The Arrangement

Kathryn felt confused, thrown by Chadwick’s admission of guilt and obvious distress over the dilemma. “At least he ought to receive some credit for his talent,” she suggested.

“Ha! Credit, of course. We surely ought to advertise his talents. I could parade him about London, maybe even Paris and Rome. Introduce him as the calf-witted composer, the nimble-fingered numbskull. How do you think he’ll do in polite society, Miss Wainwright? Will you applaud him as he drools on the ivories? Perhaps you could stand by with his bonbon rewards and wipe the spittle off his chin.”

“Oh, God,” Kathryn groaned, clenching her eyes shut as she turned away toward the window. The silence grew, broken only by Chadwick’s harsh breathing and the increasing patter of the rain.

“Has he always been...that way?” she asked gently.

“An unfortunate accident,” he explained, “and I’ve dealt with it the only way I know how. Look, I know you only want to help improve Pip’s circumstance, but Tim-beroak is his home. God knows I can’t afford to improve on the old place, but to sell it from under him would be unthinkable. Impossible.” His voice grew soft and imploring. “Believe me, Miss Wainwright, he’s usually quite content there. He needs his forest and the lake. They provide his inspiration, and what precious snatches of peace he can find.”

“Is that where he’s gone now, do you think? To his forest?” she asked, suddenly fearful that she might be the cause of Pip’s venturing too far from his haven and into danger.

“That’s where he usually goes when he’s troubled. When I returned this morning, he told me you planned to take him away today. He ran off to hide from you. He’ll probably come home before dark. I apologize for my temper, but you did upset him, and therefore me.”

Then Chadwick did the strangest thing. He rose and offered her his hands and a look of sad entreaty. “Will you please not expose us, Miss Wainwright? I ask this for Pip’s sake, as well as my own. We cannot let his music die, and a few words from you in print could slay it outright.”

Kathryn reached out to him in spite of herself, grasping the hands that brought such wonder to the world. Pip’s wonder. “What kind of monster do you take me for, Mr. Chadwick?”

“A benevolent one, I hope,” he answered, with a pale, dimpled smile. His eyes sparkled with light azure fire and wry humor. Her knees turned to pudding when he did that.

Kathryn forced a laugh and squeezed his fingers gently. “I’m no monster at all. And I no longer believe that you are, when you speak so eloquently on Pip’s behalf. I believe I’ve misjudged you, sir, at least this private side of yourself.”

“I do promise to take better care of Pip,” he offered sincerely. “Rest assured, I shall.”

His gaze grew even more heated as it wandered down the length of her, reminding Kathryn that she stood half-naked, unchaperoned, holding his hands, in the middle of a sleazy bedchamber. What must he think?

“Perhaps you’d better excuse me now, Mr. Chadwick.”

“Please call me Jon. I feel we’ve become friends in the space of our visit. May I call upon you when next I’m in town? Perhaps the interview was not such a bad idea after all.”

Kathryn pulled away from the handclasp and backed up a bit to put a decent distance between them. This beguiling charmer was almost as different from the Chadwick she knew as his brother Pip. “I’d be honored. No doubt I’ll see you again when I call on Pip. I’ll worry till I know he’s safe.”

Chadwick looked wary, as though he hadn’t considered that she would pursue the matter farther than this conversation. “Oh, that’s not necessary. Not even wise, under the circumstances. He was so frightened, he’ll take a bit of calming down, I expect. Tell you what, I’ll send word to your offices when I’ve found him, so you needn’t fret.” He reached for the door handle.

Kathryn laid a detaining hand on Jonathan’s arm. “I never meant to upset Pip. It’s just that when I found him there, so engrossed in his music, practically naked and shivering, all I wanted to do was help. Your resemblance is so remarkable, it was obvious to me you were brothers. I feared you had mistreated him.”

“And that I’d stolen his compositions. A natural assumption. I just regret you discovered him in such an embarrassing condition.” Chadwick touched his fingers to his temple and sadly shook his head. “The lad simply doesn’t know any better. Will you consider, then, not writing about it? Your article could destroy the only outlet for pleasure the poor wretch has. Music is all he knows. All he’s able to comprehend.” Silvery eyes, so like his unfortunate brother’s, pleaded for compassion. His beseeching smile melted her heart, a heart long dedicated to exposing all entertainers for the arrogant, self-centered scoundrels they were.

