Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03]

by A Woman Entangled

  Though it wasn’t so odd to the sisters, of course. They’d seen it enough times before.

  Nick curled and uncurled his right hand fingers, flicking away the extraneous thoughts. “Ready?” He held up his paper where Lord Barclay could easily read from it. “Once more unto the breach, then.”

  Barclay stooped, caught up the buckets of coal at his left and right hands, and straightened. He drew in a breath, concentrating his attention on the paper. “ ‘Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with—’ Good Lord, that does make a difference.”

  “Do you feel how it brings the source of your voice down to just above your stomach?” Two rooms away, her words carrying effortlessly through two sets of open doors, Mrs. Westbrook paused in her regal pacing to deliver this query. Nick tapped the spot under his own ribcage for illustration before turning to watch her. “That’s your natural source of speech,” she went on. “If you want to be heard in the back rows without shouting, this is where you begin. Fierce articulation of your consonants will do the rest.” She carried a walking stick with which she now made a little flourish. “Onward, and be mindful of where you take your breaths. ‘Disguise fair nature …’ ”

  Barclay nodded, wet his lips, and returned his gaze to the page.

  “Disguise fair nature with hard-favor’d rage;

  Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

  Let pry through the portage of the head

  Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it

  As fearfully as doth a galled rock

  O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,

  Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.”

  This was their seventh time through the speech—Barclay had already whispered it, delivered it in conversational style, and articulated the whole with a wine cork clutched between his front teeth—and Nick suspected every person in the room could recite the final lines right along.

  “Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

  Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit

  To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.

  Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!”

  “Splendid, sir. I believe every one of us is ready to charge off and fall upon whatever enemy you choose.” She would have made an excellent leader of troops herself, Mrs. Westbrook. He could remember the pride that had welled up in him the first time he’d felt the full weight of her approval.

  The full weight of her wrath must be equally formidable. He would surely feel it, and Mr. Westbrook’s wrath as well, if they were to find out he’d put his hands on their daughter.

  Maybe even worse than wrath would be their disappointment. I’m not sorry this happened, Nick, would be a poor consolation if his actions should lose him the good opinions he prized above all others

  He flexed his fingers again to clear his thoughts.

  Barclay dipped his head, acknowledging Mrs. Westbrook’s praise. “You’re very kind. I confess I feel a bit ridiculous, still, saying such grand words. I’d thought we’d be practicing with plain sentences.”

  “Count yourself lucky, Lord Barclay.” Miss Westbrook was nearly sparkling with mischief and good humor when Nick turned to her. Her needle flashed busily on. “When Mr. Blackshear stood where you are now, Mama had him delivering one of Portia’s speeches from the courtroom scene.”

  The baron, catching her mood, cocked a brow and grinned at Nick. “The quality of mercy is not strain’d?”

  “Nothing of the kind.” Mrs. Westbrook ventured a few steps into the intervening room; Nick could hear the smart tap of her walking stick. “If I’d assigned him that well-worn speech he would have plowed through it without pausing to get the sense of the words, just as you would if I’d set you the one about Saint Crispin’s Day. I look for something with which the speaker must apply some energy to acquaint himself.”

  “Besides, that ‘quality of mercy’ business would never do in a real courtroom. No judge would stand for it. I did the bit where she stipulates that Shylock cannot take any blood along with his pound of flesh. That’s the sort of hairsplitting that warms a barrister’s heart.” Nick delivered this last line over his shoulder, with a smile meant for the Westbrook matriarch.

  No, she didn’t know what he’d done. He’d been reasonably certain Miss Westbrook wouldn’t tell, and now he was sure of it—not because Mrs. Westbrook couldn’t have dissembled on the matter, but because she wouldn’t have. She would have confronted him straightaway.

  “If I were a judge, I’d be more inclined to allow a lecture on mercy than to go along with that reasoning about the blood.” Miss Viola spoke up, eyeing Nick rather severely. “There’s no possible way to remove that much flesh without releasing some blood; therefore permission to take the blood is implicit in permission to cut out the flesh. It doesn’t need explicit mention in the contract.”

  “Nevertheless, Portia succeeded in arguing the court round to her side.” Miss Westbrook spoke lightly, hurrying the conversation away from the topics of blood and the cutting out of flesh. “Just as a barrister must often argue people away from their first reading of events, and just as Lord Barclay, I’m sure, will persuade other members of the House to see things as he does.” She spoke with eyelids lowered, watching her fingers work away; only at the end did she glance up at the two men and smile.

  The baron smiled back.

  He liked her. As was to be expected. He’d met her at her most radiant, to be sure, all aglow with enjoyment at the ball, and to now observe her refined manners, set off by the unconventional family in which fate had placed her, seemed only to solidify the good opinion he’d formed that night. His smile creased his face hard enough to make the scar-crossed dimple appear.

  Good. This was a triumph. Very easily the baron’s response to meeting Miss Westbrook’s family might have been a visible disappointment at finding that the pretty girl he’d met at the Astleys’ rout was after all not eligible. But Nick had gambled on what he sensed of the man’s deep fair-mindedness, and the gamble appeared to be going his way.

