To return his smile would be to ratify his version of events. To reduce their time upstairs to a quick animal dalliance, a fleshly misdemeanor from which both parties would naturally wish to disentangle and move on, unencumbered, with all possible haste.
She smiled, or at least warped her lips into the approximate right shape, before dropping her gaze to the aspic. What else could she do? She’d troubled him enough already, compelling his attendance at a party where he had few friends. From the corner of her eye she could see him glance about the room—neither Lord Barclay nor Lord Cathcart had an empty seat nearby, and did he even know anyone else in this company?—before taking a place at a table of young men who appeared to be well in their cups. Her heart hurt, watching him. He deserved better. In every particular, he deserved better than what he’d gotten from his association with her.
“Such a lovely gown, Miss Westbrook.” Lady Waltham, the most resplendent, in gold-trimmed indigo, of Lady Harringdon’s little circle, addressed her with a queen’s lofty graciousness from across the table. “Have you seen this month’s Ackermann’s? I find the new styles altogether excessive in their layers and gatherings and embellishments, don’t you?”
Some well-primed corner of her brain remembered how to converse on this topic, and so she did. Her heart ought to be doing a sprightly jig. This was what she’d wanted: to speak on such subjects with such women; to think of how she might charm her way into their drawing rooms, and from there into the notice of their marriageable sons. Now here she was, with events hewing so close to her many-times fondly envisioned course, and everything was wrong. Her triumph was built on a scaffold of lies, from the gaze she kept firmly averted from Mr. Blackshear, to her gracious acceptance of compliments for Louisa Smith’s taste in gowns.
But she didn’t know how to begin correcting the wrongs, so she only smiled, and gave her opinions on gatherings and embellishments, and secretly counted the minutes until the meal would end.
SHE DANCED with three more gentlemen after supper. None of them mattered. She tried four times to converse with Miss Smith, only to see the latter escape, on various pretexts, after the first few polite and superficial remarks. She went home, finally, and made her way to bed, only to have Viola ask across the room whether Mr. Blackshear had presumed to kiss her again.
“No.” With that one syllable, she gave up all the comfort of confessing herself. The truth, this time, was too much to tell. “We did speak on the matter, though. We agreed we’re both embarrassed, and thoroughly sorry, and are therefore in no danger of ever repeating the lapse.”
“That sounds very sensible of you both.” Vi’s voice grew thoughtful. “Imagine how difficult it would be to have such a conversation with a man who wasn’t a friend. I suppose you must count yourself lucky it was Mr. Blackshear with whom this happened.”
“I suppose I must,” Kate said, and she could not remember ever feeling less lucky in her life.
“A LADY DOWNSTAIRS to see you.” Kersey leaned into the doorway long enough to communicate this fact, then swung away, unbuttoning his topcoat as he headed for his own chambers across the hall.
Kate was Nick’s first thought. She hadn’t strayed far from his thoughts all morning, to say nothing of the part she’d played there over a largely sleepless night. Hang what was left of his pride: he’d slaked his lusts to images of her; he’d lain awake wondering whether they’d compromised their relationship beyond repair; he’d remembered every compromising thing they’d done and he’d roused up a new set of lusts and slaked them all over again.
It couldn’t be her downstairs, though—part of his brain was awake enough to recognize this—because Kersey knew her by sight. He wouldn’t have announced her as merely “a lady.” The same reasoning ruled out Mrs. Simcox, who would have been his second guess, because Kersey was well acquainted with the sight of her, too.
Nick pushed up from his desk and caught his coat on the way out. Just as well it wasn’t Mrs. Simcox. If she’d come for some wicked daylight romp he would have had to turn her away, and he would never have been able to explain the reason.
Other possibilities flitted in and out as he descended the stairs. Mrs. Westbrook was the worst. So clearly he could envision her waiting on that bench, or perhaps striding back and forth before it, the terrible cast of her countenance telling him she knew how he’d betrayed the family’s trust.