She offered no definite promise about the exposé, but gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “Your concern is admirable, Jonathan. You are not at all the man I first thought you to be.”

He glanced down at her hand and Kathryn felt the hard muscle flex beneath his carefully tailored coat sleeve. The ice-crystal eyes had darkened a shade when he finally returned her gaze. “Indeed, Miss Wainwright,” he said, “I am not.”

Kathryn stood idle for a long time after Jonathan Chadwick left, her mind sifting the new information for stones of hard truth. He pretended to be a cocksure genius looking down his gifted nose at the rest of the plebeian world. Instead, he gave his protection to a baseborn, disadvantaged half brother and provided an outlet for the man’s creativity.

True, Chadwick performed Pip’s music as his own, but what other option had he, other than to ignore it? He benefited greatly by claiming authorship, of course. But where would Pip be without Jon’s support? Somewhere cleaner, perhaps, but likely no happier or better off.

Men thought little about their surroundings, as a rule—at least the men she knew did. Ought she to judge it Jonathan’s fault if the manor house was a wreck? How much time did he spend there? she wondered. Apparently not enough. He had promised to do better by Pip. She meant to see that he did. The least she could do was ensure that the place was cleaned and sufficient food laid by.

Something about Pip stirred maternal instincts Kathryn hadn’t realized she possessed. Children didn’t interest her much at this point in her life. But Pip, the overgrown child with a mind full of beautiful sounds, had uncovered something tender in her heart. Something beyond ordinary compassion. She wanted to hold him and protect him against a world she knew could be hostile and cold.

Kathryn began dressing for the trip back to London. As her hands worked the bodice of her dress over her breasts, she suddenly recalled Pip’s long-fingered hands, ink-stained and tanned, clutching a violin to his chest, caressing it as tenderly as a lover.

She shoved the errant thought away. Heavens above, what had happened to her propriety and good sense? First she’d gone weak-kneed over Jon Chadwick, a world-weary cynic who probably wallowed in depravity, and now she was lusting after his innocent, younger brother. Pip was just a child, not a man to think of in such a way. He was a large, precious boy in a rather perfect adult body. A body she must learn to overlook, not look over.

Pip needed motherly care and nurturing. The haughty Jonathan Chadwick could hardly be expected to understand that. Men simply were not born to nurture. In his overprivileged, autocratic way, Jon probably did all he knew how or had time to do.

He simply needed help with Pip, Kathryn decided. Her help.

Chapter Three

Jon spurred his stallion to a lather on the way home, his feelings a jumble of agitation, anger and embarrassment. Riding full tilt failed to calm him as it usually did. Truth told, he felt more like Miss Wainwright’s Pip at the moment than he had last night in the ballroom.

He despised the feeling. Trust a woman to twist a man’s guts like taffy. Just when he had everything more or less worked out in his life, she had to come along. Now she had tangled him up in a lie that could grow to impossible proportions. Almost worse than that, she had stirred up the lust he needed to have lie dormant. And she threatened his career, all he had left in the world at this point.

At least all he could claim as his. His survival as a composer was definitely at stake. If Kathryn Wainwright ever found out he was Pip, she’d crucify him in print, if not in deed. His career would stop dead in its tracks. Then he might as well be that slowtop bastard writing ditties in his underwear.

Damn. He hated that anyone—especially a woman—held that kind of power over him. Female influence ought to stop when a man shucked off his mother’s control. But even then, he’d been unable to get out from under that completely. Thanks to the promise he’d made his dying father, Lady Caroline Chadwick had kept him partially under her thumb right up until the hour she died.

Women wielded guilt, love and old promises like weapons of war. The time had come to erect some defenses, before this new battle got out of hand. He would see Kathryn Wainwright once more, on neutral ground in London, and make it abundantly clear that she was to leave him, and that simple fellow Pip, alone. He would charm her first and, if that didn’t work, he would employ a few threats of his own.

Jon lifted Imp’s reins, shouted a command and leapt the high stone fence by the brook. Imp sailed over the barrier, landed solidly and jerked to a halt. The mighty Chadwick sailed over his head as though weightless and landed facedown in the mud.