  That was, Miss Westbrook’s way. Which for his purposes was the same thing.

  He took a half step back, twisting to address Mrs. Westbrook. “Should he go through it a second time with the buckets, or may he set those down?”

  Sans buckets, Henry the Fifth urged his men to savagery again, and again, and another time after that, with attention paid to strategic pauses and the modulation of syllables. Nick kept his position, holding up the paper and occasionally offering his own suggestions.

  She could see by his actions, couldn’t she, that his intentions toward her were purely friendly? In the days since the rout, he’d had time to reflect on his behavior, from the moment he’d confronted her with Lord John through that point when he’d had his fingers at the back of her neck. The most unflattering motivations suggested themselves. Jealousy. Covetousness. A desire over which he had no control. Surely advancing her interest with another man was the best way to prove to both of them that he didn’t have his own designs on her.

  He rolled his shoulder, which had begun to tighten from his unvarying paper-holding stance, and took the opportunity to glance over to the sofa. Miss Westbrook immediately ducked her head and turned a look of fierce concentration upon her sewing.

  Confound it. He couldn’t stand to have her so uneasy in his presence as to alternate between acting false and frivolous, and refusing to meet his eyes. He needed a private interview. For all his virtuous resolve about seeing her only in company, he would have to find a moment during this visit to speak to her alone. A quick, frank acknowledgment of their mistake; an agreement on their resulting shared state of embarrassment, would surely be the way to put that event behind them, and set them on the path back to the unblushing friendship that would best suit them both.

  SHEER STUBBORN pride kept her in her place on the sofa. The more she wanted to slink unnoticed along the wall until she reached the far open door, or lif
t a corner of the carpet and crawl underneath, the brighter she made her silly smile and the bolder were her flourishes with the needle and thread. Twice she pricked her finger and drew blood. Two jots of blood, to quote Portia’s chosen term. Mr. Blackshear had been a very good sport about delivering that speech, back in his studying days. Some barristers-in-training balked at playing a woman’s part, which was foolish of them as the role had been played by boys for years and years.

  She peeked up to find that he’d finished flexing his shoulder and had returned his attention to Lord Barclay and his speech.

  Had he always done these things? Moving his shoulder about, curling and stretching his fingers, cocking his head to one side or the other? Surely he had. But she noticed them only now, because each restless gesture woke some memory in her muscles and skin. And no sooner did her neck tingle at the flex of his fingers, or her own head want to tilt in answer to his, than she remembered Viola’s all-too-aware presence beside her, and willed herself to smother her response.

  This was the price paid by a lady who kissed a man. She’d eaten of the forbidden fruit. She could not un-know the things she knew now. She could only hope the strength of that awareness would diminish over time, as indeed she trusted the mortification would fade and leave her able to face Mr. Blackshear with tolerable poise once more.

  Again Lord Barclay chewed and spat his way through “hard-favor’d rage” and “the wild and wasteful ocean.” He, too, was an excellent sport. Handsome as well. Not the handsomest man in the room, perhaps, but with his ready smile, his gracious manners, and a certain ineffable masculinity in his military bearing, he gave a lady much to admire.

  She’d liked him already, from the supper and the one shared dance at Cranbourne House. He’d made effortless proper conversation during that dance, answering her questions on the house’s history and never presuming to flirt. His conduct today, deferring to Mama’s authority with such respect as surely few titled gentlemen would ever show an actress, could only improve what had already been her good opinion.

  This was what she ought to be noticing: the merits of the one man present who had Lord in front of his name. She’d gone to the Astleys’ rout determined to forge as many connections as she could with distinguished people. Whatever her intervening mistakes might have been, here, a mere three days later, was a baron in her parlor, cordial and ready to be charmed. What sort of fool would she be if she let this acquaintance slip through her fingers because her thoughts were all entangled with a man who regretted having kissed her and was no suitable prospect besides?

  So when the speaking lesson had finally concluded and it was time for everyone to sit down and have tea, she leveled all her courteous conversation on the newer of their two guests.

  There was everything to approve in him. Really, there was. For all his fine upbringing and military dignity, he evinced an agreeable modesty, and seemed altogether more interested in hearing about the Westbrook family than in speaking of himself.

  His respectful manner to Mama continued unchanged, even though she no longer addressed him with a teacher’s authority. He asked what parts she’d played, whether she preferred comic roles or tragic, and who she thought were the most promising of the modern playwrights. When Viola seized the opportunity—as she inevitably did—to put forth some political point relating to the plays of Mrs. Inchbald, he raised his eyebrows, nodded thoughtfully, and asked her to tell him more.

  And though Kate stayed mostly clear of these conversations, confining herself to such pleasantries as seemed appropriate to a morning call with a slight acquaintance, he nevertheless smiled at her often and thanked her most particularly for the tea.

  Mr. Blackshear thanked her as well—she’d remembered to make a separate pot of his bitter dark brew—and conversed with the family as congenially as he always did, though she sometimes caught him watching her with a troubled crease in his brow. Once, when she was up and tending to the teapot, he came to the table to replenish his own tea and said something about wondering whether the rain had stopped.

