Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] (5 page)

But everything on that head had worked out for the best, really. Now that she’d turned back to her plate—and he wasn’t confronted with the distraction of her looks—it was easier to recall that. If he’d succeeded in attaching her affections, then she, too, would now bear the stigma of a connection that made her own parentage look like the very pattern of propriety.

Or perhaps she wouldn’t have borne it. A lady so concerned with social status might very well leave her husband’s house, in such circumstances, and go back to the lesser evil of residing with her mother and father.

Nothing to the purpose, all this speculation. He hadn’t won her affection, and he wouldn’t repine. All scandal and stigma aside, a woman who thought herself too
good to be a barrister’s wife was a woman he could never make happy, nor ever quite fully respect.

Besides, he’d come here to learn about Lord Barclay and the opportunity. Not to covertly admire Miss Westbrook, not to fall into a melancholy reverie over respective family dinner tables, not to get caught up in a debate over other people’s marriages and whether youthful feelings might change.

He bent his attention to his plate, and silently reckoned how many courses remained before he was left alone with Mr. Westbrook, a bottle of port, and the letter of opportunity.

T
HANK GOODNESS
for steady, resilient Mr. Blackshear. If she’d disappointed his hopes three years ago—

No, that was disingenuous. She had disappointed his hopes. There was no
if
in the matter. She might not shuffle about feeling guilty for the fact, but she would at least face it honestly.

At all events, the important part was that he’d absorbed the disappointment quietly and then recognized his sentiment for the superficial infatuation it had been. No nursing his wounded pride, as so many men liked to do. No turning up his nose at the friendship that was all she could offer. He’d kept his connection to the family and now here he was, ready to show kindness to Rose for Rose’s sake, not because he hoped to rise in her own estimation.

Kate climbed the stairs to the room she shared with Viola, skirts caught up in one hand, candle held steady in the other. Likely the gentlemen wouldn’t appear in the parlor for some time, with Lord Barclay’s letter to dissect and interpret like some exhibit admitted into evidence. She’d have a few minutes’ respite from the chore of acting lighthearted. A few minutes to indulge her still-sagging
spirits, and then she’d be fit for company once again.

The bedroom sat all in darkness, naturally. A barrister’s income didn’t provide for constant lamplight when the entire family was downstairs. A marquess’s income, now …

She crossed to the dressing table and sat, setting the candle directly between herself and the mirror to cast the most merciless light on her reflection. A lady needed to be rigorous in her self-appraisal, when beauty was all the dowry she had.

One small section of her hair was not perfectly smooth; she adjusted the pin. If Mr. Blackshear entered into a professional association with this Lord Barclay, she would be but one friendly remove from the connection. If she could only prevail upon Mr. Blackshear to somehow bring her to the baron’s notice, she would at least make the excellent first impression she always did with men.

And a marquess-to-be—was she tempting disappointment by daring to think of this?—might suit her purpose even better than a marquess. He would have grown up without expectations of inheriting, and thus he might have a broader conception of what kind of woman would make him a suitable wife. Too, if he interested himself, as Papa had said, in matters of public welfare, perhaps he was one of those modern sorts who argued for the dignity of all people and could easily be brought to see that the daughter of an actress might have every virtue that really mattered.

Altogether too many
mights
in that vision of events. In the mirror her mouth twisted with dissatisfaction; she huffed out a small breath that made the candle flame jump. Light skittered out to the edge of the dressing table’s top, momentarily illuminating the tray where the maid always left her mail.

A letter sat there. The tray had been empty when she’d dressed for dinner; the letter must have come in the late post. It was, if she did not mistake—light had fallen on it so briefly and her heart was suddenly beating so hard she couldn’t be sure of much—franked.

Franking privileges belonged to members of Parliament. An earl might frank a letter for his wife. Her hand reached carefully out, took up the letter by its corner, and brought it into the halo of candlelight.

