Lyn Stone - The Arrangement

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.