“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.
SHE 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 th
an 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?”
A lamp hanging a few feet to her right showed the progression of sentiment on his face as she spoke: surprise gave way to astonishment that quickly solidified into self-righteous anger. “Without doubt you made an impression, Miss Westbrook, but I can assure you it’s not the sort you meant to make.” He bit the words short, for discretion, and succeeded only in making them more vile. “Do you truly not understand what a man has in mind when he persuades a lady to seclude herself with him away from the company?”
“We didn’t seclude ourselves.” She gestured with an arm to show the wide-open terrace. “There were other people when we came out here, more than just that one couple. From where we stood, I didn’t notice they’d gone.” The jolly music of a reel filtered out from the ballroom, making a counterpoint to this awful discord that had slipped in between them. “It was warm and close on the dancing floor. Plenty of people have stepped out for air. Lord John happened to be my partner at the time and he was good enough to escort me outside.”
None of what she said swayed him in the least. “Was the air nearer to the doors insufficient somehow? Did he give you some accounting of why it was necessary that he escort you all the way to this far corner, and why he must presume to wrap you in his coat?”
“In fact he did.” She let her voice grow thinner, more brittle. “He wanted to show me some constellations.”
“Oh, good God.” He swung away from her for a second in an eloquent show of disgust. “If that isn’t the oldest trick in the book; taking a lady out to gaze up at the stars.”
He’d never spoken to her in anything like this horrid manner, and she’d never imagined she could be so furious at him. “You’re speaking completely out of turn. Lord John has an interest in astronomy. If you’d bother to look up, instead of down your nose at me, perhaps you’d notice this is the spot on the terrace where your view is least encroached upon by surrounding houses.” She hugged herself more tightly with her folded arms. “And he gave me his coat because he was kind enough to notice I was cold. As indeed I am now. I’d think you of all men would know better than to put a sinister construction on that.”
She was sorry she’d ever worn his coat, with its plain soap smell. She was sorry she’d told him so much of her hopes. And at that moment she didn’t care to speak to him anymore.
She made to march past him and he stepped into her path.
His gall was absolutely beyond anything. “I’m cold,” she repeated, not sparing his face a glance. “I’d like to go inside. You’ve made your opinions of my actions clear. Anything further you say will be gratuitous insult.” She was shaking, as much from anger as from the chill air.
“Fine.” He caught her by the elbow and then she did look up, and his jaw was taut and his nostrils flared. “This way.” Behind him was a set of French doors, slightly open, and before she could say a word, he whisked her through them into what proved to be an unoccupied library.
He’d lost his mind. Did he truly not see that taking her into this empty room was ten times more disrespectable than what she and Lord John had done?
“Listen to me.” He rounded on her like a barrister pinning down a witness unsure of her story. “Left to my own wishes, I would not be here. I don’t care for this sort of thing and there are a dozen interesting documents I could be reading at home.”
“Then why don’t you—”
“Let me speak, please. I need to say my piece and get us both out of here as quickly as I can.” He did see the danger of being in this room, then. And he’d brought her in here anyway. “You must know your mother and father would never have permitted you to go to this rout but that they knew I’d be here to look out for you.”
“I don’t know that. I’m sure they were more amenable than they would have been if you weren’t going to be here, but—”
“Miss Westbrook, I am telling you that.” Impatience flashed in his eyes. “I made a promise to your father that I would stay for as long as you did, and keep you out of danger. Only then did he and your mother grant their permission.”
That smarted. She’d known Papa must have asked him to watch out for her while he was here, but she hadn’t known there was a formal promise, requiring him to stay so long, and she hadn’t known her own attendance was contingent on his presence.
Cold air crept in through the cracked-open door. She turned and went to the hearth. She didn’t know who to be angry with.
“Do you see that yours is not the only reputation you trifle with when you do careless things like letting a man of whom you know nothing lead you outdoors?” Mr. Blackshear clearly knew who she ought to be angry with. He thought she was the one at fault. “Think what would become of my credit with your father, if you were compromised under my watch.” Behind her, she could hear him follow her to the fire. “His good opinion means a great deal to me. To lose that good opinion through someone else’s actions would be a sore trial.”
His words poked at her sympathy, shrouded up since the minute he’d come outside. Papa’s good opinion was very worth having. She’d seen for three years how Mr. Blackshear prized it.
Also, there could have been some reference in his last words to the business with his brother. He knew what it was to lose something through someone else’s actions. His brother’s marriage had cost him his standing in society and, according to Papa, a deal of barrister work as well.
She turned to face him. His features in the room’s lamplight showed more weariness than anger. In fact he looked thoroughly exhausted.
Sympathy stirred in her again. Perhaps they could both explain themselves and come to a civil understanding once more. “I wasn’t aware your credit with Papa was at stake.” She set her hand on the mantelpiece. “But I maintain there was nothing careless in what I did. No one can care more for my reputation than I do, and—”
He seized her wrist, putting a finger to his lips, and a second later she heard it, too: footsteps in the hallway. Panic plummeted through her, and then he moved with lightning speed, grabbing her around the waist, fairly dragging her with him to the space behind a sofa by the door. He pulled her down and they crouched side by side out of sight, her heart pounding as they waited for the footsteps to come in or pass
by.
NICK HELD his breath. The door latch hardware made its small mechanical sound and the door swung open, thankfully blocking this newcomer’s view of the space behind the sofa. Shoe soles rang brisk and purposeful across the few feet of bare floor before reaching the muted terrain of carpet. A tingling ran up his left arm, where an instant ago he’d seized Miss Westbrook by the waist.
Please, please take a book and go. If they were discovered it would mean ruin for her, or at the very least, marriage to a man she didn’t want—that marriage entered into amid the smirks and whispers of everyone who heard how the bride and groom had been found crouching behind a sofa in an empty room.
A few private words in a corner of the terrace with Lord Scarecrow was nothing, nothing to this. For all the sanctimonious lecturing he’d given her on proper behavior, his own actions had put her reputation at far greater risk than hers had.
A scrape sounded on the hearth; that would be the screen dragged aside. Then came a rattle of iron against iron. The intruder must be a maid, come to put out what remained of the fire. Hope sprang up in his heart. She’d have no reason to linger. She could scatter or smother the coals, douse the lamps, and then walk a straight path back to the door, which still stood at an angle that should block her view of the space behind the sofa.
He stole a glance at Miss Westbrook, who sat with her knees drawn up, her arms bound about them as if to make herself as small and invisible as she could. Take heart, he would have liked to tell her. We’ve a very good chance of getting out of this unscathed. No thanks to him. He’d felt such fury, meeting with her self-righteous anger after how he’d worried for her—not to mention seeing her with that scarecrow of a Lord John after he’d gone to the trouble of introducing her to the baron—and he’d somehow or other completely lost his head.
He sent a hand to touch one of hers in mute reassurance, or perhaps mute apology. Her hand turned over and her fingers gripped his. In the shadows behind the sofa he couldn’t read her expression, but the trembling in her fingers told him all he needed to know. She understood exactly what would be the cost if she was found with him here. There was nothing he could say or do that would reassure her.
Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] Page 13
