The Arrangement

By Lyn Stone

Which Was The True Jonathan Chadwick?

The childlike innocent or the sophisticated cynic who despised society? Whatever the man's mysteries, Kathryn Wainwright was determined to uncover them. Especially when her incessant questions uncovered a passionate soul that she found herself helpless to resist.

Jonathan Chadwick swore there could not exist a more maddening woman than Kathryn Wainwright. The cheeky writer for an outrageous gossip sheet seemed hell-bent on destroying him. And the desire that flared between them was becoming impossible to ignore!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781459268227

Lyn Stone

Lyn Stone studied art and worked in Europe while she visited the places she now writes about in her historicals. It was when she was working as an illustrator that she had the idea of trying to freelance romance novel covers. But, while studying the market on covers, she became firmly hooked on the contents of the books and decided to try writing instead! Lyn loves to hear from her readers and can be contacted via her website guestbook at: www.eclectics.com/lynstone

Book preview

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.

Ah, that’s right, you claim the famous Sir Roald of Chadwick as an ancestor, do you not?

Yes, he answered carefully. Admitting that much couldn’t hurt him. He had used it for all it was worth most of his life.

The noble one who penned all those lovely poems and songs about his liege, the Black Prince? Well, that certainly lends a note of credence to your choice of careers, doesn’t it? she asked, smug laughter evident in her every word.

Who did this chit think she was to mock his ancestry, even if this part of it was one of Mamon’s outrageous fabrications? If the old minstrel hadn’t been an ancestor of his, then he bloody well should have been.

Jon summoned up all the hauteur he had left for the evening. "And you are a Wainwright you say? Judging by the origin of your name, your ancestor was likely nailing someone’s wagons together at the time. Just what are you trying to construct for me, my dear? Perhaps a trundle cart to your paper gallows?"

She gasped in outrage. Her hands flew up in frustration and then slapped angrily against her silk-swathed knees.

He laughed. And he continued to, louder and louder, as she scrambled down from the coach, muttering what sounded vaguely like obscenities. Jon leaned his head out the window and watched as she marched along the street to another coach, parked three back from his own.

When he realized what he had just done, the laughter died a quick death—almost as swift as the fatal blow she would deliver to his career when tomorrow’s papers hit the street. Damn! he said through clenched teeth, then drew his head back in and knocked it sharply against the back wall of the coach. The driver obviously took that bump for a signal, and the coach started with a jolt.

He had found it impossible to force thoughts of Kathryn Wainwright from his mind on the trip home. Even as he paid the hired coachman and watched him drive away, he had imagined her watching, imagined her wearing that knowing grin. A plaguing fancy, that was all. For the moment, he was safe at Timberoak.

Next time he’d be ready for her, he thought as he climbed the stairs to his room. Next time he would have some cock-and-bull story ready for her. Next time he would charm her knickers off.

He jerked off the stupid wig and gave it a shake. More mindful, he removed his evening clothes and hung them in the armoire. Raking both hands through his damp hair, he leaned over the basin of cold water and soaped off the powder and accumulated sweat.

But the heat inside him did not abate as he replayed the night’s events in his mind. Events condensed into images: Kathryn Wainwright absorbing his music from across the crowded room, Kathryn Wainwright leaning forward, her umber eyes wide with questions, Kathryn Wainwright smiling at some inner thought. Images gave way to notes, and the notes to a pervasive melody.

God, there would be no sleep tonight. None. He gave up without a struggle and slowly made his way downstairs, eager despite his exhaustion.

Chapter Two

Jon’s eyes stung from lack of sleep and the soap he’d used earlier to scrub off the rice powder. He blinked, shook his head, and picked up his pen again to get the notes down before they escaped him. They ran through his head like a string of crystal beads, tinkling against each other, winding around full circle, twisting playfully here and there. They’d been doing that ever since he arrived home.

He stopped scribbling to test their possibilities on the violin. Pleased with the results, he laid the instrument aside. Ink-dotted paper crinkled under his bare legs and feet as he wriggled out a comfortable spot. Stretching out full-length, his head on a threadbare cushion, Jon closed his eyes and let the music in his mind flow through him.

Last scene. The tenor returns.... Soprano greets him. Ahhh, a lyrical tease, a sly, dark-eyed cat... Dark-eyed? That woman’s face flashed through his mind, likely because she was the last one he’d seen. Jon lifted one hand toward the cracked ceiling plaster and waved in time with the imagined aria. Sforzando, now. Tenor offers final tribute to his lady. Now up, swiftly, like a cock...pounding, surging, reaching...

Jon’s voice joined in the process, using only pure sounds instead of words, bel canto, now rising in volume to return, almost unrecognizable, to his ears. Ah, yes... Slowly, on a burst of feeling that reached a crescendo, Jon rose to a sitting position and lifted the Stradivarius to repeat himself.

Then it came, profound as a lover’s cry, powerful as the urge itself, the whole of it sweeping over and through him, ending like the little death. Culmination, climax, ecstasy! Done!

He had finished! All but the finale with the entire ensemble, a mere repeat of the overture, with a few adjustments. At last!

Jon spared but a moment to savor the exhilaration, then laid down the violin and located his pen. He scratched madly with the pen, humming with his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

The ink trail crawled left to right in a wavy line, broken by myriad squiggles and curlicues. When it reached the right edge of the paper, it curved down and tracked right to left in a continuous scroll to the bottom of the page. Jon’s code, as Maman had laughingly called it, had developed when he was only five and untutored in the intricacies of the music staff and individual notes. She had quickly taught him to put down the music correctly, but suggested he keep to his own invented method for the first drafts when he wrote. No one could decipher the childish chicken tracks but himself, when he translated them later.

Poking a hole in the paper at the excitement of penning the last sound in his head, Jon sailed the pen across the room and boomed, Bravo!

A sharp Ouch jerked him off his cloud of euphoria. The shock of reality struck him dumb, and he stared, disbelieving, at the shadows surrounding the old grand piano. Out of the semidarkness crept a small figure nursing an ink-stained cheek.

How did you know I was there? she asked, rubbing the spot and smearing the black fluid down the side of her face.

Jon still stared, his mouth open. Good God, it was her! For a long moment, he feared he had conjured her up out of his imagination. How the hell had she gotten in? He looked around, seeing the open casement, feeling the cold night air for the first time. The candles in the broken candelabra next to him threw their wavering shadows on the peeling wallpaper.

He looked down in horror. He was sitting on the floor in his short flannel drawers, surrounded by a mountainous tangle of ink-scribbled papers. His lute, an ancient lyre and the Stradivarius lay about like scattered bodies on a battlefield. Frantically he snatched up the violin, worried she might step on it.

Hair tumbled across

Reviews for The Arrangement

[lwatson1120 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great Book. It had it all -- twisting plot, mystery, murders, psychotic killer, and some romance! All ingredients for a pageturner! In the beginning, all I can is that you know that something is really "fishy"...