Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03]

by A Woman Entangled

  As Will led the way upstairs, Nick made a quick, discreet survey of the surroundings. He’d never had cause to call on anyone in the Hans Town neighborhood before, and hadn’t known what sort of house to expect. Modest described it fairly well. The stairs, from what he could see, were in good repair, and the wallpaper was bright and not peeling. No signs of squalor; nothing dingy; but the house was undeniably small and the serving staff must have been minimal, if none of them counted it among his duties to answer the door.

  You could never bring Kate Westbrook here. God, the impudence of his unbidden thoughts! He wasn’t intending to bring her anywhere, and besides, who was he to make that judgment? Cathcart was a viscount; Martha was the wife of a baronet’s heir, and neither of them turned up their noses at visiting this house. After everything he’d seen of Miss Westbrook in recent days, could he really think her so superficial by comparison?

  He followed his brother round the landing and along the hall to the first of two doorways, which opened on to a drawing room. There, side by side on the sofa, sat his grave-faced younger sister and the forbidding Mrs. Blackshear. “Lydia,” Will said, advancing into the room. “Allow me to present my brother Nicholas. Nick, this is my wife, Lydia Blackshear.”

  He nodded, and Mrs. Blackshear nodded back. Her face showed nothing—he was used to that after two meetings—but an invisible thread of understanding ran between them. He wouldn’t be here now if she hadn’t shown up on the bench in Brick Court yesterday morning with a slip of paper and a roundabout encouragement.

  “Nick, it’s so good to see you.” Martha struggled, still, with social niceties, but she did attempt them with some spirit. “I hope you won’t use up all your conversation on Will while I’m out of the room. Mrs. Blackshear and I were just preparing to go upstairs, that she could show me her new gown.”

  “Indeed.” Will’s wife rose, with Martha a hair behind. “You’ll excuse us, I hope. I’ve been waiting some time to show Mrs. Mirkwood this gown.” The two filed out, Martha pausing to grasp Nick’s hand and fix him with a look of fervent feeling, briefly, before snatching back her hand and hurrying flush-faced from the room.

  He oughtn’t to laugh at his sister, certainly not at a show of heartfelt emotion when for too many years she’d been stolid to a fault. And indeed it seemed at first that he would successfully suppress the laugh, even though the idea of Martha eager to see anyone’s new gown had a layer of absurdity all its own.

  But he happened to cross glances with Will, who likewise was fighting a tide of laughter, lips pressed together, eyes glittering with hilarity, and all at once they might as well have been eight and ten years old again, side by side in the church pew and jabbing one another whenever Reverend Roberts uttered any word that could be tenuously associated with a bodily function.

  He laughed. Not out loud; their sister deserved better than to overhear and feel mocked, even affectionately. Everything was so ridiculous, though—his and Mrs. Blackshear’s stifled animosity, the clumsy maneuvering that had left him and Will alone, his very presence here in the first place—that he needed the relief of collapsing onto the now-vacant sofa and giving vent to his mirth.

  Will laughed, too, sinking into a chair at right angles to the sofa and burying his face in his hands. For nearly a minute they gave themselves up to silent merriment, and by the end of that minute much of the awkwardness between them had simply evaporated. The habits of over twenty years, it turned out, could trump the habits of the last nine or ten months.

  Will wiped his eyes, and nodded toward where the women had gone. “She hasn’t got any new gown, you know.”

  “I suspected as much.” Nick sat back, relaxing a little into the sofa’s corner. He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “I don’t think she likes me.”

  “No?” His brother grinned, smug in the knowledge of his wife’s fierce affection. “Well, she didn’t like me either at first. So I wouldn’t give up hope yet.” He looked so comfortable here in this too-small drawing room, settled into circumstances much humbler than those in which he’d grown up. “In the meantime you can console yourself with Martha’s surfeit of sisterly affection.”

