Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] (26 page)

Get hold of yourself. Think how much worse your regrets would be now if you’d taken that liberty, too. And for God’s sake stop gaping at her bosom like a damned schoolboy
. He forced his gaze down, forsaking the view of flesh to instead fill his vision with the red, red silk that draped her. Where the devil had she been hiding this gown? Last week she’d been all delicate beauty in that pink-and-white thing she’d worn, like a visitor from some fairyland where ladies grew up alongside roses in the flower beds.

Tonight she was an incendiary device bewitched into human form. Not that the gown itself was necessarily provocative—the neck was no lower than was customary for evening—but the color invited eyes to linger, as milder colors did not. And once lingering, any eye that had a man’s sensibility behind it must soon perceive the extraordinary merits of her figure.

His gaze traveled up again, pausing only briefly at the bosom before returning to the familiar face—and his breath caught. She was looking at him. Among all the titled and otherwise eligible gentlemen in this room, more than one of whom, he could now see, was craning for a look at her, he was the one on whom her glance had settled.

Instantly the glance flitted away, her cheeks gone pink.

Christ. She’d just seen him look her up and down, lingering at the bosom both ways. So, yes, he could despise himself more than he’d already done.

He forced himself to speak. “You ought to ask her for a dance.” Here was one piece of penitence, muscling these words out to Barclay in a tone of casual good nature. “She won’t know many people here. I’m sure she’d welcome a set with someone she can count as an acquaintance.” The ladies were making their way into
the crowd, apparently bound for some other part of the room.

“By that logic, oughtn’t you to ask her? I should think a friend would be even more welcome than an acquaintance.”

He shrugged one shoulder, hands still clasped behind his back. “Not on this occasion. She can dance with me whenever she likes.” She’d never danced with him in all of three years. “I’ll have the pleasure of hearing in minute detail about whom she danced with and what everyone wore, the next time I call at the Westbrooks’ house.”

“Ah.” The baron grinned. “You didn’t exaggerate, when you said you’re like a brother in that family.” He explained to Lord Littleton the connection between Nick and the Westbrooks, the role Charles Westbrook had played in introducing them, and of course the identity of the girl in red who’d momentarily captured their attention. Littleton pronounced her very fine.

That Littleton knew of the irregularities attending the Westbrook name, just as he knew what there was to know of the Blackshears, was clear from a slight increase in the gravity of his expression. He’d apparently resolved to be more circumspect on such matters now, though, because he made no remark. In fact when Barclay excused himself to go and secure one of Miss Westbrook’s dances before they were all taken, the older man cleared his throat and tilted his head in an apologetic manner. “I fear I spoke out of turn, earlier. You’ve chosen reticence on a subject round which I would very likely choose reticence myself, were I in your place. I oughtn’t to have assumed it was something freely discussed between you and the baron.”

This was the opposite of gossip, this courteous apology from a gentleman—viscount? earl? marquess?—quite a few rungs above him. For all that, it carried much the same sting.

Nick bowed in turn. “Think nothing of it.” He might have left matters there, but some perverse impulse spurred him to further speech. “Even had I been in the habit of urging my opinions on Lord Barclay, I’d have nothing to say on the topic of deranged soldiers. My brother is of sound mind and generally good judgment. His lapse, in the matter of choosing a bride, may have been spectacular but is certainly not without precedent among otherwise reasonable men. It wants no war-induced snapping of the mind for a man to fall under the spell of an unsuitable woman. English history provides examples aplenty of that particular frailty.”

The fingers of his clasped hands tightened until he could feel the pinch of his nails. To defend Will against the charge of madness made him feel a little better, though he was skirting the edge of impertinence with Lord Littleton, who’d been gracious enough to apologize.

Littleton, slighted or not, was shortly called away by another acquaintance, which left Nick free to tour the room’s perimeter once more, now with even less satisfaction than he’d found in the task on his first attempt. It might be a very long night, watching Miss Westbrook in her red gown and wondering how much longer it would be before Barclay learned what had been kept from him.