“Ah, hell!” he groaned and rolled to one side, nursing his stone-bruised temple. Immediately he checked his hands for damage. God, he had twenty fingers! He’d cracked his head for certain, to be seeing double like this.

Slowly, carefully, he staggered to his feet and caught up the dragging reins. Imp whinnied and snuffled, nudging for an apology. “All right, then! It was a damn stupid jump. And the next time you dump me, dog meat, I’ll sell you to the knackers.” He mounted after three tries to find the stirrup with an unsteady foot.

This was the last time, he promised himself as he rode home, the very last time, he would leap before he looked.

With Imp stabled and fed, Jon dragged himself to the back entrance of the house and into the kitchen. This morning’s bathwater, now cold as a frog’s ass and scummy with soap, stood waiting to be emptied. Without pausing to dread it, Jon peeled off the wig and muddy clothes, draped them over a chair for Grandy to clean later and stepped into the tub.

He submerged his head and came up shuddering. When he cleared his eyes, a long-haired tortoiseshell feline greeted him with a perfunctory growl and an angry green glare.

“Dagnabbit, I just fed you not two hours ago. God knows there’s enough four-legged food in the house to keep you busy if you weren’t so damned lazy.” He slung a spray of water in the cat’s direction. “Get out of here or I’ll give you a bath. And it’s bloody well cold, I can tell you!” Jon rose and grabbed for the still-damp toweling draped over a rickety chair.

When he was mostly dry, he wrapped the length of cloth around his hips and scrabbled through the pie safe, searching for bread and cheese.

“Aha, look, Dag! Grandy’s been and left us some grub. Here.” He tore off a mouthful of a mutton pasty, swallowed greedily, wolfed another bite and tossed the rest on the bare floor for the cat. The lone bottle of stout was emptied with a few noisy gulps.

His hair dripped, sending chilling rivulets down his chest and back. Taking the stairs two at a time, he dashed to his room and shrugged into his old velvet robe. The ash-coated coals in the fireplace leapt to life when he added kindling and poked them up.

Jon peered warily into his small shaving mirror. At least only one of him stared back. Maybe no concussion, then. He probed the bruise on his head, wincing as he touched it. Ah, well, it could have been worse, he supposed.

He whistled Mozart’s “Queen of the Night” aria from The Magic Flute, changing a few notes as he went along. While he snuggled into his overstuffed wingback, he looked around the bedroom at the years of dirt and clutter. The Wainwright woman had a point. He ought to take better care of Pip. The thought prompted a lazy smile.

Exhausted and comfortably warm, he drifted into a half-waking dream of a furious Kathryn Wainwright prancing around in her diaphanous little underthing. Sassy little baggage. He could even imagine her scent of lilacs.

A clatter downstairs brought him upright and onto his feet in an instant. Good God! She was back! He tore downstairs to see what she’d tripped over. God help her if it was one of his ladies. Had he left the Strad on the floor?

As he rounded the corner into the ballroom, a fist connected with his jaw and sent him spinning backward. Hands caught and pinned his arms behind him while a blow to the midsection took his breath away. Gasping he lifted his head and got another fist in the mouth for his trouble.

“Now that I have your attention, Chadwick, let us get down to the business at hand. All your markers are mine. I’ll have five thousand pounds or the Stradivarius. Now!”

“Bunrich.” Jon spat blood out of his mouth, aiming at the man’s feet. “I should have guessed.” Jon cursed his luck. Ned Bunrich had approached him several times about buying the Strad. His best guess was that the man had a wealthy client hot to add it to a collection. Fat chance of that. He slumped between the goons holding him and played for time until his head cleared.

The violin in question, his most beautiful lady, lay on the table near the door, where he’d stuck it last night on the way up to bed. The shuffled-up sheets of his opera score camouflaged it, thank God. No one with his wits intact would be expected to treat such a treasure so casually. Scattered amid the pages of music left on the floor lay the antique lyre and his precious lute.

Damn Kathryn Wainwright. Anyone who could make him forget his ladies, even for a moment, was dangerous. He glanced toward the large wall safe where he usually stored them. Standing wide open and empty, just as he had left it.

The two instruments on the floor looked forlorn and helpless. There was no way he would fight the bastards in this room and risk shattering his ladies. Somehow, he had to move the conflict to another place.

