A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5)

by Cecilia Grant

  Little wonder his body sat up and took notice of a sturdy-built girl like Lucy Sharp, now he came to think of it. When he did marry—and he would, whatever his trepidations, because the eldest son in a family of property had that duty—he’d want a wife of robust constitution, equipped to handle as well as any woman could the hazards and exertions of childbearing.

  Equipped, too, to meet and answer a man’s unrestrained passion. He wouldn’t like to feel he must always be careful of the fragile creature in his arms. His rather frequent daydreams of the marriage bed featured a partner who could take all the fruit of his years of pent-up hunger, and barely give him time to catch his breath before she asked for more.

  Andrew sighed, and stilled his fingers. At this rate he’d never be fit to show himself at breakfast.

  He could make himself presentable, of course, with two or three minutes’ indulgence. But he could scarcely imagine any act so ill becoming a gentleman as to pleasure himself in a guest-room bed while wearing his host’s nightshirt and conjuring lewd scenes involving his host’s daughter. Lord Sharp didn’t deserve that; his daughter didn’t deserve it; whoever was responsible for laundering the sheets didn’t deserve it.

  He threw back the covers, exposing himself to the December-morning chill, and swung his feet to the floor. The cold air and the unpleasantness of dressing in yesterday’s linen would surely drive out his lusts. Then he could venture down to breakfast, swig some coffee, thank Lord Sharp for the hospitality, secure the damned bird, and leave this place and its distractions behind him for good.

  * * *

  Miss Sharp beamed at him when he entered the breakfast room, not seeming to notice his limp cravat, unshaven jaw, or hair that wouldn’t lie properly. Neither must she be noticing the guilt that rolled fog-like off him into the surrounding air, as he caught sight of her and remembered, forcefully, certain images he’d dwelt upon while lying abed.

  The sooner he was out of here, the better for his self-respect. Four or five minutes of politeness and he’d go.

  “Ah, Mr. Blackshear, up with the cock-crow as I predicted.” Lord Sharp buttered a piece of toast with vigor as he spoke. “You see Lucy and I roused ourselves early so you wouldn’t have to face your eggs and tea in silence. And a good thing, as it happens, because what should I learn over my own tea but that Lucy finds herself in unfavorable waters, and you may perhaps be the one to fish her out.”

  “Indeed?” This didn’t sound good. He took an empty seat and reached for tea, since there was no coffee, inwardly bracing himself for whatever new breach of decency was to come.

  “I was to travel to a house party today at my aunt and uncle’s home.” She sat with her hands in her lap, not eating, her whole frame radiating hopeful determination. “Hatfield Hall, near the town of Welney. On the way to Cambridgeshire, really, or at least not far out of the way.”

  Oh, good Lord. Yes, she was dressed for traveling, now he noticed, in a practical-looking wool gown the color of wine. That sure must she be of securing his cooperation.

  “However, our John Coachman hurt his wrist yesterday, and cannot drive. And with my father busy today, and unable to convey me in the coachman’s stead, I feared I would have to give up the party.” She allowed a brief pause, almost as though she was expecting him to offer transport of his own accord, which he most certainly did not. “Then it occurred to me that your route might take you fairly near to my destination,” she went on, apparently undaunted by his silence. “And that, having traveled alone without baggage, you would have room to accommodate me and my maid and my trunk.” She stopped there, this time clearly awaiting his reply.

  Andrew shot a glance to Lord Sharp, but the baron continued spreading butter on his toast, for all the world as though his daughter had not just broached a scheme of grossest impropriety.

  He oughtn’t to be surprised, by now. Clearly the only person in this room with the slightest notion of decorum was himself. “I’m sorry, Miss Sharp.” He met her gaze unblinking. “I’m afraid I am unable to render you that service.”

  “Why?” She tilted her head, as blunt and guileless as a five-year-old who’d been denied a sweetmeat, and every bit as untroubled by manners.

