Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] (25 page)

“I don’t know. Have you read
Emma
?” Her friend looked up, setting the scissors aside again. “Mr. Knightley and Emma were very much like brother and sister for most of the book—indeed they were relations of a sort, his brother having married her sister—and still they fell in love. Don’t you find that a terribly romantic idea? Love stealing in to overtake two people who’d believed they were merely friends?”

“It didn’t steal in, exactly, though. At least not for Mr. Knightley.” It seemed dreadfully important, of a sudden, that she dismantle Louisa’s contention point by point. “He’d known for years that he loved Emma. I’m not sure one can even say love stole in upon her, so much as she matured over the course of the story to recognize what had probably been in her heart all along.”

“Perhaps you’re right. But I shan’t stop wishing for a marriage in which I could know my husband had seen me first as a friend.” Louisa peered into the mirror and fussed with her forehead curls. “When the romantic feelings ebbed, then, as I gather they generally do, we would still have the friendship to sustain us.”

Kate’s agitation all drained away, and for a moment she was simply speechless. What a miserable way for a young lady to think of marriage! How could you enjoy friendship with a husband who’d fallen out of love with you? Wouldn’t you always feel you were picking at the stale crumbs of what had once been a banquet? Were you to stand by, perhaps, and wish him well as he took
a mistress and lavished all his passion and affection on her? How could you—

She caught herself. She had no right to be appalled, she who was planning to make the loftiest match she could, without any interference from her heart. She who meant to lure a husband with her beauty, and see him shackled by marriage vows while he was still in the throes of foolish, unreasoning infatuation. He probably would take a mistress, her entrapped marquess, once the first flames of fancy had died down.

Well, she was prepared for that. She would console herself with thoughts of her sisters’ consequence, and with a costly new gown or two. But Louisa’s situation was different. She had a family of fair distinction and, by all appearances, a fine dowry. There was no reason for her to approach marriage with such pallid hopes.

Kate pulled up a chair beside her friend’s, and sat. “Romantic feelings don’t always ebb. I have reason to know. My father fell hard for my mother when he went to the theater one night and saw her on the stage. Even before they’d exchanged a word, he had it in his head to marry her. It sounds like the worst sort of youthful folly—indeed, so she told him in the beginning—but he’d made up his mind to attach her affections, and through perseverance and personal merit, he did.” The story embarrassed her, usually, with its romantic excess, even apart from the embarrassment of the social mesalliance.

Louisa, though, did seem to have a romantic streak—even if her idea of romantic ran to Emma and Mr. Knightley—and would benefit by hearing how married love could endure. And she already knew the scandalous outline of the story and had sought Kate’s society nevertheless.

She pressed on. “They’ve been married three and
twenty years now, and they continue to exhibit such affection for one another as must mortify their grown-up children.” But oddly enough, having said the word, she didn’t really feel mortified at all. Rather a warm sort of pride spilled through her, at the thought that her own parents could be a beacon of encouragement to a girl who owned sapphires and lived in South Audley Street.

She hadn’t often been proud of that story. At Miss Lowell’s she’d put all her energy into distancing herself from her origins, and cultivating a manner that might convince her schoolmates she’d sprung fully formed from the pages of the latest
Belle Assemblee
, free from any problematic relations. The effort had exhausted her some days.

“May I ask you something, Louisa?” She hadn’t meant to broach this. But they were so near the topic already. She angled to face the mirror, and address the other lady through that protective distance. “Why have you been so friendly to me, knowing all along what my family is?”

Because I pity you
. She dreaded to hear it, but she couldn’t stand to wonder.

“I liked you when we met at your aunt’s house.” The girl’s voice was all gentle gravity. “You were charming and well spoken, and I appreciated your observations relating to Sir George Bigby in particular. I was ready to hope we would be friends.” In the mirror her face showed an absolute lack of guile or calculation, even with the devilish forehead curls. “What would it say of me if I were to change my opinion of you upon learning who your parents were?”

“Nothing very dire. Most people base their opinions of a young lady in large part on who her parents are. That you should do otherwise is out of the ordinary, I think you must admit.”

“But it’s not as though you’re the daughter of pirates, or pawnbrokers.” Here she went, warming to the argument, inclining her posture slightly and bringing more modulation to her voice. “People pack the theaters to see Mr. Kean. Mrs. Siddons was the toast of London in her day. For us to persist in telling ourselves that these are exceptions in an otherwise disreputable profession strikes me as more than a little absurd.”

“Thank you for saying so. I wish more people thought as you do.” Some people did, of course. Lord Barclay’s respectful manner with Mama had lingered vivid in her mind.

“Well, that’s what comes of having a political brother. Philip is forever on about this sort of thing. The importance of working people to the nation’s health. The intrinsic right to dignity of every man. And so on. But is that the clock chiming? We’d better go see if my mother is nearly ready to leave.”

Kate followed her out, thoughts churning along with the happy anticipation of the ball. How odd that twice now, since infiltrating the haut ton, she should have encountered such unexpected graciousness, and that neither case should have involved a gentleman stupefied by her beauty.

At least she was fairly certain Lord Barclay hadn’t been stupefied. His courtesy, like Miss Smith’s kindness, seemed more a product of an ideology that had been in place before he’d ever set eyes on her. If he did marry her, it wouldn’t be a capricious act that he must sooner or later come to regret.

She couldn’t help one more glance into a pier glass as she passed it. The gown might as well have been made for her, so splendidly did it accentuate the virtues of her form. And it did indeed have a demi-train, which couldn’t but make a lady glide across the floor like royalty.
If she was ever going to stun a man, or build upon the good impression she’d already made, then this night, when she’d arrive as a guest with her name announced and her looks polished to a dazzling glow, must be her finest chance.

