Her aunt considered her, lips pursed and eyelids half lowered. She might toss her out for impertinence now, or, if Kate had gambled correctly.…
“Proud as any Westbrook, aren’t you?” One corner of her mouth twitched with the suggestion of a knowing smile. “But it’s a becoming sort of pride, I’ll grant. You may chafe at your misbegotten station—so would I, in your place—but you’re scrupulous about staying within it. Your notes to me, over the years, have been everything correct. Never presumptuous or insinuating. That’s not lost on me.”
“Your ladyship is kind. I’m deeply sensible of the honor you’ve done me in inviting me here today.” She fixed her attention on the spaniel and waited. Lady Harringdon had more to say. She could feel it. That’s not lost on me was a beginning, a segue, a justification for something to follow, and shame on her if she now let a second pail of cold water catch her by surprise.
“I’m kind indeed to all who deserve it, I hope.” Her aunt’s voice held such cheerful purpose that Kate could not keep from looking up. “I have a proposal for you, my dear, and I shall begin by asking whether you’re at liberty next Tuesday night.”
Her heart beat hard in spite of her resolve to not hope. She’d known there must be some element of fate in the mention of Lady Astley’s rout. “I’m quite at liberty, and at your service if you wish.” That stubborn audacious corner of her brain lost no time in leaping to the question of what she might wear.
“That’s precisely what I wish. I wonder if it might please you to accompany me to the rout you heard us speaking of.” The countess beamed, looking for one perfect instant like a benevolent fairy in a fable.
Then she spoke on. “I’ve a mind to find you a post as companion to a grand lady, and what better way to begin than by taking you to a gathering where you can make an impression with your charming manners?”
Kate forced a smile, blinking several times. Dear Lord, how had she put herself in the path of disappointment again? And so soon after the first time, too?
“I hadn’t …” She scrabbled after every bit of the poise that had run away like quicksilver dropped on the floor. “I’d had no thought of being a companion.” Companion. The word had a sour taste in her mouth, and a desiccated feel. Companion was a sad parasitical existence borne by a lady who had absolutely no other options. A step above governess, perhaps, but not a great step. Companion was no life for a girl whose beauty would have made her the diamond of her Season.
“Indeed, with your parentage, you’d have had little chance of securing a post.” Lady Harringdon scratched behind the spaniel’s ears, the very picture of gracious condescencion. Clearly she thought Kate was overwhelmed by the generosity of the offer. “However I think my patronage may make all the difference. If you’re seen attending me at this rout, there will be people who will accept you without question. My approval carries much weight among people of the ton.”
Every sentence landed like a slap. Yes, her aunt’s patronage could make all the difference. Yes, she could be accepted without question. Yes, she’d hoped to advance herself with the weight of Lady Harringdon’s approval. All this, she’d dreamed of. Just not with the word companion. Would she even be welcome to call here anymore, once she’d been relegated to that lowly office?
Would she be welcome to call if she refused?
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the duties of a companion.” The word’s flavor didn’t improve with repetition.
“Thus the rout. You can begin to learn.”
“I shall have to ask my parents for permission.” That would buy her time to decide what to do.
“By all means. I trust they’ll see what a singular opportunity this is.” Her aunt sat distant as a queen in her corner of the sofa. Beyond her was all the splendor of this room and the house’s other rooms, the staircase, the columns, the lintels, and Kate could only feel that everything she wanted had moved further out of reach since she’d come to call.
NICK WENT to the Westbrooks’ for dinner on Saturday. To avoid the family would have been cowardice, and the half truths and misrepresentations he’d dealt to Lord Barclay had left him feeling quite cowardly enough. If Miss Westbrook or one of her siblings showed an inclination to broach uncomfortable subjects, he could firmly and politely decline that conversation. That was his right. And while he was about it, he could set the pattern for how he intended his relations with Miss Westbrook to go on: cordial, but with an appropriate degree of distance. If he was to make the advances he hoped for through this connection with Lord Barclay, he needed to conduct himself as became a distinguished gentleman of nine and twenty. It was well past time he curtailed those habits of familiarity and careless flirtation that had led him into trouble the last time he was here.