  “That damnable Mirkwood; he’s gone and altered her almost beyond recognition.” This wasn’t really true, but he wanted to speak strongly about something, and the man who’d debauched his little sister into marriage was as good a target as any. “You weren’t here during her first marriage, but she was every bit the sobersides she’d always been. Only when this fellow came along did she start doing unaccountable things, and behaving in the way you see now.”

  “I don’t fault her for it, or fault her husband either. Love makes us all do unaccountable things.” Will leaned back and crossed his ankle over the opposite knee. “I’m nothing if not evidence of that fact, and I expect one day you’ll learn it by your own experience.”

  Nick might have made any number of replies. A jibe, for example, taking aim at younger brothers who presumed to lecture to their elders about experience. More abuse heaped on Mr. Mirkwood. A swift change of subject.

  None of them came to hand. With the tremendously unaccountable act of this morning on his conscience, and a confusion of sentiments that might, under close examination, parse themselves out to something like love, he could only sit silent.

  “Ah.” Will propped his elbows on the arms of his chair, and steepled his fingers. “I wondered if something had happened, to prompt this visit. Will she have you, or do your connections make too great an impediment?” His brows lowered in worry. He’d apologized, the day he’d announced his decision, for the cost he’d known the rest of the Blackshears would bear.

  “It’s not even …” Nick waved a hand vaguely. “I hadn’t any intention of asking her. It’s not the sort of …” What the devil was he trying to say? He let his hand fall. “It’s all confoundedly complicated.”

  “Isn’t it always?” His brother studied him a moment, features etched with wry sympathy. “You’d better tell me the whole story. What’s her name, and where did you meet?”

  So he told the story, feeling more than a little selfish and ungracious as he did. He ought to be spending this call in asking how Will got on, or perhaps in speaking directly about their estrangement and whether they might come to be friendly again. He oughtn’t to be violating Kate’s privacy by recounting, even in the most nonspecific terms, what had happened between them.

  He couldn’t help himself. The words spilled from him like water from an overturned jug. Who else was he to tell, after all? He wasn’t on confiding terms with any of his associates or friends, and as to family, he couldn’t possibly discuss such matters either with his sisters or with upright, unfailingly correct Andrew.

  Will, though. His younger brother had some acquaintance with human frailty, and felt no need to register his dismay or disapproval, instead proceeding straight to practical questions. Was there any chance he’d gotten her with a child? Might she come to regret the act, once the fog of grief had lifted? Might she tell her parents? Did his income even permit him to marry?

  The realization arrived somewhere in the middle of this unsentimental sorting through of facts and possibilities. Not like a lightning bolt illuminating what had been a pitch-dark room; more like a gradual thaw that wiped the frost from a window, so the objects on which he’d been looking out all along took on a clarity that had not been there before.

  He had to ask her to marry him. Not because there might be a child—having taken the usual precaution, he was fairly sure there wouldn’t be—nor out of guilt for having ruined her, or fear of her parents’ wrath. Not even because of the same heady infatuation that had informed all his hopes three years before.

  He had to ask because he could not bear to picture her sinking her head on another man’s shoulder to confess all her self-doubts. He couldn’t bear to imagine a time when she’d make only polite conversation with him because teasing and sparring with a gentleman ill became a lady who was someone else’s wife. He c
ouldn’t bear to let some other man be the one to hear her hopes and ambitions, her victories and her setbacks. And he couldn’t bear to tell his own to any woman but her. “We don’t suit one another at all, though. We could scarcely be more ill-matched.” He hadn’t meant to speak the words aloud, yet there they were.

  “That hasn’t stopped you being friends.” Will made the observation quietly, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.

  “No, it hasn’t.” Without protest he’d watched her walk away this morning because he wanted her happiness above all. When he ought to have asked her outright if there was any chance her happiness could trace its path through him. “In spite of all our unsuitability we’ve managed to be friends.” So maybe …

  Of course it wasn’t that simple. His precarious income, even supplemented with what he might draw out of his savings, wouldn’t stretch to silk gowns and linen-fiber paper. His connections would moor her in a level of society far from the one to which she’d aspired.

