Lyn Stone - The Arrangement

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.

“Don’t be silly, Pip. You’re hurt, and I need to see where, so I can help you.”

“Bad! You can’t see that part.” She’d better not see that part, he thought, or she’d get the shock of her life. Those gentle hands touching his waist, her firm little shoulders beneath his arm on the way upstairs, had wreaked havoc on the lower part of his anatomy, in spite of the headache and pain in his side. He felt fit to burst.

The sight of his erection would definitely get her out of here, but he wasn’t at all sure he wanted her to go just yet. The longer she stayed, the more he pretended with her, the worse it would be if she found him out. He knew that.

He also knew that some part of him—the Pip part, maybe—needed her softness. Acting the village idiot was a small price to pay for something he’d always craved and rarely found. Sex was easy enough to get, if he wanted it. Sometimes he had even run from it, when the supply exceeded his demand. But real caring was scarce as summer snow.

Surely he could risk acting the part she’d presented him with for a little while. Just long enough to grab a bit of solace. Comfort was all he would take from her, he decided firmly, no matter how she fired his loins. He could be noble if he tried, even if he hadn’t been trained to it.

“Will you tell me where it hurts you, Pip? Just point to the places, and Kathryn will make them better.”

Oh God, I wish! he thought, and rolled his eyes. “Here,” he said, pointing to his temple and his mouth. There was nothing to be done for the ribs, and he doubted very much she’d be willing to ease the other, lower part that was aching like the devil.

“Are ye up there?” a too-familiar voice called up the stairs. The voice of doom, Jon thought with a clenching in his gut. Grandy would show up now, of all times. He could never find the blasted woman when he needed her. Now she’d ruin everything.

“In here,” Kathryn sang out. “Hurry, Pip’s been injured.”

A thud of heavy footsteps promised the death knell of his hopes. He watched with a fatalistic languor as Grandy’s pudding face peeped around the doorframe. “What is it, lad? Who’s this woman wi’ ye?”

Good, she hadn’t called him by name yet. Jon thought he might as well go for broke. He stretched out his arms and groaned, “Grandy, Grandy, I fell down!”

“And dropped yer pie all over th’ floor, too, ye clumsy oaf. I near slid down in it. Ye know I canna see worth beans.”

Kathryn’s mouth dropped as she rounded on Grandy, shoulders squared in a militant manner. “Now you see here...”

Jon grasped her elbow and gave it several yanks. “The ladies! I want my ladies!” There, that distracted her. And it wasn’t a bad idea to have them up here where they’d be safe.

“Ladies?” Kathryn asked, thoroughly confused, as he had known she would be. Jon widened his eyes, trying his best to look innocent, as he met Grandy’s curious gaze.

“He’s meanin’ th’ fiddle and ‘is other dulcies,” Grandy said to Kathryn. Then her pudgy finger pointed at him. “Ye’ll have to go find ’em yerself, rascal. God only kens where ye left ‘em layin’ this time.”