Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] (13 page)

A sense memory flared to life and went sizzling through his veins: a dinner party, some years ago at his eldest brother’s house. He’d been seated beside a supposedly respectable widow, Mrs. Simcox, and halfway through the fish course her unshod foot had begun rubbing deliberately up and down the length of his boot.

Fresh out of Cambridge he’d been, serious and studious and very little experienced in these matters, but he’d
known, at that first stroke of stockinged instep, what was his for the taking. With her ankle twined around his he’d consumed the mutton that followed the fish; with her knee hooked boldly over his own he’d downed two glasses of wine, nerves all alive in scandalized anticipation.

How exactly had the next part happened, after dinner? Had he gone out to use the necessary? Had she slipped from the company to lie in wait? At all events, they’d somehow or another been out in the same hallway, and the important point was that she’d grasped his hand, unspeaking, and whisked him to the wall, in a place where the stairs hid them from view.

The rest had been madness, imprudence, exquisite iniquity, right there in Andrew’s house where a servant might have walked by. He’d had to completely revise all his notions of respectable widows that night.

“I’m sorry,” hissed Miss Westbrook beside him, wiggling her fingers free of his. Sorry for taking that liberty with his hand and his person, she meant, and hauling him into this improper proximity. Side by side they stood, backs to the wall, his right knee flush against their erstwhile bench and her left foot toeing the top step of that flight down to the kitchens. Her right shoulder touched his bicep and her arm pressed against his, all the way down to the backs of their hands. He felt every fraction of an inch of the contact, his nerves as alive and awake as they’d been that night with Mrs. Simcox.

Damn his stupid susceptibility. He oughtn’t to be having this response. He ought to be thinking disinterested, brotherly thoughts. Working up advice to give her about Lady Harringdon, or something of the sort.

Footsteps sounded right over their heads as a servant descended the stairs. Miss Westbrook’s arm jostled against his as she threw him a glance. Her lips were
twisted tight, keeping laughter in. She thought it a jolly predicament. She obviously had not the least idea of what went on between men and women who ducked into hiding under stairs.

If he were to steal a kiss … which he would not … all he’d require was a half twist of the upper body and an inclination of some eight or ten inches, down and across. Fingers under her chin, tipping her face to the proper angle.

He wouldn’t do that. This was a test of his resolve, his self-command, his respect for Miss Westbrook, and his regard for her parents. He was not going to succumb.

Noises from outside intruded as the front door was presumably swung open. Carriage wheels. Distant voices. The clicking heels of whatever caller was now being admitted. A draft came, too, an outdoor breeze turning domestic and mundane. He felt a shiver run up the short-sleeved arm pressed against his before he felt the chill himself.

Quietly as he could, he unbuttoned his coat. This would be his response to the shiver of lovely Miss Katherina Westbrook’s arm against his: not to seize her, but to stop her being cold.

He shrugged out of his coat. The kind of man who’d kiss an innocent under the staircase would wear a flawlessly tailored coat, with sleeves and shoulders so fitted that he must rustle a great deal in removing it. His own coat came off with scarcely a sound.

He pivoted halfway and set his free hand on her upper arm to pivot her, too, so they stood face-to-face. She’d succeeded in swallowing her laughter: her mouth was full and soft once more. She looked up at him, trusting, in perfect dependency on his honorable intentions.

The stair treads began creaking as the new caller made his way upward, and Nick swung his coat over Miss Westbrook’s shoulders and settled it there. That would
be the extent of intimacy between them. He’d been tested, and he’d prevailed.

He pivoted back and touched his shoulder blades to the wall. The footsteps had reached the next floor and gone off down the hall. They could speak again. “Did your aunt have a particular lady in mind, who would engage you as a companion?” He would never betray the least sign of having been tempted, that half minute or so.

“Not at present. She proposes to take me to some parties where I may meet grand ladies and presumably impress them with my manners, that they might mention me to any acquaintance who is in want of a companion.” She huddled deeper into his coat, clutching at the buttons and buttonholes to wrap herself snug. She, too, put her back to the wall. With the caller gone upstairs there was no reason for them to remain there, shoulder to shoulder in the small shadowed space. But she didn’t stir, so neither did he.