  But he’d asked what she intended to do, and she hadn’t said, I hope for an offer from Lord Barclay, or, I’ll marry the first man of noble name who wants me. She’d leaned her head on his shoulder and wished things could be different.

  Things could be different. Some things could. He and she, chiefly, could resolve to be different. They could allow some alteration to their respective long-held plans. They could put their faith in each other and go forward.

  “You’re contented here, Will, aren’t you?” He gestured around the drawing room. “Your wife as well? You find these quarters sufficient, and you don’t mind that you’re not received anywhere?”

  “I won’t lie. I feel your absence from my life, and our elder brother’s and sister’s absences, too. And I continue to regret that my marriage has brought difficulty to you.” Will frowned at his fingers, drumming once more on the chair’s arm, and stilled them. “I don’t regret anything else, but neither would I recommend this life except in extraordinary cases. Lydia and I … have both had such experience as prepared us to appreciate a small house and a few friends. The sacrifice would be greater, I expect, for someone who was not so prepared.”

  It wouldn’t be easy, he meant. Prudent, in that case, to choose a bride who didn’t limit herself to easy undertakings.

  Besides, their circumstances needn’t be quite this modest. He did have some money. If he drew out of his savings he could manage a reasonable house, well staffed. He must push the possibility of buying land a few years further off, but he could do that. He knew how to be patient. Very, very good things did come sometimes to people who were willing to wait.

  He grinned. He probably looked like a royal idiot. Probably sounded like one, too, with this report of his doings and the hints of his injudicious hopes. No, worse than an idiot, he probably sounded like a scoundrel and a colossal hypocrite, ruining an innocent and confiding the fact to the man he’d high-handedly cut off as a too-scandalous connection.

  But there Will sat, watching him with a grave crease in his brow, every bit as concerned for his welfare as he’d have been if they’d remained friendly all these months.

  Nick stretched his legs out before him and rubbed his hands through his hair. One day, when he felt their connection was sufficiently repaired, he’d ask what sort of experiences had prepared his brother to bear these reduced circumstances. Perhaps he’d even be on such terms with Will’s wife as to learn her history, too.

  For now he just went on grinning, satisfied down to his bones with the decision to come here today. “Christ, I’m glad you didn’t die in that duel,” he said.

  He’d been waiting a long time to say so.

  BY THE end of his visit Nick had managed a bit of cordiality with Mrs. Blackshear, on the subject of budgeting for a house and staff, and that was enough to go on with. Their relations might gradually improve.

  One hurdle remained, before he could address himself to Kate, and it was no small one. But the visit to Will and his wife had given him practice in speaking frankly and confessing his wrongs, so the next morning, when he went to call on Lord Barclay at his home in Charles Street, he was as ready as he could be.

  “I was wrong in not being honest with you from the start.” He sat across the desk from the baron, in a dark-paneled study with a bay window through which sunlight streamed, and did his best to keep from picturing what it would be like to work in this pleasant space. Sorting through correspondence. Researching any measures currently under discussion in Parliament, and preparing summaries for Barclay’s use. “I wanted this opportunity, and any subsequent opportunities, very much. And so I balked at telling you what you had a right to know, and were all but certain to find out sooner or later by other means. I don’t attempt to defend my lack of candor; only to explain the process of thought that lay behind it.”

  Barclay nodded. “That accounts for what Lord Littleton said to you at the Cathcarts’ ball. I did notice, and wonder.” He’d been reading through some documents when Nick was announced. They lay scattered across his desktop, fairly crying out for the strong organizing hand of a secretary.

  “To be sure. I apologize for putting you in that position. You oughtn’t to have had to hear rumors from someone else.” He took a breath. “And I may as well tell you now that I called on my brother yesterday, and intend to acknowledge him henceforward.”

  The baron rubbed his knuckles along his jaw, studying Nick with a thoughtful expression. “You must know that will make your political ambitions more difficult to realize.”