For a moment she could do no more than look. And touch. The paper, a pristine ivory stock heavier than anything she’d ever been privileged to write upon, pleased her fingertips the same way starched linen did. The sealing wax gleamed a painfully elegant shade of gold. Her name, in an unfamiliar hand, had never looked so illustrious. And indeed the letter was franked, the date and signature scrawled with lordly disregard for legibility.

Her heart climbed up and up her throat as she slid her letter opener under the seal. The contents might poison all the pleasure she took in the letter’s outside—this might be the rebuff she’d cheated Lady Harringdon of delivering in person—but better she should find out at once than delay and wonder.

The paper unfolded along its neat creases to reveal a very few lines of largely unremarkable text.
Thank you for your good wishes, &c, &c
, but the signature was all looping distinction and the postscript might as well have been written in letters of fire:
I am at home on Tuesdays and Fridays
.

Kate set the paper down, slowly raising her eyes to her reflection. She’d done it. She’d been wrong to doubt herself. Five years of patience and determination had finally, somehow, reaped their reward.

It’s because she wants to bring you out
. The audacious corner of her brain, silent since the trip to Miss Lowell’s,
lost no time in speaking up. Well, let it say its piece. Why
shouldn’t
the countess wish to sponsor a girl whose beauty could take any ballroom by storm? The obstacle of her birth might even make the prospect more attractive to a lady who’d successfully married off half a dozen daughters and probably longed for a challenge of some sort.

She folded up the letter and put it away in the same drawer where she’d stowed the
Pride and Prejudice
volumes. The book recovered a bit of its luster, in such grand company. Behind the fanciful love story, after all, lurked an account of how a woman’s prudent marriage might overcome all the mischief of her parents’ incautious union.

The day after tomorrow was a Friday. Would so soon a call demonstrate an unbecoming eagerness, or fitting respect? Well, she had tonight and tomorrow to deliberate. She closed the drawer, gave one last appraising glance to the mirror, and rose from her chair to go down to the parlor.

L
ORD
B
ARCLAY
’
S
letter didn’t tell a great deal more than what Westbrook had already related, but one thing it did tell—from the substandard hand and irregular spelling—was that he’d penned it himself. He didn’t, then, have someone to manage that task for him.

Nick felt for his glass of port, still studying the letter. “He doesn’t say he’s in need of a secretary, I note. Just someone to train him in speech and argument.”

“Indeed there’s no explicit mention.” They’d moved to one end of the table when the rest of the family had gone, and Westbrook now sat directly across from him. “I think we may assume, though, that if he did have a secretary, that man would be undertaking the speech training.”

“Probably.” He mustn’t let his hopes run away with him. “Though I can see how a gentleman of discernment, even if he already had a secretary, would recognize that for those particular skills he could apply to no higher authority than a barrister.”

“Without doubt. I’d only add that our presumptive sagacious gentleman would also recognize that the most valuable, most effective secretaries are those who begin with education and practice in the law. And that the best among these is the man with political aspirations of his own, who views the position as a kind of apprenticeship toward the day he’s situated to stand for Parliament himself.”

Nick drank, buying a moment to collect his thoughts. The fine port tasted remarkably like any other port he’d ever sent down his gullet, for all that Kersey across the hall had waxed rhapsodic over the vintage and over the time the stuff spent in wood barrels before bottling.

He set his glass down. “There’s the matter of my family.” Obviously there was. He could forget the Blackshear disgrace for long moments at a time in this house, where the Westbrooks’ own outcast state, combined with their lack of interest in social scandal, kept them largely ignorant of these things. In his professional sphere, there was no chance of forgetting. “Do you not think it likely Lord Barclay would prefer to engage a gentleman who brought no whiff of unsavory connections with him?”

“No, in fact, I don’t.” Westbrook eyed him steadily, which was a trick a good barrister employed when he wanted his listener to believe he was telling the truth. “Recall to whom he wrote in the first place.” He dipped his head in a cursory bow. “If he were truly put off by that sort of thing, he would have had nothing to do with me.”

