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

by Cecilia Grant

  “Have you arranged how you’ll get home from Hatfield Hall?” He couldn’t help it. He needed the details in order to imagine her safe trip. “Will your father be driving down to fetch you?”

  “Perhaps.” Her shoe-soles rasped over the wagon bed as she drew her feet back to tuck them under the board on which she and he sat. “My aunt and uncle might send me with their driver. Or perhaps our own coachman’s wrist will have healed by then. One way or another I’ll manage.”

  What if I were to come back to Hatfield Hall and drive you home? Only for a second or two was he tempted to voice the thought aloud. They’d be lucky to escape arousing her aunt and uncle’s suspicions when he delivered her to their home—a return appearance would be pushing that luck beyond any reasonable limit.

  Besides, her arrangements for returning to Mosscroft were her concern, not his. There might be a bit too much of perhaps and one way or another in it for his taste, but if that style of doing things suited her, that was the end of it. He could keep his opinions to himself and speak of other things.

  “You’ll be glad to finally reach your destination too, I imagine.” He took his hand from her waist to adjust their lap rug, which had slid out of place when she’d moved her feet. “To enjoy holiday pursuits with genteel young people, and to be called by your right name again.”

  “Oh, to be sure. I’d looked forward to this party for a great long while.” Her hand brushed past his as she, too, caught hold of the rug and helped him tug it back into place. She said nothing further of the party or any other subject.

  He did well, though, to remind himself of her plans and what they meant to her. She’d never been to a house party, nor apparently even to a ball. How could he have expected her to bind herself in a betrothal when she had so little experience of the world? How could she have known whether she was making a good choice? If he’d only met her a little later, after she’d had a chance to meet and dance and flirt idly with a variety of men, and to form some opinions as to what qualities—

  But he hadn’t. He’d met her too early, and there was nothing to do about it but to stand aside and let her go, and console himself with knowing that at least he’d acted honorably in the end.

  Her bonnet angled upward as she tilted her chin for a view of the sky. “I think I’ll take the falcon out to hunt when we’ve reached the Porters’ house. He might be a bit disoriented, in strange country after an eventful day of travel, but I think it will be better than leaving him shut in the barn.”

  Lord, the falcon. The reason he’d first undertaken this journey; the reason all this had come about. The only thing he’d have to show, in the end, for three days when everything in his life had turned upside-down. “I’ll come with you. If you don’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” she said, and they lapsed back into silence. And for all his diligent reasoning of the last few minutes, again he was left to wonder: how in the name of Heaven had he come to this point where he could sit so close and comfortable at her side, and talk of small things, and later sleep beside her, and know all the while that tomorrow she would slip through his fingers and out of his life forever?

  * * *

  Mr. Blackshear stood at a fastidious distance, arms folded, frowning at the falcon. You’d never guess he’d hand-fed it scraps of meat. Altogether he looked very much as he had in the mews at Mosscroft, when he’d been so stern and disgruntled over being left in her company without a chaperone.

  That had been the day before yesterday. It felt like half a lifetime ago.

  “Will the things it preys on even be out, with snow on the ground? Surely they’ll all be huddled into their burrows or nests.” She had to smile, privately, at the concern in his voice. Despite his frown, and his distance, and his look of disapproval, he’d invested himself in the bird’s well-being, just as he invested in anything or anyone whose welfare came even briefly into his keeping.

  “Well, the prey have to come out in search of food too, remember.” She pulled on the glove, coaxing the falcon onto her wrist. “And even if the hunt is unsuccessful, the bird knows he can come back here and dine on meat from a paper parcel.” She delivered the last few words over her shoulder, with a significant glance.

  “On the contrary, it won’t have any more such coddling from me. Particularly now that I know it was dreaming all the while of crunching bones and feathers, the ingrate.” He got to the door ahead of her and held it open like a courtier, waiting for her and the falcon to pass.

  That they could joke together so, and enjoy one another’s teasing, signified little. Many, many pairings of people in the world might find themselves compatible for the length of a light-hearted conversation. It was a different thing altogether from being compatible for the length—and breadth, and depth—of a marriage.

  Outside, the falcon shifted its place on her wrist, half unfolding its wings for balance. It looked about intently. It knew what followed, when a person tied it to her wrist and took it out of doors.

  Mr. Blackshear walked a half-step behind, following her lead, as she started for a slight rise that would give the bird its best view and be easy to find again from high in the air.

  Even though the yard was all crisscrossed with footprints from the men’s chores this morning, the snow still lay deep enough here and there that she had to hold up her skirts with one hand to avoid soaking her hem. She’d changed into one of her plainer gowns on arriving back at the Porters’ house—she couldn’t risk the yellow silk, with dances and formal dinners at Hatfield Hall still ahead—and felt a bit like a girl in a fairy-tale bidding goodbye to her finery when the enchanted part of her adventure was done.

  That was silly. The enchanted part—the part with warm rooms, and gleaming plates and forks, and elegant conversation with elegant people—still lay ahead.

  “I haven’t asked you whether you enjoy this.” His voice called her attention back from fairy-tales and finery. He gestured to the bird. “Falconry, I mean. Do you like hunting, or do you merely work with the birds because your father does?”