He took up a position beside one of the room’s many decorative pillars, where he had a fair view of the dance—Miss Westbrook had already gone into the set with a gentleman he didn’t know—and also, it developed, of Lady Harringdon holding court among the other matrons.

Devil take Andrew for not having been an earl, anyway. How long had it taken Lord and Lady Harringdon to recover all their consequence, once they’d cut off the Honorable Charles? A season at most, he’d wager. If the
Blackshears had only had a title at their head he might now be going about with Barclay, enjoying introductions to all manner of political men and beginning to build such a web of acquaintance as could later serve his grandest ambitions. Instead of standing by a post, avoiding any company, and playing chaperone-by-stealth to a barrister’s daughter with too much beauty for her own good.

“I should find a place in the set and try to catch her eye, if I were you.” The voice came unexpectedly from the other side of the pillar, startling him like a sudden flight of pigeons. “You don’t show to best advantage at a pining distance.”

“Mrs. Simcox.” God, he hadn’t seen her in months. “I had no idea you were here tonight.” She was in excellent looks, too, all green and gold in her gown and jewels; all auburn in her hair. Her appearance, indeed her youth, had taken him by surprise the first time he’d met her. Ignorant as he’d been, he’d heard
widow
and imagined someone matronly, not a vibrant creature several scant years his senior and seething with wicked appetites.

“I’ve been in at cards for the past hour and more. I must have missed hearing you announced.” She grinned her cheeky grin at him, waking all manner of pleasant memories. “And ‘Mrs. Simcox,’ is it? Am I not to be ‘Anne’ anymore?”

“I doubt your Mr. Stewart would appreciate my calling you Anne.” In spite of good intentions he couldn’t help falling into the rhythms of flirtatious speech.

“Mr. Stewart.” She turned her face aside and sent a dismissive puff of breath through her lips. “You’ve been shut away in your chambers as usual, Blackshear, else you would have heard. Mr. Stewart got it into his head I must marry him. He got very tedious with it, and so I sent him on his way.”

“Is that so?” He angled a bit farther to face her, and set his hand on the pillar between them.

“It’s so.” Her eyes took thorough note of his hand before flicking back up to his face. She set a hand of her own on the pillar, rather near his. “Has the widow Marbury had you all to herself these few months, or have you broadened your circle of acquaintances?”

“It’s been a bit of a lull, actually. Mrs. Marbury followed your example in accepting a gentleman’s respectable attentions, and as to new acquaintances, I don’t seem to hold much appeal for the ladies of late.”

“Because of the business with your brother, you mean?” With the hand that wasn’t resting near his she made a contemptuous little wave. “Astute women care nothing for that, Nick. If anything, you’ve acquired an interesting frisson of disrespectability to go with your other charms. Which, as I recall in some detail, are considerable.” Her gaze wandered down his form, with near as much effect as if she’d traced the same path with her fingers.

It had been too long since he’d enjoyed himself with a carefree sort of woman. He was weary—until this moment he hadn’t realized just how weary—of watching his every step for the sake of a lady’s innocence, and the friendship that had been between them, and the trust her parents had placed in him. He was tired of being the kind of man who reproached himself for a kiss.

He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately the charms you refer to are the sort a woman can only learn of through proximity. And the family scandal has made a formidable barrier to that.”

“Nonsense. Ladies like a bit of scandal. Dewy young misses in red gowns like it best of all. Else they’d wear white, wouldn’t they; or some innocent shade of pink.” She’d turned while speaking; taken her hand from the pillar and maneuvered herself so that now she stood with her back to the thing, facing out over the dance,
her shoulder but an inch or two from Nick’s still-resting hand. “Depend upon it, she’s aware of you.” From this distance, she could drop her voice to its duskier range. “All the more since you began speaking to me. I do believe she’d counted you as a conquest, and now sees she was too hasty in that. Thus rendering you doubly intriguing to her.”

“Anne, you couldn’t be further from the truth.” Laughter lurked just in back of his words. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed this woman, even in mere conversation. “She’s aware of me indeed, because we’ve known one another for years. I’m a friend of her father’s, and I assure you she and I are long past the point where one might think to make a conquest of the other.” Never mind how the sight of her in a red gown had conquered him nearly to his knees.