  “They would have been difficult already.” He lifted one shoulder. Really, he was almost at peace with this. “I disowned Will when he announced his intention to marry, and I find I might as well have continued to know him, for all the good it’s done me. I don’t get nearly the work from solicitors that I used to. Nor do I receive social invitations, beyond a very few. I expect it will be more difficult to advance if I own the connection, yes. But not so much more difficult as to dissuade me.”

  Barclay studied him in silence for a moment. “I’d make a poor example of integrity, wouldn’t I, if I ended our partnership because of this connection and meanwhile represented myself as an advocate for returned soldiers?”

  “Perhaps. But you could also end it because you object to my having turned my back—those were your words, I recall—on one of the men whose welfare you particularly champion. Or you could judge there to have been too much deception for you to retain trust in me.”

  A grin cracked across the baron’s features. “A barrister through and through, aren’t you? I advise you to stop before you come across a reason that compels me.”

  Hope, his constant loitering companion of late, was quick to parse the sentence: Barclay had not yet heard a reason that would compel him to terminate their arrangement.

  “The truth is, Blackshear, I don’t pay enough attention to these things to be much concerned. Your name wasn’t known to me the way it was to Littleton, recall. And I can’t imagine that studying speech with a gentleman whose brother married a woman of poor reputation will really put a blight on my own name. Even a secretary whose brother married such a woman seems unlikely to do damage to my respectability.” He paused for a breath, filling his lungs all the way to the bottom as Mrs. Westbrook had taught him. “But I’ll require candor, henceforward, particularly if I’m to consider you for the secretary post. I’ll rely on the man in that position to be honest with me, and never shrink from telling me what he suspects I won’t like to hear.”

  And there was a cue if ever Nick had heard one. He sat straighter and took a prodigious breath of his own. “In the interest of honesty, then, I must correct an impression I’ve given you on another matter. Regarding Miss Westbrook.” The safer course of action would have been to speak to Kate first, because, depending on her answer, he might have had nothing, after all, to confess to the baron.

  On this matter, though, he’d lost all taste for safety. “I fear I misled you as to the nature of my feelings for her. I
n my defense, I can only say I misled myself as well.” His heart beat like a resolute church bell as he put all his ambitions at risk one more time. “We’re friends, as I told you. That much is true. But I’ve realized very recently that I’ve been in love with her for quite some time.”

  ONCE BEFORE, Mr. Blackshear had come calling with flowers. She couldn’t regret that she’d rejected him that day. She could certainly wish she’d been more graceful in how she went about it, and less injurious to his pride. He had recovered, though, and they’d gone on to enjoy three years of coming to know each other, to esteem and appreciate each other, in that rare freedom conferred by the absence of weighty hopes and expectations.

  No, she would never regret that she hadn’t encouraged him then. Because here he was now, stepping into the drawing room with an elegant arrangement of lilies and carnations, and even if the flowers proved to not be for her, she could appreciate them as an expression of substantial, abiding regard rather than the impulse of a young man’s fancy for a pretty girl.

  “Blackshear.” Papa rose from his place by the hearth and went to meet him. “I’m glad you called. I’ve been wanting to express my thanks for all you did, two nights ago.”

  Mr. Blackshear bowed his head. “I’m sorry for your loss. I heard the news, and wished to extend my condolences in person.”

  The flowers weren’t for her, of course. She’d known it was unlikely they would be, and still she could not help a pooling sense of disappointment as the bouquet went from Mr. Blackshear’s hands to Papa’s, and then to Mama’s.

  “Sit down, please.” Mama spoke over her shoulder, already on her way to the bellpull. “I’ll ring for tea. Shall I have cake sent up as well?”

  “Please don’t go to that trouble. I haven’t any need of tea.” His gaze settled on her, not on Mama, as he spoke, and her pulse began pounding with the force of a brawny housemaid cleaning a rug even before he said his next words. “I do, however, have need of a private interview with Miss Westbrook, if you’ll grant me permission.”