The Pretenders
OUTSIDE THE CAVE, THE THUNDER CRASHED.
Reeve looked down at me. His face was wet. Drops clung to his lashes. He said, “Do you know, I’ve been thinking, Deb, that perhaps our getting married wouldn’t be so terrible a thing after all.”
I stared at him in astonishment.
“Think about it yourself,” he urged. ”I would get my money, and you“—he gave me a charming, crooked smile—”you would get all the horses you wanted to ride.”
I pulled his wet jacket more closely around me and said impatiently, “Reeve, there is more to marriage than that.”
“I know there is.” The sound of the rain beating on the rocks of the shore was very loud. Reeve took out his damp handkerchief, took my chin in his hand, and carefully dried my upturned face. Then he said coaxingly, “I think you and I would deal together very well in other ways, too, Deb.”
He bent his head, and a crack of thunder split the heavens …
THE ARANGEMENT
“JOAN WOLF NEVER FAILS TO DELIVER THE BEST.”
—
Nora Roberts
“AS DELICIOUS AND ADDICTIVE AS DARK, RICH, BELGIAN CHOCOLATES.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on “
The Arrangement”
“STRONG, COMPELLING FICTION.”
—
Amanda Quick
“Five hearts! The
Romance Reader
reviewers don’t award five-heart ratings lightly. A five-heart book has to have it all: plot, characters, technique, romance …
The Arrangement
is a well-developed, entertaining, occasionally humorous book.”
—
Romance Reader
(Web site magazine)
“The dialogue is priceless. The story is complex … You will love all the wonderful characters and the sizzling story line… Ms. Wolf is a master.”
—
The Belles & Beaux of Romance
“Another winner …wonderfully written … Whether your favorite Joan Wolf story features Regency heroes, strong j heroines, or marvelous Regency era settings, you’ll find it all here in
The Arrangement“
—
Sherry Crane,
CompuServe Romance Reviews
“Will keep the reader absorbed from beginning to end … The perfectly paced story leads the reader … through a harrowing search for the truth … The riveting narrative … will delight readers everywhere!”
—
Patience H. Smith,
Gothic Journal
THE GUARDIAN
“The reader is drawn intimately into the story. Only a writer with Joan Wolf’s mastery of the language can accomplish this… Wolf meets this demand with a large cast of interesting and individual secondary characters, an intricate and believable plot, mastery of period details, a fallible but untarnished hero, and a storyteller heroine who lets the reader into the deepest recesses of her tormented heart.”
—
Lee Gilmore,
Romance Reader
(Web site magazine)
“Joan Wolf may be considered Ms. Regency Romance, but with this novel she changes her format by placing a strong emphasis on the mystery, a circumstance that brings a freshness to the subgenre.”
—
Harriet Klausner,
Under the Covers
(Web site magazine)
“Sizzle and sparks… the humorous, exasperating, and endearing goings-on … pack this novel chock-full.”
—
Dalton’s
Heart to Heart
“Typical Joan Wolf … wonderful, 4½ Bells!”
—
Bell, Book and Candle
“Delve beneath all the layers of marvelous characters in the book and discover love, deceit, hatred, envy, mystery, forgiveness, great danger, and passion. It’s one heck of a story that will keep you turning the pages far into the night.”
—
The Belles & Beaux of Romance
By Joan Wolf.
The Deception
The Guardian
The Arrangement
The Gamble
The Pretenders
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WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1999 by Joan Wolf All rights reserved.
Cover design by Diane Luger
Cover art by Stanislaw Fernandez
Hand lettering by David Gatti
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United States of America First Printing: February, 1999
Table of Contents
It was three o’clock in the afternoon, on a beautiful but blowy day in mid-May, and I was, as usual, in the Earl of Cambridge’s stable office talking with his head groom. I was lounging in my chair, in a most unladylike posture, when there came the sound of a carriage being driven rather precipitously into the stable yard.
Clark
jumped to his feet like a shot. “Lord Almighty, Miss, could that be his lordship?”
I said a little dryly, “Since I don’t know anyone else who comes sweeping in here quite so grandly, I rather imagine that it is.”
Clark
disappeared out the door. I slid down a little farther on my spine and idly wondered what could be bringing the Earl of Cambridge back to his ancestral home in the midst of the London Season.
A brilliant ray of May sunshine came slanting in through the small office window and rested on the top of my head. It had been a cold April, and the heat felt delightful. I closed my eyes to savor it.
“You here, Deb?” a familiar voice asked and I opened my eyes to regard the man who had just come in. The Most Noble George Adolphus Henry Lambeth, Earl of
Cambridge, Baron Reeve of Ormsby, and Baron.