She cast her eyes to the floor. “It hurts my pride, Mr. Blackshear.” Her voice, too, sank to somewhere near the level of their shoe soles. “And it doesn’t serve my purpose. I’d thought of her taking me to balls and routs and making introductions, yes, but I’d supposed she’d be introducing me to gentlemen. I’ve pinned all my hopes on making a good marriage.”

Yes. To think of and speak of her eventual marriage would reinforce his triumph over temptation. Already he was beginning to feel an appropriate friendly interest in her fortunes. “You have stringent ideas of what constitutes a good marriage. Myself, I know of no better union than the one to which you owe your existence.”

“My parents have a happy marriage. That’s not the same thing.”

He tipped his head back, to frown up at the underside of the stairs. She was young, and full of feminine ambition,
and she would doubtless learn in time how well her parents’ marriage compared to many of those around her. He’d refrain from correcting her now.

Besides, he couldn’t altogether condemn her unsentimental view. Will and his wife, after all, probably had a happy marriage. That didn’t make it a good one.

Not that the two cases were comparable. In only one of them had the bridegroom wed a Cyprian after poaching her from another man.

“You may go ahead and call me heartless.” She didn’t look at him. She was misinterpreting his silence. “I know you think it.”

“Not today.” He folded his arms, careful not to dislodge his coat from her shoulder. “I think you ought to go to those parties, Miss Westbrook. You’d need practice, wouldn’t you, before you were ready to assume a post? That would give you two or three parties, at least, in which to catch the eye of a marriage-minded duke.”

She was smiling now, and beginning to look more like herself. “Are you the same man who warned me against hoping to be acknowledged by my own aunt? And now you would have me go into a ballroom as a companion-in-training and set my sights on a duke?”

“I grant it won’t be as easy as it would if you were an invited guest, with her name announced.” He could feel the tide turning, almost as if he argued before a jury. “But as I recall, you don’t demand that things be easy before undertaking them. And if there’s any lady in the world I’d wager on to capture a duke with only her personal charms for a lure, it’s surely you.” He’d been addressing her sidelong; now he turned his head, to send the conclusion of his argument by the shortest possible path. “I don’t deny the odds against you are long. But the fact is, if you’re in that ballroom, you have a chance. If you stay home, you haven’t.”

Gratitude flowed from her, filling the space between
them. “I don’t need a duke, you know. I’m perfectly willing to settle for a marquess.”

“Now, there’s the brash, presumptuous Miss Westbrook I know.” He brought his shoulders off the wall. He didn’t have to be entirely reserved and distant, after all. Indeed why should he? She’d confided in him a deal today, and he’d made his bold confessions, too. Thus men and women might do, once youthful one-sided infatuation had bloomed and withered and been swept away into the gutter. “Now shall we go upstairs? I’d like to pay my respects to the rest of your family. And perhaps we’d better rescue the young men from their edification.”

She half turned away, that he might slide his coat off her shoulders, and if he had a brief vision of leaning in to kiss the bare nape of her neck, well, it was no more than any man in his position would have done. The vision flitted through and past. By the time she’d turned back around to face him, he’d wiped all trace of its existence from his eyes and his thoughts alike.

A
T DINNER
she sat between a Mr. Sterling and a Mr. Green, both of them new to Papa’s favor, both young enough for all manner of foolish fancy, both showing the usual, wearying signs of inclination to be smitten with her. Mr. Blackshear sat by Papa. They were speaking of barrister business, anyone could tell. Mr. Blackshear had a certain animation in his features—in his eyes, his mouth, the emphatic dive or arching of his brows—that appeared only when he got on that subject, which of course was the subject he liked best. His attention didn’t wander her way.

She knew his scent now. A plain clean soap. His coat had brought it to her notice, and left traces on her shoulders. If she concentrated she could still catch the notes.

He didn’t go in for fragrance, as some men did. Perhaps he followed Mr. Brummell’s regimen of a daily bath, instead of the usual cloaking of one’s odors in perfume. Though it was difficult to imagine he paid much heed to any of the Beau’s dictums. Likely he disdained the man for living profligately and then fleeing his debts, if he hadn’t already disdained him for an excessive preoccupation with the trivial matter of personal style. And that was presuming he even knew who Beau Brummell was. He very well might not.