  “Well… the latter, I suppose. My chief satisfaction is in knowing I’m helpful to Papa.” Though she felt a bit disloyal to him now, confessing a lack of enthusiasm for his pastime. “I don’t mean to say the birds aren’t interesting. It’s only that I don’t find them significantly more interesting than many other things.”

  “What things, for example? What are the pursuits in which you most like to spend your time?”

  She angled her face farther from his view, and blinked against a sudden stinging in her eyes. This was the sort of conversation two people ought to have in the beginning, in the tentative, painstakingly polite days of their unfolding acquaintance. These were the sorts of things a gentleman ought to know about a lady long before he made her an offer of marriage. Long, long before they lay down in the same bed.

  They’d done everything all mixed-up and backwards. His tongue knew the texture of her inner lip but he didn’t know what were her favorite ways to pass an afternoon.

  “I think I’m finding out, still, what are my favorite pursuits. Maybe the finding-out is what I like best.” Since she’d angled away from him, she directed this explanation to the bird, who received it with a sharp-eyed skeptical look. “I like finding out about people, for instance. So many different kinds of people come to buy birds. It gives me a glimpse into different lives. I enjoy that.”

  She must sound painfully provincial to a man who’d been to university and made his home in London. Though maybe he wouldn’t have minded provincial if it came in the form of country piety. Oh, I like to read improving tracts and distribute the best ones to the tenants. I call on the vicar and we discuss how to encourage everyone into greater moral rectitude. He probably wanted a wife who would set the example in church attendance and organize Sunday school and Scripture-study meetings and the like.

  Well, she could have done that. She would probably have done more listening than speaking in the Scripture study, but she
liked listening. In fact she’d rather listen to what the tenant families had to say of their faith than presume to hand out improving tracts, and—

  And it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to be his wife. How could she have been? Papa, you’re to have a son-in-law. No, it happened before I even reached the house party. I threw myself at the first man who caught my fancy, and I was compromised, and now we’re to be married and we expect to be very happy. The nearer they got to rejoining their regular worlds, the more the impossibility of it all pressed in on her.

  She shook off the thoughts as she arrived at her chosen clearing, and pivoted briskly to face him. “What of you? What pursuits do you enjoy?”

  He shrugged, and dropped his gaze to the ground between his feet and hers. “An eldest son has so many occupations assigned to him. I suppose I enjoy doing the things that are my duty.” He left a brief pause after the word duty, and furrowed his brow, and she felt sorry for having suggested it was a poor principle by which to navigate. “Maintaining good relations with my father’s tenants, that sort of thing. Keeping up a respectable name and forging connections in London society, that my sisters may make advantageous marriages and my brothers may thrive in their eventual professions. I’ll have several such meetings and engagements to attend as soon as I’m back in Town.” He’d been dragging one boot sideways through the snow as he spoke, and plowed up a small drift.

  “That all sounds very admirable.”

  “You mean it sounds very dull.” He smiled down at the toe of his boot.

  “No. I mean it sounds admirable.” Before he could meet her eyes she began a slow turn, arm extended, that the falcon could see all its surroundings and remember them for finding its way back. In the distance stood a dark grove of trees, maybe the ones from which Mr. Blackshear had got his boughs and holly. A few more degrees round the circle came the road that had brought them here, and on which they’d depart tomorrow. A little farther round, and there was the house, with firewood stacked high along the wall by the kitchen door.

  “Take note of everything, now. You’ll need to fly back to this spot. Only the once, though. Tomorrow you’ll learn different surroundings.” She spoke for her own benefit. Birds paid no attention to anything anyone had to say.

  She, though, would remember every detail of her short stay at the Porters’ farm. Of the curious, tangential chapter in her life when for two nights and the days at either side she’d been the Honorable Mrs. Blackshear.

  Three more steps of rotation brought him into view again, her husband of circumstance. He’d given up driving his boot through the snow and stood perfectly still, hands in pockets, watching her with an intensity he made no attempt to disguise. Storing up her picture, as she’d stored up every element of the landscape, for later remembrance.

  She couldn’t look away. His dark-eyed gaze settled finally on her face, and all she could think of was how it had felt to kiss him. How well his arms had fit about her, how skillfully his palms had skated over her gown, how he’d held back in the beginning, waiting to be sure of her response.

  “Lucy.” His voice vibrated with an ocean’s worth of yearning, and also with the steadfast good sense on which that yearning battered itself. He was going to say something irreversible, and she didn’t know how or even whether to stop him. “Lucy, no matter how I—”

  The creak and wooden thump of the kitchen door interrupted whatever he’d meant to say. She stepped back hastily, though they hadn’t been very close, and turned away from him to face the house.

  Mr. and Mrs. Porter emerged from the kitchen and made their way through the yard, with all the visible contentment of two people who’d known each other before either one was old enough to even dream of marriage. Lucy busied herself with soothing the falcon, who had been waiting a long time to fly and was understandably affronted at her wandering attention. Her face felt ridiculously warm.