  He could snuff the argument by saying his path home went to the north, rather than anywhere near Welney. She wasn’t likely to have an answer for that.

  But it wasn’t the truth, and even if it had been, it wasn’t the reason for his not wishing to convey her. She’d addressed him with bluntness; she could have bluntness in return. He paused for a mouthful of tea, and set his cup neatly in its saucer. “Because to do so would be improper.” He articulated the words with a schoolmaster’s precision, and perhaps with a fine edge of reprimand too.

  “Now there is the sort of answer that always calls for clarification.” Lord Sharp sawed at his toast, cutting it into strips even as he directed his attention to Andrew. “I grant many people would agree with your assessment, and yet we must ask ourselves from whence arises the perceived impropriety.”

  A muscle twitched at the corner of his eye. This house and these people were going to do permanent damage to his equanimity. “A young lady oughtn’t to spend time alone with a gentleman not related to her.” God above, did he really need to spell this out? “That, I believe, is where the perception of impropriety arises.”

  “But we wouldn’t be alone.” She was remarkably peremptory, for a lady asking a favor. “My maid would be with us, and so would your coachman.”

  “Neither of those persons qualifies as a chaperone.”

  “And why should a chaperone be needed?” The baron, his toast all arranged to suit him, now took hold of his egg-cup and began tapping round the shell of his egg. “I don’t mean to defy you, Mr. Blackshear; only to examine your assumptions, and perhaps encourage you to examine them yourself. Beyond the rote adherence to society’s generally agreed-upon rules, what would we hope to accomplish by having a chaperone in this scenario?”

  Of all the damnable presumption. Rote adherence to society’s rules, indeed. Encourage you to examine your assumptions, indeed. He made a small adjustment to his teacup, moving the handle from three o’clock to two o’clock in relation to the saucer, because he needed the time to wrestle down a truly injudicious retort. “To be blunter than I’d like, the presence of a chaperone greatly reduces the possibility of any indecency occurring between the lady and the gentleman.”

  “In cases where there is a risk of such indecency, I’ll agree a chaperone serves a purpose.” Sharp lifted off the top of his eggshell and set it on a nearby dish. “But don’t we do a disservice to gentlemen with the assumption that every one of them would necessarily take advantage of a lady if he were left alone with her?”

  “We wouldn’t be alone, Papa.” A single line of concern had appeared across Miss Sharp’s forehead: no doubt she could sense the discussion sliding off its path.

  “Quite right, dear; I’ve progressed to the theoretical now. The point remains the same, though: there’s a sort of laziness, isn’t there, in these rules of propriety? When we apply the same restrictions to every case of a lady and gentleman interacting, it spares us the effort of evaluating the lady and gentleman in the case at hand, and deciding, based upon that particular case and those particular individuals, whether there truly is any risk.”

  “But you cannot know.” To the equation of propriety with laziness, Andrew wouldn’t even bother to reply. Outrage on his own behalf was beginning to subside, and in its place swelled a general apprehension for the welfare of Miss Sharp, growing up under such negligent tutelage. “So many ladies have fallen into disaster precisely because they took that evaluation and that decision into their own hands, and wrongly judged a man to be honorable. It’s much more prudent to avoid that sort of risk altogether.”

  The baron smiled at him as though he were telling a fine joke. “You must realize, Mr. Blackshear, that the more passionately you argue your case, the more you convince me of how perfectly safe Lucy would
be in your company.”

  Good God. What utterly perverse world had he wandered into? Five minutes more of this argument, and his brain would boil itself in his skull. “That’s dangerously naïve reasoning, if you’ll forgive my saying so. A man with sinister intentions would surely argue as I have, in order to convince you to release your daughter into his clutches. Can you not see that?”

  “Well, now we’re getting a bit melodramatic, I think.” Sharp dipped up a spoonful of his egg. “The actions of a man with sinister intentions can only be relevant to this discussion if you, yourself, harbor those intentions. Do you?”

