwick himself, of course. No woman in her right mind would choose him, a pretentious performer with a penchant for rudeness.
When Thom brought her those breeches of his, she’d go and get that story, all right. She would ride right out to that old estate and find out what the man was really like. By the time she finished with him, Jonathan Chadwick wouldn’t have a single secret left out of print. Make sport of her, would he?
“Damn that female!” As if he didn’t have enough problems right now, without having to dodge her curiosity.
Worrying about that only augmented the familiar roiling in his gut that always followed a performance. Stage fright—his old and dreaded bugaboo. Every time he stepped up to or held an instrument in public, he became that terrified eight-year-old he’d been the first time he played to an audience. He remembered thinking at the time that it must be a bit like taking all one’s clothes off in the middle of Trafalgar Square during the noonday rush. Well, he had decided then that, if forced to do it, by God he would do it with a flair. Did the Wainwright woman suspect it?
He couldn’t stand much more of this. If the past five years as a soldier hadn’t proved such a bloody fiasco, he’d never have returned to performing. Most composers hired the best musicians they could afford to present their work to possible investors. A pity he couldn’t. Every ha’penny he earned had to go directly to his creditors. The army paid better; perhaps he shouldn’t have sold out when Long San died. But the whole thing seemed wrong to him, this killing of men who were only trying to hold on to what was theirs. Too late for second thoughts, anyway. The commission money was spent and there was an end to it.
If he didn’t cultivate some backers soon for the opera, he’d find himself bereft of his precious collection of instruments and taking up space in debtor’s prison. He must get past his damnable shyness and make some real contacts. Rich ones.
God, he wished he had a head for business, or at the very least a compulsion to perform that matched the one to compose. Useless to try to escape that driving need to put down the notes, though. He’d tried that, without success, so he figured he might as well use it. In the best of worlds, he’d stick to composing and live a regular sort of life, whatever that was. Unfortunately, everything hinged on money. Always had.
Discounting the soldiering skills he hoped never to use again, music was all he knew. It was all he had ever studied, all that could save him now. Maman, relentless as she was, had been right about one thing; he couldn’t live without music and the music couldn’t live without him. He wished to hell he’d been born a bloody banker.
The playing should be a private thing, an opening up of his soul. At rare times, he could forget the audience was there—all those fawning, simpering faces, with their cow eyes, staring and judging—but usually, as tonight, he simply endured. Pretended. Held back. Threw up. Suffered And still blushed at applause.
Maman had solved the problem of his beet red face by powdering it white. That had worked when he was eight; it still worked. The dark wig looked a bit much, but it was necessary. His own hair, bleached near-white by the African sun, combined with the white face powder, made him look like an albino. He knew very well that the strange stage image he presented lent a certain mystique, an added attraction.
Tonight it had proved a massive drawback. The Wainwright woman had studied him like a sparrow hawk poised to swoop. A female predator. Those quick brown eyes of hers missed nothing. For the past two weeks, she’d been everywhere he looked. If he didn’t keep away from her, she would pick him apart like the puzzle he was and destroy him with a single swipe of her pen. God knew she was capable. And eager.
Her pieces in the About Town news sheet were caustic as lye, the praise rare as chicken’s teeth. She never even pretended to be other than what she was, either. As though working for that rumor rag were a thing to take pride in.
She didn’t even have the grace to look like a destructive force. That wispy halo of golden curls escaping her oh-so-proper hairstyle gave her heart-shaped face an angelic appearance, despite those dangerous chocolate eyes.
What the hell was a woman doing writing for a newspaper, anyway? And such a beautiful woman, at that. Damned unnatural.
Tonight’s confrontation had destroyed every vestige of pleasure he’d found in her appearance and any hope that she might choose another victim.
Immediately after the performance, Jon had hurried down the front walk to his hired carriage. The sweetness of lilacs had hit him full force as he climbed into the dark vehicle, and he had very nearly squashed the source of the scent by sitting on her.
“Get out!” he ordered, placing the perfume immediately. He shoved her skirts aside as he twisted around and plopped down across from her.
“Come now,” she answered calmly, fiddling with her gloves. “I only want to ask you a few questions. Why do you refuse to talk to me? It’s not as though I’ll bite.”
“Nonsense. You bite quite regularly. You chew people up and spit them out like a mouthful of bad fish. And you wonder that they run from you? Get the hell out of my carriage.”
“Your music is marvelous. What harm could it do to let people know what you’re really like as a person? You took a long hiatus in the midst of a brilliant career. Why don’t you share what occupied you in the interim?” she suggested, pausing to purse her lips for a second, “Assuming, of course, that you have nothing to hide. Do you?” She smiled sweetly and cocked one brow.
Tenacious little bitch. He relented a bit, not by choice, but out of trepidation. If he continued acting the ogre, she would write just that. The persona that intrigued an audience might not look so good on paper. “Look, Miss...?” As though he didn’t recall her name.
“Wainwright. Kathryn Wainwright.”
“Yes, well, Miss Wainwright, I’m very tired right now. Exhausted and really out of sorts. Perhaps another time. If you would, please?” He gestured toward the open door, not offering to assist her. She’d climbed in by herself; she could jolly well climb out.
She didn’t move. “Shall I call you Lord Jonathan? I heard an odd rumor that your late father was a peer. Is that true?”
Jon stiffened and sucked in a deep breath. Damn. If she’d managed to unearth that much, what next? She might even stumble on the worst of his secrets. No, not if he kept his wits about him. She knew nothing definite, and was merely fishing. He exhaled with a sigh and gave her his most withering look. “Chadwick’s my name. If you’re to call me anything, it must be that.”