Thornton of Ware, stood in the door looking at me out of his famous dark eyes.
“I’m always here,” I returned mildly. ”Where else am I to be—at home with Mother, gardening?”
He flashed me a swift, charming grin. “Well, since you put it like that…”
He came into the room and sat on the edge of the desk, facing my chair and swinging his leg.
“The really interesting question is what are
you
doing here?” I asked. ”Isn’t the Season still in full swing?”
“I’m going over to
Newmarket tomorrow to take a look at Highflyer,” he said. ”The
Derby is in a few weeks, and I want to make certain that he’s training well.”
I bolted straight up in my chair. “May I come with you?”
He sighed. “You know you can’t do that, Deb. It ain’t proper for an unmarried young lady to be alone all day with a twenty-four-year-old man.”
“Fiddle,” I said vigorously. ”You and I have been friends forever, Reeve. No one will think anything odd of me going to see your racehorse.”
He snorted. “Won’t they? My reputation is not exactly spotless, Deb, and I am
not
going to besmirch yours. I’m sorry, but you just can’t come with me.”
I glared at him. “But it is so boring here, Reeve. The only thing the local girls do is giggle about boys and talk about getting married. It is enough to make one go stark raving mad. If I didn’t have
Clark to talk to, I think I
should
go mad.”
He looked like a dark angel as he sat there, swinging his booted leg and looking at me out of enigmatic eyes. “You ought to think of getting married yourself, Deb. You can’t spend the rest of your life as a spinster, after all.”
I could feel my face take on what my mother calls its stubborn look. “No one wants to marry me, Reeve.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.
“It’s true,” I insisted. ”For one thing, I’m too tall.”
His straight black brows drew together. “You’re not too tall. Stand up, and I’ll show you.”
“No.”
Two strong hands closed around my wrists and dragged me to my feet.
“See?” he said. ”The top of your head comes to my mouth. That’s a perfect height for a woman.”
I was annoyed. “Reeve, you are several inches over six feet. I don’t know if you have ever noticed this, but most men are not quite as tall as that. They like girls whom they can look down upon.”
His eyes flicked over me. “They also like girls who wear something more feminine than ancient riding skirts and jackets that look as if they were rejected by the local orphanage.”
I scowled up at him.
“It’s not as if you were a Valkyrie, for God’s sake,” he said. ”If anything, you’re too thin. I could probably fit my hands around your waist.”
“Well don’t try it,” I warned. I backed away from him and folded my arms across my breast. ”How did we get started on this conversation in the first place?”
“You started it.”
“I did not“
“Yes, you did. You were complaining that all the local girls are on the catch for a husband.”
I leaned my hip against the desk that he had stepped away from and shrugged. I hated to admit that I was wrong.
“It’s perfectly normal for girls to want husbands,” Reeve went on. ”
I
don’t know why you should find the topic so boring, Deb.”
“It’s not only boring, it’s fruitless,” I said. ”Not only am I too tall, but I have no money. Don’t forget that little fact, Reeve. Gentlemen are not inclined to marry a girl who is virtually destitute, which is what Mama and I are. We are lucky to have a roof over our heads.” I shook my head. ”No, I fear I am doomed to permanent spinsterhood.”
I must admit I was not as unhappy as perhaps I should have been about this situation. My long legs might have made some of the shorter local swains uncomfortable, but they gave me a distinct advantage in the saddle. In point of fact, except for Reeve himself, I had the best seat in the entire countryside. This was the reason that I had the free run of Reeve’s stables, of course. He knew his horses were in good hands when I took them out.
Realizing that he was getting nowhere with his discussion of marriage, Reeve changed the subject. “It looks as if Highflyer is going to be the favorite for the
Derby,” he said smugly. “What do you think about that?”
“I think it is wonderful,” I replied slowly. ”But what does Lord Bradford think?”
Reeve scowled. “Bernard is a spoilsport,” he said. “All he does is spout prosy speeches about the evils of racing. He has no understanding that racing is something that all real gentlemen do. He lives on that boring little estate in
Sussex and does nothing but see to his farms and his flocks of sheep! Wait until Highflyer wins. Then he’ll see the value of keeping a racehorse!”
I said carefully, “Reeve, where are you getting the money to have Highflyer trained?”
“Oh,
Benton loaned it to me,” he replied carelessly. “I’m to repay him as soon as Highflyer wins the
Derby.”
A note of foreboding struck my heart “And what if he doesn’t win?”
That earned me the famous
Cambridge glare. “Of course he’ll win! He’s by far the best horse in the race. That’s why he’s the favorite!”
