Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] (17 page)

“Thank you for confirming my apprehension of how I looked. I felt like the worst sort of coxcomb.” Barclay grinned at the viscount, and then at Miss Westbrook. “And it proves to have been a harbinger of how things would go on.”

“Indeed?” She inclined forward by some, no doubt,
few degrees, reflecting his smile straight back to him. Anyone would think she’d come to this party entirely in hopes of hearing about the workings of Parliament.

“I’d supposed we’d spend our time addressing issues of national welfare.” Barclay glanced around the table, too well bred to ignore the rest of the company in favor of the pretty girl opposite. “The alleviation of poverty, for example, or matters of health and disease, or perhaps some decisions having to do with import tariffs. But I swear last Monday we spent half the session hearing a petition on behalf of some gentleman in Southampton who believes his local magistrate is involved in some conspiracy to blacken his character and who wants the magistrate dismissed.” He picked up his soup spoon. “I don’t say such a man isn’t entitled to a hearing, and to justice. But does that matter really require the attention of the full House of Lords?”

“There’s a great deal of that sort of thing,” Cathcart assured him. “Wait and see. Proclamations from the Prince Regent, votes in favor of giving official thanks to this or that set of people involved in a military action. It’s in Commons, I think, where the real work of the nation is done. Am I correct, Miss Smith?”

“I do believe there’s less in the way of ceremony, and fewer proclamations.” Miss Smith, clearly, had never been informed that gentlemen preferred rapt attention to a thoughtful reply. Or perhaps the rules were different for a lady who wasn’t setting her cap at a man. She angled herself to address the baron. “I expect you’ll develop alliances in time with those members of Commons who share your concerns and positions. Then you can have influence with those men, and work with them on the issues that interest you. Poverty, I think you said?”

Barclay now spoke at some length, much as he’d done in the library, about the welfare of former soldiers and
how he’d come to concern himself with the poor. He had passion and conviction, but also an air of reason; this combination would be much to his advantage as a speaker. He did need to learn the value of brevity, and the skill of choosing which phrases to emphasize. His breath originated from too high in his chest, as well. Granted he spoke at a supper table and had no need to project his voice, but it was a good bet he’d speak the same way on the Parliament floor.

“Do you suppose he might hire you as a secretary?” Miss Westbrook’s soft voice broke into his thoughts. “Papa said he doesn’t have one.”

“It’s too early to speculate on that.” Nick reached for his wineglass. Uneasiness prickled just under his skin. To what extent had she and her father discussed this? Had they weighed and considered the likelihood that the Blackshear connections would present an insurmountable obstacle? Was that, in fact, what she was asking him now? His opinion on his chances of gaining a secretary post in spite of everything? “He’s engaged me to help him with speaking. That’s enough to thoroughly occupy me for the present.”

“You’d take the post, though, wouldn’t you, if he did offer? Surely it would be an advantageous opportunity for a man with an interest in politics.” How quickly she abandoned the doe-eyed
naïf
act, now that she was speaking to him instead of to an eligible man with a title.

“To be honest, I don’t know yet what I’d do. I shall have to give it all a bit more thought.”
To be honest
, indeed. He couldn’t speak honestly without broaching things he didn’t want to discuss with her.
You and I both know there may be no such opportunity, once he’s learned the facts about my family
. He couldn’t, and wouldn’t say that. Candor between him and Miss Westbrook could only go so far.

“I don’t think I put it too strongly when I say it’s the
shame of our nation that we should turn our backs on these men,” the baron said, still speaking of soldiers, and Nick’s glance connected for an uncomfortable instant with the viscount’s.

Barclay’s words must necessarily put them both in mind of Will. If he came to the point of telling the baron about his brother, he’d also have to tell him that he’d—well,
turned his back on him
was a pretty accurate way of putting it. Wouldn’t that be a fine poetic absurdity, if he lost this man’s good opinion and possible patronage not because of the family scandal, but because of his attempts to distance himself from it.

Nick went back to his soup. Soon enough he’d have to decide what to tell the baron and when, but he wouldn’t put himself through that tonight. Instead he’d enjoy this congenial supper and gird himself for the hours ahead, in which he must loiter in the ballroom stealthily supervising Miss Westbrook and seeing whether he thought Lady Harringdon a fit chaperone. No doubt she’d have more invitations to dance, now that she’d been seen supping at the viscount’s table instead of dutifully trailing after the countess. If Lady Harringdon granted her permission, Nick would have to be on guard against those ill-intentioned men he’d promised her father to protect her from.

Fortunately, her first after-supper dance went to Lord Barclay. From there she had another invitation and then another, to the apparent satisfaction of the countess. Clearly her aunt enjoyed the consequence that came with chaperoning such a sought-after lady. But it didn’t bode well, that Lady Harringdon’s head could be turned in this manner.

Nick took up first one station and then another from which he might observe both chaperone and charge, as the late night grew later and the rout rolled indefatigably
on. He did consult his pocket watch a few times. He’d have been home in bed by now, if he’d had only himself to think of. And perhaps he did allow his attention to drift, now and then, to other quadrants of the room or even to the weightier world outside. Once or twice he left the ballroom as well. Not for any great length of time—only to escape the crowded room’s heat with a sojourn to the more sparsely populated card room, or to the terrace to brace his lungs with a bit of fresh air. For the most part he was unswerving in his vigilance.

But
for the most part
was not what he’d promised the Westbrooks. And so he felt the alarm doubly, for their sake and his own, when at two o’clock in the morning he put away his watch, called back his thoughts from the details of a brief he’d got yesterday, and looked up to discover that Miss Westbrook was no longer in the room.