  That was a subterfuge, and a fairly obvious one: he wanted her to go with him to the window at the room’s far side, that they might speak privately.

  She couldn’t. Not only because Viola would be watching, and drawing conclusions. He would want to apologize again. He’d want to say what a mistake the kiss had been, and he’d want to assure her there’d be no danger, ever, of another such mistake. Probably he’d want to express his hopes for her snaring of Lord Barclay, as proof of his own disinterest.

  She knew all that already. She didn’t need to hear any of it.

  “I do hope it will be dry by the time you must take your leave,” was all the answer she gave, and then she took her leave, slipping away from the table and back to her seat as soon as she’d poured his tea.

  He understood he’d been rebuffed. She saw it in his face when he sat down again. For the remainder of the call he wore a distracted air, and a slight frowning twist at one corner of his mouth.

  And for the remainder of the call she felt sorrier than ever, wishing he could know, without her having to say so aloud, that she didn’t blame him at all. And wishing she could notice his frown without igniting a hundred volatile memories, all having to do with his mouth.

  “NOW THAT was an experience well worth this whole undertaking.” Barclay settled in one corner of his carriage, dropping his hat on the seat beside him. He’d insisted that Nick accept a ride home, the rain not having abated. “The next time I attend a house party where someone proposes an amateur theatrical, I shall be ready to amaze the company.”

  “I’m sorry about the material.” Nick sat in the opposite corner, steadying himself with his feet as the carriage swayed out into traffic. “I do remember you saying Henry the Fifth wasn’t a good representation of what your time in the army had been.”

  The baron shrugged. “The reality of war would make a very poor play. There are great stretches of tedium such as no paying audience would stand for. And a man breathing his last rarely has anything poetic to say on the occasion. I prefer Shakespeare’s version of things altogether.”

  The very few times Will had spoken of war, in the months after he’d returned to England and before he’d forsaken the family, he’d adopted a flippant tone not unlike Lord Barclay’s. Nick had never known how to press past the flippancy, or whether he even ought to. If he’d been a better friend to his brother, a better listening ear, would Will perhaps not have felt the need to seek a connection with the woman for whom he’d then thrown everything away?

  He took off his own hat, holding it over the straw-covered floor and tapping off the raindrops. “Would you say you were much altered by your experiences in war?” He frowned at the hat, to make it look as though he was primarily occupied by that matter and asking the question only by the by. The subject might be an uncomfortable one for his companion; he wouldn’t add to the discomfort by watching for a response.

  “Altered, yes. Much altered, though …” He was shaking his head when Nick glanced up. “Given what I’ve seen of some other men, I cannot say so. My alterations have mainly been of the benign sort, I hope. I suppose I took things a little more lightly before my military service. I told you—didn’t I?—that my brother Astley has not been impressed by my recent political zeal.”

  “I should think political enthusiasm must be among the most benign sorts of alteration, as well as the least surprising. Who is more likely to concern himself with the good of the nation than a man who’s just devoted several years of his life to that same concern? But perhaps Lord Astley simply regrets the loss of the brother he remembers; the one with lighter pursuits and preoccupations.” He knew a bit about that sort of loss. He gave his hat a last shake and set it on the seat, eyes following the action of his hands all the way.

  “I think he’d prefer I put the good of the family before that of the nation. I’m next in line for the marquessate, you know, and nearly from the moment I stepped off the ship he’s
been after me to marry.”

  From one uncomfortable subject straight to another: it was almost as though the man had somehow been privy to his thoughts during their time in the Westbrook parlor. He schooled his face and looked up. “Indeed?”

  “He’s ten years my senior and quite sure he’ll predecease me, so he’d like to see me settled with a wife and, ideally, a son or two. Thus my presence at that rout. I believe he intends to compel my attendance at one social event after another this Season until finally I break down and offer for some lady, if only to silence him on the subject.”

  “You don’t particularly wish to be married for your own sake, then?” Nick couldn’t like the idea of Miss Westbrook marrying a man who’d offered for her only to silence his brother, even if her own approach to wedlock was at least that pragmatic.

  “I’m sure I’ll like to have a wife.” The baron laced his fingers and stretched his arms out before him with a rueful grin. “However, I’d always fancied that thoughts of marriage followed upon meeting the right lady. I have difficulty reversing that sequence.” He let his arms fall. “And you? No plans to renounce your bachelor state? Never found yourself tempted by one of the Misses Westbrook?”

  Was this an attempt to discover the existence of a prior claim? In any case, his duty as her friend was clear. “No plans or temptations of recent date.” Nick sat back and shrugged. “I’ll admit to a brief, youthful tendre for the eldest Miss Westbrook, though that’s little more than admitting to a pulse.”

  Barclay nodded, his grin gone wider. “To be sure, I would have doubted you if you’d denied the fact. Such beauty is exactly suited to a young man’s taste. But I suppose you were in no position then to marry.”