He picked up an iron paperweight in the shape of a rearing horse and slammed it down on the copy of the
Stud Book
that Clark and I had been looking through. “Damn Bernard, anyway. Why does he have to make my life so difficult?”
It was a question I couldn’t answer.
Reeve raked his hand through his dark, overly long hair. “You don’t think I should have borrowed the money from
Benton?” he challenged me.
I looked back at him thoughtfully, taking a minute before I answered. Even Reeve’s glower could do nothing to disguise the classical purity of his face’s bone structure. The only thing that saved him from being outright beautiful was the bump in what had once been a perfectly straight nose. He had broken it when he was twelve. Someone had been riding too close behind him over a fence and crowded his horse, and both Reeve and the horse had come down. He had been laid up for weeks with broken ribs and a broken collarbone as well as the nose.
I had known Reeve since I was five, however, and I was so accustomed to his magnificent looks that they rarely got in the way of my reading the inner man. So I knew now that under the bravado he, too, was nervous about the money he had borrowed. I also knew that he would never admit it.
“It is just that I would hate to see the relationship between you and Lord Bradford deteriorate further than it already has,” I said carefully.
Reeve gave a short bark of humorless laughter. “I should think that is impossible, Deb,” he said.
There was no answer to that, so I pushed away from the desk. “It’s time I was going home,” I said. “Mother will be looking for me.”
He nodded. “I really wish I could take you to see Highflyer, Deb, but even if you could find a chaperone, I’m not coming back here after
Newmarket.”
“That’s all right, Reeve,” I said resignedly.
“Give my best to your mother.”
“I will.”
And so we parted.
I waited until my mother and I were having dinner together in the small dining room of our tiny cottage before I told her of my encounter with Reeve that afternoon.
“I wish he had not bought that horse,” Mama said.
“Reeve picked Highflyer out as a yearling, and he has turned into one of the best three-year-olds of the season,” I said. ”/ think it’s a shame that his pleasure in his horse is dampened because of that damn will of his father’s.”
“Deborah,” my mother protested automatically.
“Sony, Mama,” I corrected myself. “Rotten will.”
Mama sighed. “It is certainly unfortunate that Reeve’s father should have decided to keep him from coming into control of his fortune until he is twenty-six. I agree with you that it is humiliating for Reeve to have to go to his trustee, Lord Bradford, for money. But you must admit, darling, that Reeve’s father had good cause to doubt his son’s maturity.”
“Hmmm,” I said. I ate a piece of asparagus from the pile on my plate. One of the good things about Reeve’s coming home was that he would be sure to send us some big hams before he left for Newmarket. It would be nice to have meat again.
Mama took a small sip of water from her glass. “I saw a notice in the paper today that your half brother Richard is getting married. The young lady is the daughter of Viscount Swale.” She took another careful sip. “It’s a good match. The Woodlys must be pleased.”
I went rigid. “Mama,” I said dangerously. “I’ve told you that the less I hear about that family, the happier I will be. And as for my esteemed half brother—he can rot in hell, for all I care.”
My mother looked at me, a small frown between her brows. “Darling, I wish you would not continue to bear this grudge against your brother. I agree with you that the family behaved very badly to us, but I scarcely think that Richard, who was a child of eight at the time your father died, can be held at fault.”
I slammed my hand on the table. “
Behaved very badly to us
! My God, Mama, is that what you call throwing us out of my father’s house and banishing us to live in poverty in a poky little cottage!”
Mama winced.
I tried to get hold of my temper. I knew I upset her when I started to shout.
“I’m sorry,” I gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Your father left the estate and all his money to his son Richard, with his brother John to act as trustee,” Mama reminded me. ”I’m sure your papa expected that we would be taken care of, Deborah, but we have no legal claim on the estate.” Her voice dropped slightly. ”We are lucky John saw fit to give us this cottage rent-free and to pay me a quarterly annuity to keep us fed.”
For that was how John Woodly had interpreted his duty: he kept a roof over our head. And even that came at the expense of Mama’s promising never to use her title. She was by rights Lady Lynly, but all the world j must call her by the lesser name of Mrs. Woodly. John ( had left her nothing of her pride. All he had left her was “
t
me. !
I stared across the table at my mother. She had been hired to be my older half brother Richard’s governess and, much to the dismay of his family, my father had taken her to be his second wife. When my father had died his family had swept her (and the product of this union—me) out the door of Lynly Manor as fast as they possibly could.
Mama said earnestly, “Don’t bear a grudge against your brother, Deborah. None of this was his fault”
“He never tried to find us,” I said in a hard voice.
“Nor have I ever tried to get in contact with him,” Mama returned.