S
HE WASN
’
T
in the dance. He would have seen her right away, if she had been. He’d been watching her pink ribbons and light-footed dancing all night; he could have picked her out with all the candles doused but one, so many foolish hours had he spent committing the details of her person to memory, but where the devil was she and how had he not seen her go?

Nick pushed away from his place on the wall and tugged at his cravat. She wasn’t with her aunt. He’d glanced that way first thing, before making the thorough scrutiny of the dance that he’d known would not yield her. Nor was she idling with Miss Smith—that lady was dancing with a red-coated partner—or taking a turn about the room. She’d done both those things, as well as made a trip to the punch bowl, in the time he’d been watching, and he’d had no trouble finding her on those occasions.

The card room? But her path there, from the dance floor, would have taken her near enough to him that he would surely have noticed.

If she’d gone outside, though …

Already he was moving to the end of the room where the French doors stood open. What man had she been
dancing with in this last set? Scrawny fellow. Brown coat. He hadn’t looked at all like the sort who would try to lure a lady out of doors, and Miss Westbrook knew better than to be lured. Didn’t she? Still, she might have felt unwell from the room’s stuffiness and needed just a moment outside. If she had already been near the doors she might simply have stepped out instead of making the long walk back to ask one of her friends for help.

Speak of her friends, though, this certainly didn’t improve his opinion of the countess as a chaperone. Even if her niece’s disappearance should prove to be the innocent matter he hoped, it ill became her to be laughing as she now was, absorbed in whatever the lady beside her was saying and utterly unaware that her charge had gone missing. How was he to reassure the Westbrooks that their daughter would be well looked after at any future parties?

He slowed his pace, that he might not call attention to himself by an excess of visible purpose, and wove through a milling set of people before slipping through the open doors.

“I
CONFESS IT
astounds me that anyone could look at all that, once upon a time, and pick out the shape of a bull. I still cannot see the horns.” There was a voice that a clever lady used for this sort of occasion: fascinated, a little at sea, thoroughly in need of some knowledgeable gentleman’s help. This evening had been an excellent chance to practice that voice.

“Bear in mind they were all mapped out in a time of great superstition.” Lord John Prior seemed an amiable man, if not quite the lofty prospect she’d hoped to meet tonight. Son of a duke he might be, but four elder brothers and a good number of nephews stood between him and the title. “People wanted to see recognizable shapes
when they looked at the sky, and so they forced themselves to find a bull, a hunter, a set of twins.”

“I don’t see the twins at all.”

“There.” He stepped a bit closer to her. She could feel the nervous energy that ran through him when he came near. He probably didn’t often get very close to ladies, with his gangly build and his unseemly preoccupation with stars. “There, and there.” He lifted an arm to point, inadvertently brushing against hers. He backed up a step, doubtless affected by the contact. “And there and there are the bull’s horns.”

“Ah, now I see.” She didn’t. But all of this was practice toward making a conquest of some truly eligible man. Besides, Lord John was rather sweet in his bashful, star-studying way. He’d offered her his coat when she crossed her arms against the cold, and not made the least attempt to touch her beyond settling it on her shoulders. His manners ought to be rewarded. He could go home at the end of the evening with the satisfaction of having made a good impression on a pretty girl. Her own success tonight had left her in a generous mood.

“Modern astronomy is moving away from the shapes and pictures, I’m happy to say.” She’d encouraged him. Now he was going to go on at length. “Now we live in an age of reason, we don’t impose false patterns on what we see. We map out the locations of the various constellations, and note when they’re visible in different parts of the sky, but we haven’t that need to—”

“Miss Westbrook.” She nearly jumped. She hadn’t heard footsteps.

She turned—Lord John turned, too, with another awkward-looking step away from her—to find Mr. Blackshear. And also to find that they were alone on the terrace, but for one other couple at the far end. There’d been near a dozen people when they’d come out here; she hadn’t heard them all go back inside.

Mr. Blackshear’s gaze touched pointedly on the coat she wore. Then on Lord John’s coatlessness. “Lady Harringdon has requested your presence. I’m to bring you back to her.” He spoke only to her. Lord John merited no more than a curt nod that plainly said,
There’ll be no further need of you
.

Humiliation sizzled down all her nerves, with outrage close behind. It was obvious what he thought he’d come upon. And therefore obvious what he thought her capable of, or what he thought her capable of falling prey to in her naivete.

How could he think such a thing? He’d been so friendly at supper, teasing her about snaring Lord Barclay in her web and talking at least a little about his own prospects. She’d felt as though they were comrades of a sort, each having managed to infiltrate this party and each looking forward to hearing about the other’s successes. The look in his eyes now felt like a betrayal.

So did his actions. How dare he take it upon himself to come out here and spy on her, and shame Lord John in that way? Lady Harringdon had never sent for her. If she had, it would have been through some other emissary. All on his own, he’d decided he must go in search of her and jump to the worst possible conclusions about what he found.

She would not look at him. She pasted on the friendliest smile she could summon, and thanked Lord John for his kindness as she gave him back his coat. From the corner of her eye she could see Mr. Blackshear standing impassive, arms folded across his chest, no doubt congratulating himself on rescuing her virtue in the very nick of time.

She wouldn’t speak to him. Yes, she would. With a final farewell of such warmth as might hopefully give any onlooker a lesson in manners, she watched Lord John go back indoors. Then she turned. “You had no
right to do that.” She kept her voice low. No one seeing them would think this was anything but an exchange of mundane pleasantries. “You know what my hopes were for this party. I confided them to you, and you encouraged me. How dare you embarrass me so, and drive away a gentleman on whom I’d been making a good impression?”