  “Of course not!” He’d been wrong. Two more minutes and he’d have a skullful of useless brain-pudding. “But the entire point is that you can’t judge a man’s trustworthiness by what he says, where he has an incentive to deceive you.”

  “No, the entire point is that I need transport to Hatfield Hall.” Miss Sharp’s voice betrayed a trickle of impatience. “And if Mr. Blackshear’s intentions are so sinister that the presence of my maid will not dissuade him, then I doubt the presence of a chaperone would make any difference. So I don’t see why the absence of a chaperone should present such an obstacle.”

  “Excellent reasoning, Lucy.” Her father commended her with a little nod, and looked to Andrew for an answer.

  He had answers. He could speak for half an hour about the intrinsic value of propriety, and what was to be gained by following society’s dictates even when there was no ostensible need to do so. He might make a lecture on how a lady must be mindful of her reputation in everything she did, since Lord Sharp appeared to have omitted any teachings on that subject.

  But none of that made any difference, in the end. He decided who did and did not ride in his carriage, and he needn’t justify that decision to anyone.

  “I’m terribly sorry, as I said, Miss Sharp.” He picked up his tea. “But I simply will not be able to convey you to your party.”

  She eyed him with a fortune-teller’s intensity as he drank his tea, and he felt an inexplicable certainty that she was thinking of how he had offered her a place in his carriage, against every dictate of propriety, when they’d first encountered one another in the yew-tree road.

  Did she mean to expose him now as a hypocrite? Well, let her. He’d made his decision and he would not be moved.

  She moved, though, all of a sudden. She’d sat with her hands in her lap all through the discussion; now she came to life and reached for a slice of toast and the marmalade pot. “Never mind.” She spared him one last glance before turning a smile on her father. “There’s a customer coming from somewhere to the south this afternoon, isn’t there? Perhaps he will be willing to drive me to Hatfield Hall.”

  “Have you ever been to a Christmas house party, Mr. Blackshear?” She ought really to leave him alone. Everything in his face and posture—arms folded, body crowded into the farthest corner of his seat, head angled to fill his vision with the passing countryside instead of the unwanted passengers who journeyed with him—acted as a rebuff to conversation.

  But she’d made all the conversation she could already with Perkins, who was plainly shy of speaking in Mr. Blackshear’s forbidding presence. And she couldn’t sit silent for the length of this drive, not when it felt as though the entire world lay open before her, possibility after possibility bursting into bloom as they moved steadily farther from Mosscroft.

  “I have not,” Mr. Blackshear answered, still twisted to face the window. Then, perhaps regretting the curtness of his reply—he did seem to pride himself on proper manners—he cleared his throat and relaxed his posture slightly, turning his head enough to bring her into at least his peripheral line of sight. “It’s been my habit to spend holidays at home, with my brothers and sisters.”

  “You have others, then, besides the sister who’s marrying? Are you the eldest?” Here might be the way to improve his spirits: by speaking of his family and thereby reminding him that, whatever inconvenience his passengers represented, he was on his way home, his happy domestic Christmastide drawing nearer by the minute.

  “I am.” He gave a nod, and hesitated for only a second this time before continuing. “Kitty, the one who’s marrying, is the eldest after me. Martha is the youngest at fifteen. And I have two brothers, both between the sisters in years.”

  “They sound like a perfectly delightful family.”

  He looked directly at her, and for the first time in the hour they’d been on the road, a glimmer of good humor lit his eyes. “You’re very generous in your appraisal. Oughtn’t you to require more evidence than an approximate range of ages, an enumeration of boys and girls, and two Christian names, before your pronounce the lot delightful? To say nothing of perfectly delightful.”

  It was the closest thing to friendliness he’d shown her since he’d last shown his dimple, yesterday in the falcon mews. Surely she was on the right path with this topic. “I suppose I do have a generous definition of delightful, where siblings are concerned. Growing up without any of my own, I’m prepared to find all brothers and sisters charming until they force me to find them otherwise. But in this case I contend I do have evidence.”