In any event, Mr. Blackshear’s coat had smelled of soap. So had he, in those few minutes she’d stood with her arm pressed to his, confined with him under the stairs. That was the nearest she’d ever been to a man. She’d heard his breaths, and felt them in the steady slight advance and retreat of his arm against hers.

“Are you fond of novels, Miss Westbrook?” Mr. Sterling, at her right, did use fragrance. Sandalwood. One didn’t have to stand in contact with him to detect it. “My sisters are ferocious readers. Whenever I dine at home they must be telling me all about the latest volume they’ve taken out. I calculate within another three months they’ll have read all that the subscription library has to offer.”

“Not quite all, I should think.” Viola, sitting directly across, was her usual impatient self. Unimpressed with these new visitors, but taking enough of an interest to point out their errors. “Most libraries of my experience offer books of history, philosophy, economic theory, all manner of topics, in addition to the surfeit of novels. Some ladies find these books make a welcome change from the lurid and fantastical tales they’re expected to prefer.”

“Novels aren’t all lurid.” Kate turned her smile, quick and warm, on Mr. Sterling before he could have time to absorb her sister’s ungracious remarks. “I have
Pride
and Prejudice
out just now. No crumbling castles or spirits wandering the moors, but a fine sketch of country village life, with many amusing parts. I’d recommend that to your sisters, if they haven’t already read it.”

“Pride and Prejudice,”
Mr. Sterling repeated, before fishing a small book and pencil from one of his pockets and marking the title down. “
Pride and Prejudice
,” he said again.

“By the same accomplished lady who brought us
Sense and Sensibility
.” Mr. Green, on her left, contributed this to the proceedings, with an air of general authority and a faint aroma of lemon and cloves. “
Mansfield Park
as well, and then
Emma
. Beloved not only by gentlemen’s sisters but by the Prince Regent himself. I commend your taste, Miss Westbrook.” He raised his glass to her.

Viola’s glance flicked from Kate to Mr. Green and his glass, to Mr. Sterling and his pencil, then back to Kate. She didn’t roll or narrow her eyes, or put any particular twist in her mouth, but it was an eloquent look all the same.

Well, this was precisely why she’d spent that time downstairs in the entry hall. If Mr. Blackshear should glance this way they might share a second or two of recognition; of wry, private understanding.

He didn’t, though. He was entirely occupied in relating something to Papa. He’d halted in the middle of cutting up his ham, and the knife in his right hand carved small circles in the air as he spoke, his wrist rotating as though he were physically reeling the story along.

She had some acquaintance with the knobby-boned contours of his left wrist. Not his right. They probably didn’t differ in any way significant enough to note.

He’d seemed very little moved by his proximity with her, for all that he claimed to be susceptible. But then it wouldn’t have been such a novelty to him as it had been to her. Doubtless he had acquaintance with women who
would indulge him in all the proximity he’d like. Most men did, by the time they were approaching the age of thirty. For ladies it was different.

She ran her left hand up her right arm to the elbow and back. It had been an extraordinary conversation, really. Not only the part in which she’d stood with her arm pressed to his, but the earlier part that had begun with his asking permission to be candid.

A gentleman oughtn’t to say those things to a lady and yet … such frankness proved unexpectedly reassuring. To suspect a man of harboring an attraction, and to be always weighing his words and looks for evidence, was after all a good deal more unsettling than simply to have it acknowledged. She would never wonder whether there was a secret subtext to his conversation now. They could speak openly, safe in the shared understanding that they did not suit.

She reached for her glass. “How many sisters do you have, Mr. Sterling? And are there brothers as well, or are you woefully outnumbered as our Sebastian is here?” There’d be time enough later for speaking with Mr. Blackshear. The task immediately before her was to make these new callers feel at ease. And when they’d taken their leave, all glutted with Westbrook hospitality, she would summon up her courage and talk to Mama and Papa about Lady Harringdon.