In the Gower Street entry hall he’d just handed off his hat and coat, and was preparing to follow the footman upstairs, when down came Miss Westbrook herself. She had no shaft of sunlight to pause in, as she’d had at the Old Bailey. Her gown was a plain one such as ladies wore for a morning at home. Some inward preoccupation had put a crease in her brow and pursed her lips, robbing them of their usual sweet fullness. No one catching a first glimpse of her in this moment would mistake her for an angel or a goddess.
And still, her beauty went through him like a fever chill, temporarily scattering his thoughts.
She glanced up and saw him. “Mr. Blackshear.” Her face lit with surprise and pleasure. Two steps above the one where he stood, she halted. “I wasn’t sure of your coming. I’m so pleased you did. I told Father all about the case you argued and I know he’s eager to hear your account.”
“Forgive my having left my attendance in doubt.” He girded himself. If she was to speak of what had happened at the Old Bailey, she might well do it now.
“Oh, we’re very informal on Saturdays, you know.” She waved a hand, as if to dismiss his concerns. “Already there are two gentlemen in the drawing room who I don’t believe were invited at all.”
“I see. Are you going out?” He nodded toward the foot of the stairs, to remind her of her downward trajectory. “To call upon your countess aunt, perhaps?” That was probably a bit too teasing and familiar. With practice, he’d strike the right note.
“No.” The pleasure in her face dimmed somewhat. “No, I’m absenting myself from the drawing room only for a little while.” She studied the bottom-most stair but didn’t move, save for one slight bounce on the balls of her feet. On a higher stair the footman stood still, waiting, with that patience common to servants, for this conversation to conclude.
Abruptly Miss Westbrook looked up. “I’m going to sit on the bench below for a few minutes. Might you like to bear me company?”
He really oughtn’t. If he wanted to enforce a decorous distance in their relation, then certainly refusing to sit alone with her, away from the company, would make an excellent start.
He was curious, though, to know what accounted for that dimming he’d noted in her eyes, as well as to know why she’d forsaken the drawing room to sit on a bench in the entry hall. He bowed and took a step back down the stairs.
Miss Westbrook dismissed the footman and led the way to the bench. It stood at the back of the entry hall, halfway under the stairs, giving anyone who sat there a view of the front door. It wasn’t secluded, really: between that front door and another set of stairs leading presumably down to the kitchen, the location assured intermittent traffic. Still, he preferred to stand against the wall and leave her the entirety of the seat.
“Why have we retreated to this hall?” He’d start with what he hoped was the easier subject. “Are you avoiding the young men who weren’t invited?”
“Not altogether.” She smoothed her skirts, looking slightly embarrassed. “It’s been brought to my attention that I sometimes distract the young men who come to call here.”
“Ah.” He folded his arms and directed a solemn look to the floor. This would have been an ideal subject on which to plague her. Thus it made a good test of
his resolve. “I collect, from your abandoning the drawing room, that you find the allegation to have merit.”
“It’s very tedious of them.” She glanced overhead, as if she could see through the floor to the offending callers. “I expect to be noticed—it would be disingenuous of me to claim I did not—but I see no reason why they must continue to give their attention to me, as I’m told they do, when they ought to be listening to interesting and edifying things that other people have to say.”
“I see.” This sounded like the complaint of Miss Viola, who was certainly the Westbrook most likely to be desirous of an attentive audience at any time. “Do you believe they’re being edified as we speak? Now that they don’t have to contend with the distraction of your presence?”
She looked up at him and smiled, and he knew she was picturing, as was he, her sister delivering an oration to a group of befuddled young law students.
In spite of rigorous intentions he smiled back, and several seconds passed in which they shared the silent joke.
She was the first to look away. “I should mention that you were invoked as an exception, as a guest who pays proper attention to all the family.” She folded her hands neatly in her lap. “No one thinks you foolish or tedious.”
“I do try not to be tedious. But I’m afraid I’m not always above foolishness.” He let those words stand. She would know to what he referred.
He’d said something similar when they’d seen each other at the courthouse. Some slender hint at an apology. For the sake of discretion, he ought really to have left it at that.
But the effects of her smile lingered, filling him with odd ideas. What if he owned the extent of his impropriety and made a full, frank apology? That might be the best insurance against his ever committing such a breach again. It might reassure her, too, in a way that vague remarks about foolishness and forgetting himself could not.