If only he’d saved the old violin he had dragged around while on campaign. Perhaps he could have fooled Bunrich with a switch. Suddenly a plan formed. Not a perfect plan, but with a bit of luck, it could buy him time to raise the money.

He coughed and spat again. “You’re too late, Bunrich. I pawned it months ago.”

Bunrich growled and drew back to hit him again. “This will flatten that pretty nose, fancy boy.” He hesitated. “Unless you want to give me the pawn chip.”

“All right.” Jon heaved and nodded frantically. “Let me go, and I’ll get it. Just don’t break my nose.” He felt the hands on his arms relax and drop away. As soon as he could straighten himself, he staggered to the door, the assistant “collectors” at either side and Bunrich just behind him.

Maybe a fight wouldn’t be necessary after all, he thought as they cleared the ballroom. The outcome of one might not be favorable, anyway, since he could see a blurry six of them, when he knew very well there were only three. His head pounded, and several of his ribs felt cracked. Given that, Jon wasn’t altogether certain how high he could kick.

Entering the study, he strode to the only piece of furniture left in the room, a large cherry desk he had kept because it once belonged to his father. Retrieving a wrinkled pawn ticket from the right-hand drawer, he held it out, faking a frown of regret as Bunrich snatched it up and read it.

“You idiot! You pawned the thing for two hundred pounds? Are you mad? And in Edinburgh, of all places!”

Jon shrugged painfully and fingered the cut just inside his bottom lip. “Needed the blunt.”

Bunrich hissed through his teeth and clenched the paper in his fist, shaking it under Jon’s nose. “You’ll still owe me whatever it takes to get it out of hock. Plus travel expenses. I’ll be back, Chadwick. Depend on it.” Jon nodded as Bunrich turned to leave.

When the sound of hooves faded away, Jon sank to the floor and lay there groaning. Jesus, life was getting too complicated First, Kathryn Wainwright’s poison pen threatened his livelihood, and now Maman’s creditors were beating down the door. Not to mention her son.

Best he could recall without checking accounts, he thought he owed Ned Bunrich a bit less than three hundred quid after last month’s payment. Maman had owed the man less than she did the others. He’d offered to purchase the Stradivarius outright, less the amount of Jon’s debt. Now he had gotten altogether too serious. Maybe Bunrich Antiquities’s business depended on whether old Ned could produce the Strad. Well, the bloody Thames would dry up before Jon let him have it. If Bunrich had bought up all the other markers now, Jon would simply have to find the money somewhere to pay him in full.

He turned his head to one side. The desk could go next, he supposed. Then maybe the little harp. She was a scaled-down child’s instrument, designed for his fifth birthday, virtually useless for present purposes and valuable only because she was unique. But how could he part with her? He couldn’t. Not on pain of death. Rising on one elbow and gasping with agony, he rapidly reconsidered. Well, maybe on pain of death. He lay back down, drawing shallow breaths to ease his ribs.

Jon figured he should have at least ten days until Bunrich found the obscure little pawnshop, got the fake Strad appraised and returned. Maybe, with luck and bad weather, a fortnight. What would happen then was anybody’s guess, but the options were not that hard to imagine.

From the amount demanded, Jon knew Bunrich must have bought up every one of Maman’s debts, and he could bring the law with him next time he came to collect. That could mean debtor’s prison or transportation, but the greedy toad would get nothing for his trouble but the satisfaction of seeing the mighty Chadwick brought low. Somehow, Jon didn’t think Bunrich would bring the law. He wanted the Stradivarius too badly to settle for revenge on a reluctant seller. In that case, Jon knew a broken nose might be the very best he could hope for.

Within ten day, he had to amass five thousand pounds and a bit extra for Bunrich’s trouble, or face music not of his making. Not a pretty tune to dance to, either.

Few knew that the house was entailed. He couldn’t have sold it even if he wanted to. If Jon produced no heir in his lifetime, the property would revert to the Crown. As if Queen Victoria would want the damned thing, in the condition it was in.