M
ISS
W
ESTBROOK
was late. Of all things. She was the one who wanted so fervently to spend her time at society parties; he was the one who’d passed up a relaxing evening of study in his chambers, again, because he could not be sure Lady Harringdon would look after her properly … and she wasn’t even here.

Nick sidled along the wall until a pair of heavy-set gentlemen blocked him from the sight of Lord and Lady Cathcart, and then stole a look at his watch. That she would arrive, he did not doubt. Only it would have been nice if he’d known, ahead of time, that she didn’t plan to be punctual. There were a dozen better uses he could have made of the half hour in which he’d been milling about, watching other people have what appeared to be a capital time.

If you’d been speaking to her, she might have told you she’d be coming late
. The self-castigating part of his brain had been in rare form this past week. But he couldn’t bear to see her so ill at ease in his presence as she’d been the day he’d visited with Barclay, so he’d stayed away. It was better for him, too, not to see her. The memory of that kiss would surely fade faster this way.

He pushed away from the wall and started a leisurely circuit of the room, his fourth since arriving. He turned two corners and came upon Lord Barclay, standing in conversation with an august-looking bespectacled gentleman. The baron caught his eye and waved him over.

“This is the fellow who’s endeavoring to make a capable persuader of me,” Barclay said after effecting the introduction with Lord Littleton, as the older man proved to be. “You ought to see him in court. Stirring speaker, quick on his feet, champion of the downtrodden, everything that’s admirable in the legal profession.”

“Ah. Your sort of man, indeed.” A sudden acuity came to the man’s gaze as he studied Nick. “Blackshear, you said. Are you a relation of Andrew Blackshear’s, perhaps?”

His heart beat hard. Andrew wasn’t political. Anyone acquainted with him must know him from social events or perhaps through his club, which meant they’d also be acquainted with the family scandal that had curtailed his appearances at such venues. “Indeed, he’s my elder brother.” He braced himself, and didn’t look at Barclay.

Lord Littleton nodded, piecing matters together. “You have a deal to say to the baron, I expect, concerning what can be done for those men so altered by their service as to now be unfit for life among polite people.”

And there it was, a sharp blow to the chest. Curse the man, he almost certainly hadn’t even meant malice. He’d only drawn what seemed to him a logical conclusion, relevant to the conversation at hand. No doubt he never dreamed that this might be a subject on which Lord Barclay had been kept in the dark.

No matter. Littleton might as well have cackled and rubbed his hands together with villainous glee. Though Nick trained his gaze rigidly on the older man, he could feel Barclay’s puzzlement, a peripheral disturbance like the rustle of leaves in a nearby tree.

He took a breath. “Not at all.” A false briskness infected his words. “We’ve spoken enough to establish that we haven’t any significant political incompatibilities. Beyond that I should consider it presumptuous to impose any of my opinions.” He clasped his hands behind his back and raised his chin a jaunty degree to indicate a joke was coming. “And I prefer to confine my presumption to telling him he’s not breathing properly, or refusing to be convinced by his well-reasoned arguments because he hasn’t put his dramatic pauses in the right place.”

Barclay and Littleton both laughed, with a gusto far outstripping the wit of the remark. “Quite right, quite right,” Littleton said. “I’m sure he gives you opportunity enough for that.” For good measure he asked the baron some question about his brother Astley, effectively sweeping all traces of the topic away.

Such a graceful, gentlemanly maneuver, a minuet figure impeccably executed by the three of them: without any open pronouncement, it was clearly understood that this subject would not be referred to again.

Lord. Could he possibly despise himself more? He must depend now on the baron’s delicacy, hoping honor would prevent the man from later asking Littleton what had been behind that bit of awkwardness with Blackshear. A memory rose up of Will’s wife, staring her harsh judgment at him. He’d been sure, once, of having a superior character to hers. Yet it was he who went about hoping people wouldn’t discover the truth, and she who scorned society’s opinion and stood up for his brother.

Somewhere in this morass of self-dissatisfaction studded with the fraudulent pleasantries he must occasionally contribute to the gentlemen’s conversation, a word from elsewhere plucked at his consciousness. From the right, at the room’s great doorway, in the butler’s voice:
Harringdon
. Finally, Miss Westbrook’s party had arrived.

He twisted to look. Probably not quite polite to the two men with whom he was ostensibly speaking, but damn it all, he knew better than anyone in the room what this moment meant to her—a grand entrance with her name called out—and, his own evening having already gone down the road of disaster, he could at least take some vicarious enjoyment in her triumph.

Besides, Barclay was turning to look, too. So she’d definitely succeeded in making an impression on the baron. Nick would do his best to be happy for her in that triumph, too.

Lady Harringdon blocked his view at first. Then a woman of middle years not familiar to him, and then a fetching young lady who proved, surprisingly, to be the same Miss Smith who’d sat across the supper table at Cranbourne House—he wouldn’t have guessed it but when her name was announced he could see it was none other. She’d done something different with herself since he’d seen her; some rearrangement of … of …

Whatever he’d been thinking was gone all of a sudden, snatched from his grasp and whirled off like a feather on a blustery day, as Miss Smith stepped to one side.

“Miss Westbrook,” the butler intoned.

He swallowed. That quickly, his mouth had gone dry.

Hell and fiery damnation, how could she continue to do this to him? Three years ought to buy a man some … well, not indifference; he wouldn’t hope for that, but some aplomb, at least.
Ah, yes, I know those eyes; no novelty there. Yes, there’s the hair to which I’ve long since grown accustomed, and the porcelain skin, too
. Granted he’d never seen quite so
much
of the porcelain skin. He’d never, to be specific, seen so much of her bosom, rising in curved perfection from the bodice of her gown, and suddenly his hands ached; he ached all
over with ferocious regret that he had not touched her there when he’d had his one chance.