  “Do you?” He arched one eyebrow, arms still crossed, and looked rather like a strict tutor, despite his unshaven jaw and the slight dishevelment of his cravat. A thought flitted by: if she and Perkins were not here, he might have sprawled on the bench, stretching out his long legs—maybe even propping a boot on the opposite seat—instead of folding and cramming himself into that corner. He would have looked like a triumphant highwayman, or perhaps a pirate come ashore. Some dashing disreputable sort, too busy with dashing disreputable doings to shave or starch his linen.

  But that wasn’t pertinent to the point at hand.

  “Indeed, your manner is my evidence.” She tilted her chin, to answer the arched eyebrow. “Not only did thoughts of your family inspire you to a comparatively lengthy discourse, but you spoke with greater animation than you have on any other topic this past hour.”

  His mouth twisted. Not quite a smile. No appearance by the dimple. Probably he was biting back some remark about having good reason to be out of sorts; excellent reason to decline conversation with a passenger who’d played one unscrupulous trick after the next upon him and cost him part of his Christmas Eve. He dropped his gaze to the carriage floor, somewhere between his feet and hers, and then raised it to the window once more. “I don’t claim to be an expert in these matters,” he said sidelong, “but I cannot think such evidence would have passed muster with Mr. Hume and his set.”

  “No, I’m sure it wouldn’t. By empirical standards, I don’t suppose I can really know anything at all about your family. Even what you tell me could be a fabrication.”

  “It isn’t.” He met her eyes again. “I’ve listed all my siblings, save one who died in infancy and several lost at or before birth. And empirical or not, your surmise was correct. My family is, if not outright delightful, at least every bit as agreeable as a set of brothers and sisters ought to be.”

  “Ah.” Never having siblings, she must remember, meant never having to endure the loss of one. She was lucky in that way. “I’m sorry.” It seemed such an insubstantial thing to say in the face of his family’s misfortune, but no better words came to her.

  “No need. I took no offense.” He glanced away to the opposite window, the one out which Perkins was directing her resolute attention.

  “Sorry for your loss, I mean. For the little brothers and sisters who didn’t grow up. And the loss of your parents as well? You made no mention of them.”

  He shook his head, scowling at the passing scenery. “My family is hardly unique in having lost children, or lost their mother. My father is still living, but hasn’t the sort of temperament that would lend itself to holiday merry-making, which I believe is where this discussion began. Or, no.” He looked at her, still with a dent or two between his brows. “You began by asking if I’d been to a Christmas house party. Will this be
your first?”

  He’d shut the door on the subject of loss, thrown all the bolts, and shoved a heavy table up against it for good measure.

  Well, he had every right to do so. She wasn’t his confidante, but a stranger, and a troublesome stranger at that, not to mention that within a few hours he’d leave her at Hatfield Hall and not see her again.

  “In fact this will be my first house party of any sort.” She would show him she was civilized enough to respect a shut door. “I had hoped you might give me some idea of what to expect.”

  The carriage hit a rut and she grabbed for the strap, as did Perkins at her right. Mr. Blackshear, by contrast, braced a hand on the ceiling, looking so at ease with his environs, with rough travel, with his person and its propensity to take up space, that she could not help thinking again of a pirate or highwayman, and she could not glance away from him quite as soon as would have been perfectly decorous.

  “I believe I know enough of house parties, and enough of Christmastide celebration, to be of some assistance.” He was the one to avert his eyes, and in fact to dart a quick look at where Perkins sat, as if to remind Lucy of the need for utmost propriety when servants were present. “To begin with, Miss Sharp, I believe you will be expected to go to church.”

  * * *

  She wasn’t so very bad, really. At least not as bad as he’d first thought.

  Certainly he couldn’t condone the bald machination by which she’d secured her place in his carriage—even now he wasn’t sure whether she truly would have applied to this possibly mythical customer-from-somewhere-south for transport, but he couldn’t take the chance, and she’d known that very well, and manipulated him accordingly. There was nothing to approve in that.