  “We thought we’d come and get a look at this, since we’ve neither of us ever seen it before,” Mr. Porter explained when they drew near. “I expect that fellow is happy to be out of the barn.”

  “I don’t know that they’re ever happy, precisely. But they’re made to fly and hunt, so it’s best they do that as often as they can.” The fingers of her free hand stumbled as she worked to unfasten the bird’s jesses. Mr. Blackshear stepped forward and took the task over. Every inch of her body felt his nearness.

  “What makes them come back?” Mrs. Porter stood close at her husband’s side, her arm twined with his, studying the bird in all its novelty. “Once you’ve untied one, why doesn’t it just fly away?”

  “Sometimes they do.” She took a breath, steadying her attention on the question she’d been asked. “You try to teach them they can count on you for food and shelter and bathing water, and that they’re better off staying than flying away. But once they’re off the tether, you haven’t any assurances. You train them well as you can, and the rest is up to them.”

  “Your father says you must choose the right bird to begin with.” Mr. Blackshear didn’t look up as he said this. He was nearly done with the fastenings. “Like a marriage, he says. If you don’t match well, there’s no hope.”

  “Papa is fond of saying such things. I’m sure he must know more about it than I.” Speaking of falconry, and of Papa, made her calmer. These were familiar subjects. She could speak on them even with Mr. Blackshear mere inches away. “I never noticed any bird to be more of a match for me than any other. I only notice that some are more recalcitrant, and need more training.” She addressed herself to the Porters again. “You work harder with those ones, or sometimes you decide they’ll never make good hunters and you let them go. And even with the ones you keep, you must rely to a degree on hope once you unfasten the tether. Hope, and faith that your efforts will have been enough. And as much peace as you can muster with the possibility that they won’t.”

  Mr. Blackshear had looked up gradually while she spoke, and now kept his eyes on her as he looped the tether over her arm, his movements slow and smooth so as not to startle the bird. The bird kept his eyes on her, too.

  She raised her arm and waited for her Christmas husband to step clear. Then she whistled, and with a flurry of wings the falcon launched itself from its perch on her wrist and went soaring into the winter sky.

  The bird came back, rewarding Miss Sharp’s faith. And rewarding his and the Porters’ vigil with a graceful descent from the heavens to her wrist, and then the swift, unsightly consumption of the small rodent it carried in its claws. And that seemed to set the seal upon Christmas.

  Afterward they all repaired to the dining room, where a fire had been laid, that they might enjoy the festive greenery. Everyone was too full of roast goose to even think of supper, but it was pleasing to sit at the table, breathing in the evergreen scents and trading stories of memorable Christmases from years past. He gave his account of the snapdragon escapade and Miss Sharp laughed all over again, this time with the proprietary pleasure that came of knowing already how the tale would go.

  It was exactly the way a wife would laugh at her husband’s best stories, or so he imagined. He couldn’t readily produce a memory of Mother laughing with Father for comparison.

  Under the table, out of sight, his fingers clutched at nothing and curled into a fist.

  They could have been happy, he and Lucy Sharp. In the hour or so since he’d first seriously entertained the possibility, he’d only grown more convinced. He would have taken her to London, offering a veritable banquet of people and museums and libraries and ships come in from foreign lands and anything else a finding-out sort of lady might wish. He could have given her that, and perhaps he himself would have done some finding out, under her influence. He could have discovered some pursuits he enjoyed for enjoyment’s sake, and folded them into his life without lessening his devotion to duty. And he would have basked every day in her lively radiance, and congratulated himself for choosing her instead of the sensible, irreproachable bride he’d always pictu
red.

  Would have. Could have. He tightened his fist until the knuckles ached.

  He couldn’t ask her again. Not after seeing the agitation in her eyes when he’d nearly broached the subject outdoors, before the Porters interrupted. He was neither humble enough nor naïve enough to believe she didn’t want him at all—but clearly she’d weighed wants against trepidations, just as he’d done, and for her the scales had tipped the other way. Probably not by much, and that was all the more reason he ought to retreat, and turn away from any opportunity to lay a finger on the side of the scale that favored him.

  So he sat beside her, striving for the tone of bland cordiality that could set her at ease without causing the Porters to wonder whether something was wrong. It was difficult—what did he know of these nuances?—but anyone who took duty seriously had plenty of practice in grappling with difficult tasks. When a flare of desperation came, or a willful resolve to say something, do something, do anything rather than stand passive and let her go, he took hold of that sentiment and twisted it into yet more circumspection and gentlemanly disinterest.

  Surely no false husband had ever behaved with such perfect propriety before.

  Eventually the time came to excuse himself and go speak to John Coachman about tomorrow’s plans. Shortly after that came time to bid the Porters goodnight and climb the stairs to that familiar small bedroom. And several minutes later he stood once more behind Miss Sharp at the dressing table, assisting with the removal of her gown and stays.

  “Do you visit often at Hatfield Hall?” he said, turning away to lay her gown over her trunk. You’ve nothing to fear, this meant. I won’t take advantage of our being alone by bringing up uncomfortable subjects, nor take advantage in any way at all. See how quickly I turned away once I had your gown off, without letting my glance linger for so much as a second.