“Miss Westbrook.” He stepped away from the wall, pivoting to face her. “I don’t want you to think—that is, I don’t want you ever to be uneasy in my presence, wondering at the turn of my thoughts. May I be perfectly candid, just for a moment?” So much for distance and reserve. But if this put them back on solid footing with each other, it would do just as well.
She nodded at him, her dark blue eyes wide with apprehension.
He took a breath. “The perfectly candid truth is that, like every other young man who visits this house, I notice your beauty. Sometimes to the point of distraction. Lord knows I’d like to be inured to it after three years, but I’m afraid I’m not.”
“I see,” she murmured. She studied her clasped hands, turning them over in her lap. Then her eyes, grave and luminous, rose once more to his. She was preparing, no doubt, to answer his candor with a frank reminder that he mustn’t hope.
No need of that. “We wouldn’t suit, I know.” He half raised a hand to forestall her speaking. “Not only because you’ve set your sights on a more rarefied existence than I shall ever be able to provide, but because I have aspirations of my own. And—I trust this won’t offend you—you’re not the woman to enter into those hopes with me, and stand at my side through thick and thin, as I would desire a wife to do.” That was important to remember. It wasn’t just a matter of his not measuring up to her exacting standards: neither would she make a satisfactory partner for him. “I apologize for the impertinent familiarity with which I spoke that night, and I assure you it’s no signifier of any sentiments or intentions that need cause you concern. Only the commonplace, graceless response of a susceptible man to an exceedingly beautiful girl.”
There. He’d confessed what she’d surely already known. And now that he’d said it out loud, it seemed possible that even this much might cease to be true. He might yet become inured to her charms, just through the exercise of this unromantic bluntness.
“I don’t think you’re so very susceptible.” She smoothed her skirts again, eyes averted. “We’ve already established that you’re attentive to everyone in the family.”
“Well, thank you for that defense of my dignity.” Lord, he felt ten times better than he had when he’d walked in the door. He went to the bench and sat, at a good respectable distance from her. “Now let me be forward on another subject: why did your spirits sink when I asked if you were going to call on your aunt? Did your father forbid your going?”
She twisted to face him, no doubt startled that he should have perceived her mood. Then she frowned at the expanse of bench that divided him from her. “No, in fact I called on Lady Harringdon yesterday.”
“She disappointed your hopes.” He’d expected this. He’d even warned her of it. But he wouldn’t feel any triumph if he’d been right.
“It was an enjoyable call and I made an excellent impression on the countess.” She tilted her head, eyes still downcast. “So excellent, in fact, that she’s proposed to help me to a post as a lady’s companion.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
She smiled, bitterly, and now she met his eyes. “It was my own fault, at least in part. I had to go and say something about how I had rather never marry at all than marry a man unworthy of my better connections.”
He could imagine that only too well. “And she, assuming you had no chance of that worthy match, concluded that a position as companion to some grand lady would best serve your pride and dignity.”
“You were right at every turn. You tried to caution me against grandiose expectations, and I was too proud to listen.”
He didn’t like to see her so humbled. Her vanity might be an aggravation indeed, but it was hers, to be eschewed or moderated when the wisdom of age and experience prompted her to do so. It wasn’t this aunt’s place to rob her of her pride.
“This is a setback, to be sure.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands with steepled fingers. From this position he had to tilt his head to address her. “But if you will let it spell your defeat, I shall have to say I’ve misjudged you entirely. What answer did you give her, as to the offer to find you a position?”
Her chin lifted a fraction of an inch, and a slight catch came in her breathing. She hadn’t had the smallest expectation of his responding so. Really, had she supposed he would gloat over the disappointment of her hopes?
“I told her I must speak to my mother and father. But I haven’t spoken to them, because I cannot see …” She shook her head. “I confess it does feel very like a defeat. Taking a post as a lady’s companion is as good as an admission to all the world that you’ve gone on the shelf. But declining the offer will almost certainly put an end to the connection. And the connection is important to me.” Something new came into her voice, something low and ardent. “Not only for the reasons you’re used to teasing me about. I want my family to—” She jumped as the door knocker sounded, a jarring cacophony from this distance. “Bother. More callers.” In an instant she was on her feet, seizing his hand and tugging him after her while she ducked under the stairs and out of view of anyone standing in the front doorway.
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 pl
ace 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.
Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] Page 9