But it was another fearsome countenance that awaited him, when he pulled open the front door and stepped out into the chill morning.
Will’s wife, of all people, sat on the bench. She’d twisted left to frown at the sundial, giving him a view of a stark, unfeminine profile. At his appearance she twisted back to glance at him, then returned to her study of the sundial.
Well, then. Apparently she hadn’t come to tell him of some accident befalling his brother, or if she had, her phlegmatism was beyond anything.
He went to the bench and sat. Why bother with a greeting, or with asking her whether she’d like to come inside? She didn’t like him, and he resented the corrupting intersection of her life with his. Whatever business had brought her here, they could discharge it without pretense of amity.
She didn’t speak at first. The silence was surprisingly comfortable, if not quite companionable. He pushed his ungloved hands into his coat pockets, and waited.
From the corner of his eye he could see her shoulders rise. “I haven’t come to apologize.” She didn’t turn to face him.
“I had no expectation that you would.” Neither did he face her. Number Two Brick Court, with its illustrious past, was a more rewarding view than the back of her head.
“I mightn’t have come at all, but I spoke to Mrs. Mirkwood on the subject and she said that I ought.”
This, he could all too easily imagine. “My sister is inordinately fond of telling people what they ought to do.”
“So I’ve observed.” The smallest spark of kinship flickered between them. She must have felt it, too, because she relaxed her posture until she, like he, was facing straight ahead. “The first thing I want you to know, Mr. Blackshear, is that I love your brother. My attachment to him is fiercer than my attachment to life. I will never be capable of kindness to anyone who causes him pain.”
“I’m glad to hear it. He’s a very good man. He deserves that sort of loyalty.” Every word of this was true.
“I don’t say you ought to have done different, in regard to him.” She dipped her chin to frown at the woolen muff that hid her forearms. “I was respectable, too, for a good part of my life. I know what rules you must follow. I didn’t expect any of his family to keep the connection, once we married.”
“It goes a bit beyond rules.” The words tasted of pettiness and self-justification, but they, too, were true. “The connection has done damage to my practice. There are solicitors who decline to bring me cases now. I expect it will make an obstacle to the realization of my greater professional ambitions as well.”
She nodded once, still frowning at her wool-blanketed hands. “I knew that was a likely outcome of our marriage. I knew your brothers and sisters would pay a price, too, in their social standing.”
“As may their children. I have nieces and nephews who will like to marry one day, and will almost certainly face dimmer prospects than they would have if they brought no disreputable connection to the union.”
“Indeed. I understood that consequence, too, and still I could not give him up.” She raised her chin, and angled her face to look at Nick sidelong. “I daresay you think if I truly loved him, I would have walked away and left him with his family intact.”
Now he was the one to lower his gaze, fixing it on a spot some four feet in front of their bench, where the paving bricks were worn drab and dull-edged from years of purposeful barrister striding. He’d thought exactly that, once, that love ought to have prompted her to leave Will alone. Perhaps he knew a bit more now of how difficult it was to do such a thing, even with the other person’s best interest at stake.
He shook his head slowly. “That would have been an extraordinary sacrifice. I wouldn’t presume to expect it of anyone.”
“I did tell him, at first, that to marry me was impossible. I did try to refuse him. But I hadn’t the heart to stand firm. He was determined, and I was satisfied that he should be. Partly for selfish reasons—my hopes of happiness were so slight before I met him—but partly, too, because he needed me.” She twisted to face him fully, and he lifted his gaze from the bricks to meet hers. “You will have to take me at my word. I was as necessary to his life as he was to mine, and even if I’d been strong enough to sacrifice my own happiness, I would never, never sacrifice his.”
He let one corner of his mouth pull into a smile, even as he dropped his attention back to the bricks. “He said almost exactly the same thing, you know. The day he told us what he meant to do. He said your happiness was his sacred trust, or something of that sort, and for your sake he couldn’t give you up.”