He doubted anyone knew he held the Lyham title, either. Maman, in her dubious wisdom, decided to let it rest with her elder son, Edward, who lay in an unmarked grave in America. An earl, even an impoverished one like Jon, didn’t make his living playing in parlors and concert halls around the globe. Maman had known society would never condone a titled gentleman taking money for his talents. But a second son made his way as best he could, and more power to him. So, when they received word of brother Edward’s death in Charleston eight years ago, the news had remained a closely guarded secret. Anyone who cared enough to inquire would think the earl was still adventuring abroad, squandering what was left of the Lyham wealth.

There never had been much of it, and what little there was, Edward had spent long before he died. Maman had taken every farthing Jon made from performing and tried to increase it the only way she knew how. Only she hadn’t known how very well at all. It amazed him still, how deeply mired she had gotten them. Some days he despaired of ever reaching solvency.

Now, nearing the age of twenty-five, Jon owned a broken-down manor house he couldn’t sell, an aging stallion nobody in his right mind would try to ride, a collection of instruments he’d rather die than part with and a tortoiseshell cat too stupid to chase mice. Oh, and the mountain of gambling debts, he added with a grimace of pain. Mustn’t forget Maman’s debts. His wonderful inheritance.

Success with the opera he’d just finished seemed his only hope for survival. And, hell, he didn’t even like opera all that much. The libretto he’d concocted was trite—idiotic drivel about thwarted love and such—but then, that was the expected thing. The recitative stank like rotten eggs. The music, however, was magnificent, if he did say so himself, the episodic fugue in the second act, truly inspired. No point entertaining any false modesty there. If he could do nothing else—and he had fairly well proved that true—he could damn well compose.

If only someone else could promote the cursed thing. God knew he suffered the agony of the damned every time he forced himself to a keyboard in public, every time he lifted a bow to the strings. This knock on the head and a few cracked ribs seemed nothing compared to it. Not that had much choice in the matter.

Well, he thought as he ran a tentative hand over his injuries, he had been thoroughly trained in one other thing. But killing people—in legal battle or otherwise—didn’t seem a viable alternative. England had no real war at present, and life as an assassin certainly held no appeal. If he were inclined that way—and he almost wished he were—he might have started with Ned Bunrich. Hell might well be his destination eventually, but he didn’t intend to pave his way with any more bodies if he could avoid it. He’d left enough of those on battlefields in Africa. Stage fright ran a distant second to the sleep terrors he had endured after wielding his weapons at Abu-Klea and Khartoum.

He had to get the damned opera produced somehow, even if that meant playing it for every backer in London and on the Continent. The time had come to admit his limitations; without the music, he was nothing. Nobody. A shell of a man, full of imposing sounds. And a load of guilt for what he’d almost become, the one time in his life he tried to abandon the curse for a soldier’s life. With another groan, he tried to roll over.

“Jon? Are you there? Pip?” The door knocker echoed only twice through the hall before he heard her shoes clicking on the tiles.

“Oh, Jesus Christ in a manger, this is all I need!” he moaned, and curled his knees to his chest, hoping to God he would go ahead and die before she found him.

Her sudden scream he could have done very nicely without. It scraped over his brain like sharp fingernails. The flurry of silk skirts over his naked legs, and the enveloping scent of her, almost made up for it.

Well, hell, he ought to get some small pleasure out of today, whether it be the whisper of silk ruffles on his skin or a laugh at her expense. The little wretch wanted to spend her sympathy? Why not let her, then? A private joke on her was better than dwelling on his misery.

He opened one eye and peered up at her through a wild tangle of sun-streaked hair. “Hurt,” he said, enjoying the tears that sprang to her eyes. Lord, he wished he deserved them.

“Oh, your poor face! Who did this to you, Pip? I’ll send Thomas for the constable right now! Did Jon hit you?” She touched two gloved fingers to his swollen temple.

He jerked away. “I fell down.” God’s truth, several times, he thought with a wince.

Her face softened, and she pulled off her gloves, tossing them aside. “Can you get up, dear? Come, I’ll help you. We should get you up to bed so I can tend you.”

Jon sat up, holding his side and trying to keep his robe together at the same time. He felt torn between wanting to send her packing and needing sympathy from any quarter where he could get it. So far, it had not been a good day. The need for sympathy prevailed.

When they had struggled up the stairs, she turned him automatically toward his mother’s old room. No sooner had she seen him stretched out on the unmade bed than she began to tug at the neck of his robe. He was bared to the waist before he could yell, “Stop!” He clutched the fabric close.