The Arrangement. Lyn Stone

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.”

      He gave Kathryn a piteous look and whispered, “Please.”

      She patted his hand tenderly and squeezed it. “Of course. I’ll go find them for you. Lie back and rest now.”

      “Don’t fall down,” he added as she started for the door.

      As soon as he heard the stairs creaking, he beckoned Grandy closer. “She doesn’t know I’m Jon, and you’d better not muck me up here, old woman. Do you understand?”

      Grandy snorted. “I ain’t helpin’ ye trick no gel into yer bed, Jonny.”

      She had not been a decent nursemaid when she really was one, and he certainly didn’t need her services. He held on to her faded sleeve. “That’s not it, Grandy, I promise. Now listen to me carefully. Bunrich has bought up Maman’s markers, and if I don’t come up to scratch in a week or so, I’m cooked. This Wainwright woman writes for the newspaper, and if she learns Jonathan Chadwick is up to his ears in gambling debts, it will be all over London with her next column. There won’t be any more concerts, for the nobs or anybody else. No patrons for the opera, either. Neither of us will eat, do you understand? If I can turn her up sweet on Pip, she won’t go after Jon.”

      “What’s all th’ Pip business, then?” she asked, rubbing her bulbous nose with a callused forefinger.

      “I told her that’s my name. Can’t you imagine what a joke all of London would make of it should she describe Chadwick looking like an overgrown pig boy? She thinks I’m Jon’s dim-witted brother, and she feels sorry for me. As long as she believes I’m Pip, she won’t write anything bad about me—us. Just bring the meals and see you don’t give me away, or I’ll have your hide. And then you’ll starve!”

      “Don’t ye threaten me, ye wee turd. I’ll pin yer ears back to yer head wi’ roofin’ nails!” She gave his hair a tug for emphasis.

      “All right, please, then. C’mon, Grandy, help me out here.”

      “What about this Bunrich? He th’ one what kicked ye around today?” Grandy asked, poking roughly at his head.

      Jon winced as he endured her prodding. “Uh-huh. I’ll have to worry about him after I get her out of here. Shhh, now, she’s coming. Mind your mouth.”

      Kathryn sailed into the room, her arms full of his musical instruments. “Here are your ladies, Pip!” Carefully she laid each one on the bed beside him. “Now lie back like a good boy and let Kathryn see to your hurts. Mrs. Grandy, would you heat some water and bring it up? Also, he’ll need a towel and some soap, if you have it....”

      “Humph, no chance o’ that. Canna see t’ take th’ stairs totin’ nothing. He’ll live.”

      Jon watched Grandy shuffle out of the room with her usual rolling gracelessness. “Bye, Gran,” he said, as lovingly as if he were her very favorite grandchild. He ought, by rights, to go trip her on the top step, the fractious old wart.

      At least she wouldn’t give him away. Grandy’s instinct for survival surpassed even his own. And, deep down in that mass she called a body, Jon suspected she had a heart.

      “She’s a mean old woman!” Kathryn said, brushing his hair back out of his eyes. “You rest a bit and I’ll go get something to wash you up.”

      “Kathryn?” Jon said, grabbing her hand in both of his. Her tender smile nearly stopped his heart. He had to close his eyes against it so that he could think of something to say.

      When he opened them, they felt unfocused, rolled around like marbles in a bowl. Maybe he did have a concussion after all. It wouldn’t do to have her here after he gave in to sleep. He had to get rid of her now. Discounting the secrets she might unearth by snooping around the house, there was always a chance Bunrich would begin to suspect the trick Jon had planned. He might come back and finish what he had started.

      “Go get Jon,” he said. “Please?” He knew that was the only way he would get her out of