“He did?” She sounded genuinely surprised at the thought. “I never knew.” In the silence, he could feel her examining this new proof of her husband’s love and valor, like a fossil hunter turning over her latest find. “I’m glad to know that. Thank you for telling me.”
“Think nothing of it.” A breeze swept down Brick Court, rustling the tree branches, and he hunched his shoulders for warmth. He ought to have worn his hat, or maybe he ought to have invited her inside. Too late now. “I was never in any doubt of your devotion to Will, you should know. I won’t pretend I welcomed the marriage, but I’ve always supposed he loved you and was loved in return.” He cleared his throat. “I was sure of it on the day I met you, at the shipping office.”
“Yes. That brings me to my other purpose in coming here. The other thing I want you to know.” Now it was her turn to clear her throat. “As I said, I don’t apologize for my incivility that day. I think you’ll agree it’s not very likely you and I will ever be friends. But my rudeness is mine alone. You mustn’t think I express anyone’s sentiments but my own.”
Again he turned to look at her. Nowhere on her face could he spot any sign of urgency or beseeching, but the facts spoke for themselves. She’d come all this way from wherever she and Will lived, and sat down in conversation with a man for whom she did not care. Not for her own sake had she done these things.
“I can only think you had a reason for coming to the office.” Her eyes never wavered from his. “Not, perhaps, an imperative reason, but a reason nonetheless. And surely that reason still stands. Surely I, and my rudeness, are not enough to turn you aside from what you meant to do that day.”
What had he meant to do that day? He’d ventured down onto the docks with no clear purpose; with no idea of what he would say, if he and Will should meet. Only he’d been weary, after all these months, of not seeing his brother.
He frowned past her, at that confounded sundial reminding him about time and tide. “We lived in readiness for the loss of him when he was away at war.” In his coat pockets his fingers flexed and curled. “When he came home whole we thought we could put away that fear. We were unprepared—I was unprepared—for the possibility he might be lost to us by other means.”
“He won’t come to call on you, as I’ve done.” She got to her feet, and he understood that these were her concluding remarks. He rose, too. “He gave his word to stay clear of you and your elder brother and sister and their families. He doesn’t break his word.” She brought something out from the woolen muff, a folded paper that she must have been holding there all along. “This is our direction. You might make use of it, or you might not. I shan’t tell him of this visit, so you needn’t worry that he’ll be expecting a letter. Only, whatever did possess you to seek him at the office last week …” She faltered slightly, and again the importunity of her errand showed itself despite her mask of composure. “I think that same thing might possess him, too.”
Nick took the paper wordlessly. He put it in his pocket unread. And after she’d gone, disappearing round the corner into Middle Temple Lane, he sat back down on the bench and spent a good fifteen minutes staring out at nothing before he got up and went back inside.
ROSE DIDN’T appear at breakfast. She had a headache, Bea explained, and no appetite. She didn’t feel well enough to go to lessons today.
“Did something happen at school yesterday?” Kate asked when Mama had left the room to see to Rose. Her heart was sinking already, and prepared to keep going all the way to the pit of her stomach.
Bea twisted her mouth, thinking. “Well, I played the piano for the dancing lesson because Miss Taylor who usually plays was home with a fever. That meant Rose didn’t have me for a partner, and one of the other girls must dance with her, and several of them made a great show of their reluctance. I think it was Julia Lyon who was finally paired with her, and she sulked and slumped and made very little effort to keep up with the music. Will you pass the black currant jam, please?”
“Pity there’s no caning at Miss Lowell’s.” Vi turned the page of her Times, not even glancing up. “That might teach those girls some manners.”
Sebastian, engrossed in the Gazette, didn’t make any remark or response at all.
Kate set the jar before her sister, noiseless and precise in direct proportion to her desire to heave it against the wall. How could everyone accept such an incident so calmly, as though it was but a routine irritation to which they all ought to be inured? Was she the only one who could see that Rose was not inured, and would never be inured? Was she the only one who understood how routine irritations, even petty ones, could wear away at a girl’s well-being the way steady drops of water could gradually and irrevocably reshape stone?