It wasn’t quite the same, though. Westbrook had married
a woman of virtue and integrity who happened to have worked on the stage. The resulting scandal had all to do with mistaken perception. With people refusing to see beyond that label of
actress
.

Too, so many years had passed since then. Nick shook his head. “I’m sure your professional reputation quite outweighs whatever traces of infamy might still cling to your name.”

“You make my point for me.” Triumph flickered in Westbrook’s eyes before giving way to such fatherly gravity as compelled Nick to avert his own gaze to the letter once more. “People do forget, Blackshear.” The kindness in his voice was nearly enough to make a man wince. “Another scandal comes along and displaces yours in the public imagination. Then another comes to eclipse that, and yet another to shoulder out the third. And all the while you toil on, building your good name in your profession and living a private life worthy of that good name, until finally the only people still inclined to shun you are those whose esteem really isn’t worth much.” He’d picked up his glass and was eddying its contents in small circles. “And I speak as the one who caused my family disgrace, mind. I expect your path back to respectability will be easier and shorter.”

Nick smoothed the letter’s folds, nodding in a style both thoughtful and noncommittal.
The path back to respectability
, he might say if he was in the mood for protracted debate,
was easier and shorter when your father was an earl
. Society hostesses had doubtless been quick in discovering they could overlook the one objectionable connection when it came to including the present Lord Harringdon on their guest lists. Sons and daughters of mere gentry weren’t nearly so much in demand.

“I’ll grant that it would have been ideal if this opportunity had come a year or so later, when you felt you’d
got your good name back.” The click of Westbrook’s wedding ring against his still-circling glass marked off every few words. “However, it’s come now. And you can’t be sure of encountering another one like this. Besides, my credibility is somewhat at stake.” Ah, here came the argument’s death thrust. A shift in his voice, like a musical key change, signaled its approach. “The baron has asked if I know of a man with the skills and inclination to tutor him in speaking. I should like to be able to recommend the best such man I know. Not the second or third best.”

He would have colored at the praise, were he not so aware of the scaffolding on which it rested. “Flattery
and
a tug on the bonds of gratitude.” He lifted his port for another drink, partly to mask the smile he could not suppress. “Your tactics lack subtlety.”

“They don’t have to be subtle. They just have to work.” Westbrook, in contrast, made no attempt to hide his smile. “Let me furnish Barclay with a date or two on which he can observe you in court. If he then wishes to meet with you, you can decide for yourself whether your circumstances are likely to make an impediment. I’ll wager you ten shillings he won’t care.”

“A wager, now. Because flattery and the appeal to my sense of obligation were not manipulation enough.” But he was going to say
yes
and they both knew it. Apart from the chance to make inroads on a political career, there was another advantage Westbrook had delicately refrained from invoking: the honorarium Barclay proposed to pay.

To stand for a seat in Parliament you needed land; land that could yield an income of six hundred pounds a year—three hundred if standing for a borough. To get that land, you needed money. Through diligent economy he’d managed to put some by, but not near enough, yet. And with so little income trickling in from court
cases of late, he couldn’t lightly toss aside the prospect of a few guineas honestly earned.

“Very well, you may send him my name.” Equal parts foreboding and hopeful anticipation chased through him. “But if he doesn’t like the name, and writes back to beg recommendation of another, I shall be calling at the first opportunity to collect my ten shillings.”

“Naturally. We’ll be delighted as always to see you.” He hoisted his glass for what looked like a victory quaff. “Now, what days should I suggest he come watch you? Have you any particularly stirring cases in the remainder of this session?”

C
OAXING
M
ISS
Rosalind to sing proved easy enough. She was already at the piano turning pages for Miss Beatrice when he entered the parlor. All he had to do was choose a seat near them, and, when the instrumental piece reached its end, request to hear something with words.

“A duet, if you please,” he added, lest she think to leave the singing to her sister. “It’s rare I visit a family with even one musical person to entertain me. Here I have an embarrassment of riches.”