Mrs. Simcox turned her head to look at him. Her face was near enough that he could fancy he felt her breath. “She’s seen you up close, then, and conversed with you, and still she has no interest?” Her right brow arched, an eloquent challenge to his assertion or perhaps a judgment on Miss Westbrook’s soundness of mind.

“Why should she have an interest? She can converse with me to her heart’s content as a friend, and whatever dubious gratification there is to be gained from a near view of me, our present connection affords her that as well.”

“And she finds that sufficient? Conversation and a near view? But I was an ignorant girl once, too, with no idea that marital congress could be anything better than tolerable, and no notion of how to choose a husband who would make a wife’s duty into pleasure.” Her grin flashed again, teasing and altogether impudent. “Perhaps I ought to have a pointed word or two with your pretty friend, and see whether I cannot make her aware of you in a more particular way.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” He took hold of her elbow. “Come and dance with me. I rely on the hope that standing in a line with respectable people at either side will force you to behave.”

They danced, and all his knotted-up muscles seemed to loosen at the pure bodily pleasure of it. Or no, bodily pleasure was but one of the agents working upon him. Not only had he gone too long without a woman who risked nothing by being with him, but it seemed an age since he’d enjoyed the company of someone who knew all his secrets and thought them inconsequential. He ought to spend more time with such people—and now that her erstwhile suitor Mr. Stewart had gone on his way, he’d likely have the opportunity.

He glanced up to see Miss Westbrook and her partner coming down the line, and this time he was able to give her a proper, decent smile, his eyes never roaming from her face. He
would
enjoy her triumphs this evening, just as he’d intended, and if Mrs. Simcox’s wicked mood held, he might even end the night with a triumph or two of his own.

W
ELL
. M
R.
Blackshear did dance, after all. First with the auburn-haired lady in green who’d talked to him for so long and with such undisguised interest; then with a black-haired, full-figured lady to whom the first one introduced him. He spent the next dance laughing with the viscount at the far end of the room, and after that came a waltz and he danced it, with the auburn-haired lady for a partner again.

Not that she was keeping count. She was engaged in most of those same dances herself, and occupied all the while by making conversation with whichever gentleman stood opposite. Even now she might have been out among the waltzing couples, if a Captain Williams had
had his way. But to return to her chair, with all the modesty of a girl who would not dream of asking her chaperone for permission to waltz, had seemed the more effectual course. A lady did well to project a certain air of unattainability, that a gentleman could have the bracing pleasure of working to win her.

Someone ought to share that wisdom with Mr. Blackshear’s auburn-haired friend. She would be embarrassed, later, when he grew weary of her too-attentive manner and forsook her to dance with more circumspect ladies, or perhaps to stand at the edge of the floor in solitude, as he’d been doing before she’d strolled up to engross him.

“I think a continuation of the tax upon income would have been the fairest approach.” Lord Barclay’s voice interrupted her thoughts. He’d danced the last set with Louisa and generously chosen to sit out the waltz in favor of keeping the ladies company. He would partner Kate for the next set. “But gentlemen of property had tolerated that tax with the expectation it would be retired at the end of the war, and I suppose there was a general fear that, extended once, it could easily become a permanent fixture.” He bowed to Louisa, seated at his right. “Your brother would know more than I, of course, having been in Parliament at the time and therefore privy to the discussions.”

“Yes, he had a great deal to say of that measure, as I recall.” She achieved a fair degree of radiance in speaking on this topic, even if she didn’t quite glow the way she did when debating over novels. “He said there was a sentiment, among those who opposed the tax, that our government ought to concentrate its efforts on reducing the public expenditure, and look for economies in its own operation.”

“That strikes me as an entirely reasonable expectation for any government.” Lady Harringdon, at Kate’s left,
apparently found herself equipped with as many authoritative opinions on this subject as on any other. “I wonder why it had to be brought up for debate at all. One hopes one’s Parliament would not have been wasteful or extravagant in the first place.”