Yes, of course she was the only one. Just as she was the only one to care about mending the rift between Papa and Lord Harringdon; the only one to feel the sorrow of a man’s being a stranger to his own mother; the only one to whom it meant something that their unraveled family be knit up whole again. She alone had made it a mission to right those wrongs. Therefore she could not blame her failure on anyone but herself.
She poked at a kippered herring with the tines of her fork, but her appetite was gone. Last night had been one great, long chance to charm eligible men, and when she hadn’t been frittering that chance away she’d been hurling it from her with all possible force. Indulging herself with thoughts of Mr. Blackshear, and then with Mr. Blackshear himself, when she might have been promoting her interest with some man whose rank could elevate her sisters beyond the reach of merchants’ daughters and their nasty little pranks.
She’d spent virtually every day of her young womanhood in expectation of this opportunity. She’d planned and schemed and meticulously charted her course. How had she managed, in the space of two parties, to so utterly lose her way?
When breakfast was done she ventured up to Rose and Bea’s room. Her sister lay abed, propped up on pillows, her hands folded atop the covers a few inches from an apparently discarded book. Kate went and sat down on the edge of the mattress. “The Lairds of Glenfern?” she said, picking up the book and turning it over.
“It’s not very good. I probably won’t finish it.” She stared off toward the window, whose draperies had been pushed wide. On the bedside table sat a cup of something, doubtless a tisane Mama had ordered to be sent up. It had not, as far as Kate could tell, been touched.
She covered her sister’s clasped hands with one of hers. “You haven’t a headache really, I think.”
Rose didn’t answer for a moment. Then she shook her head, eyes still on the window.
Kate pressed her hand, to show she would listen but wouldn’t demand that her sister talk.
Rose unclasped her hands and turned one palm up to lace her fingers with Kate’s. She blinked several times. “I hate to be so weak,” she said finally.
“You’re not. There’s no weakness in objecting to spiteful treatment.”
“Bea told you about the dancing lesson?” Her face showed no sign of surprise. She k
new better than to expect confidentiality from her sister.
Kate nodded. “Anyone would wish for a day away from that sort of nonsense every now and again.”
“You didn’t ever. Vi didn’t. Bea doesn’t. I’m the only one so cowardly.” She blinked harder and bit her lip.
“You’re not cowardly. You’re only not as hardheaded as the rest of us. That’s a virtue, not a fault. One day, when you meet the right sort of people, you’ll charm them more thoroughly than any of us could ever do.”
“I don’t know why they dislike us so.” She gave up staring at the window in favor of staring at a spot over Kate’s shoulder. “I’ve done nothing to offend them. I’ve been as pleasant as I can. And I know Mama and Papa’s marriage was irregular, but you’d think it had been a criminal offense. I’m sure a girl born out of wedlock, entirely ignorant of who is her father, could not be shunned any harder than Bea and I are.”
“I know, dear. It’s not fair or right or reasonable. But girls like that will always look for someone to shun, as a safeguard against being the one shunned. People secure in their own consequence aren’t so mean.” Her words felt trite and useless. Could she really offer no better consolation than these poor insights that Rose doubtless already knew?
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Viola put her head in the door. “Someone’s sent you a great bunch of flowers. Some gentleman from that party last night, I suppose. Do you want them brought to our room, or should they stay downstairs in the parlor?”
Kate’s heart leaped and then sank again. Only one man at the party would know where to send those flowers. Well, two men—but she knew better than to suppose they might have come from Mr. Blackshear.
And indeed when the maid Patsy brought them up in a vase—to Rose’s room, that they might have a cheering effect—tucked in among the rosebuds was Lord Barclay’s card. Kate would have welcomed flowers from any other gentleman with whom she’d danced or spoken last night. She would have taken them as a reprieve, a signal that she might still correct her course and make the sort of match she’d intended. But the baron’s roses loomed like an accusation, a reminder of all her missteps.
Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] Page 24
