A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5) (3 page)

“I confess you did, though. Take me by surprise.” His voice… did something. An empiricist would say it went lower by part of an octave, and a few degrees quieter as well; or rather an empiricist would probably say she
perceived
his voice to do those things. His glance flicked to the nearest bird, and back to her. “You don’t look at all the way you did in the lane.”

Lower and quieter didn’t begin to tell it: his tone had the sweet, spiced complexity of mulled wine, and it went to her head as if she’d drunk down his words on an empty stomach. “My maid is quick in dressing me.” Her hands didn’t know what to do, under his gaze. They went to smooth her skirts but of course her cloak was in the way. She lifted one hand to her hair instead, though it didn’t need smoothing. His eyes followed, tracking her movements with a perspicacity that would have done credit to any of these birds.

“You were coming from somewhere. May I ask where?” He stood so still. The air was thick with his attention.

“I’d been to check the snares.” She knotted her hands, at last, behind her back. “That’s how we acquire birds; through baited snares. We don’t take small ones from nests, as some falconers do. Yearlings are easier to train.” He didn’t care, she could tell. He wanted to know why she’d been gallivanting about with her hair all undone.

Well, a pin had come out, and then another, and it had been easier to take it all down than to try to put back the pins. She hadn’t expected to meet with any men on the road back home, and anyway her cloak hood had concealed her irregular state. Until the wind had knocked it back, and until she’d encountered a gentleman who stared at her as though she were something altogether past his reckoning, some nymph or wood-sprite just come from her secret bath in the glen. She’d wanted to stand with her hair uncovered for as long as he’d look at her that way.

A bird to her left stretched out its great wings. A bustard, newly captured and not yet reconciled to its situation. The bells on its ankles jingled as it shifted from side to side on its perch.

She’d come out here for a purpose: to resign Mr. Blackshear to going home without a falcon. All she had to do was proceed with her explanation.
They’re not like dogs. They care nothing for people. They’re cold, unpleasant, opportunistic creatures and I cannot countenance sending one to a lady who might not wish for it. Tell your sister she may come to us herself if she truly wants a hunting bird.

Then he would have his traveling carriage brought round, and he would climb in, or perhaps up top, and go back to Cambridgeshire. And tomorrow she would go to Aunt Symond’s party, and meet men who would surely have charms to equal his—charms to
exceed
his, really, when you counted in the fact that they’d be in a festive holiday mood and ready to be charmed in their turn by marriageable young ladies. There was no good reason on earth to regret Mr. Blackshear’s departure. Not with such a prospect before her.

He waited, hands in pockets, for her to say whatever she was going to say next. When her eyes came to his he arched his brows slightly and twisted his mouth into just enough of a smile to show the dimple.

For all that came afterward, she would have to blame that dimple. The dimple and perhaps his mulled-wine voice. And his stature. And his painstaking propriety, and his admirable affection for his sister, and the sweet fizzing awareness that raced through her blood when his eyes followed her hand from her skirts to her hair.

Lucy stepped forward. She brought her hands from behind her back and clasped them in front. And she opened up her mouth and told a base, capricious, perfectly indefensible lie.

The “connection” to Hume turned out to be slighter even than he’d imagined. He’d had in mind some distant shared blood, or, failing that, the participation of some Sharp cousin in the intellectual circles of Edinburgh once upon a time. But the source of the baron’s pride, it developed, was a single short letter from the philosopher, thanking him for having written with some apparently insightful observations on the
Treatise of Human Nature.

The letter had a date of 1772. Lord help him if he should one day be regaling captive guests with accounts of a distinction—he used the word generously—now five and thirty years in the past.

“You must have impressed him indeed with your insights,” Andrew said, reaching for his glass. “I don’t imagine many households in England can boast of such a letter among the family holdings.”

“Oh, well, as to that, the truth is that Hume was a prodigious letter-writer. I don’t flatter myself I made any more of an impression upon him than did any of the doubtless hundreds of admirers who must have received similar acknowledgments from the philosopher, in their time.” The baron rearranged his knife and fork as he spoke, flushed in the face, his modest demurral barely sufficient to mask his pride.

A glance across the table found Miss Sharp beaming unabashedly in Andrew’s direction. Her pleasure leapt over the plates, the glasses, the cloth, like a presumptuous cat determined to land in his lap.

He oughtn’t to be thinking of laps. And to hold her gaze felt downright indecent, when her satisfaction pulsed so plainly between them. He brought his glass to his lips and lowered his eyelids enough to shut out the sight of her as he drank.

If you’re determined to have a falcon, your best chance is to stay and dine with us,
she’d said, at that strangely charged moment in the mews when he’d expected her to say he must go home empty-handed.
I’ll tell Papa I’ve decided a few more questions are in order.
She’d implied that the pleasures of a meal, some conversation, and a glass of wine or two would put her father in such an agreeable mood that she could then re-introduce the bird topic, to better result this time.

The problem was, Sharp was onto his fourth glass of wine now and had apparently not yet become persuadable, to judge by Miss Sharp’s failure to steer the conversation falconward. Indeed
,
he showed little sign of being affected at all by his three and a half glasses. Which was rather impressive, as Andrew had begun to feel dangerously warm and carefree halfway through glass number one.

He put his wine down after the smallest sip. She was looking at him, still. As though he’d been set down in the opposite chair for just that purpose, like an interesting piece of statuary, or perhaps a visiting chieftain from some land where people wore face-paint and slept in grass huts.

Someone ought to explain to her it wasn’t proper to look at a man that way. She ought to be told, with utmost obliqueness and discretion, of course, that such a gaze produced inconvenient stirrings in a gentleman, and could leave lingering impressions that might burgeon, in his private hours, to un-virtuous effect.

Not to say that this was her responsibility. A gentleman held the reins of his own passions, and did not look for others to blame if he lapsed. Still, a lady ought to be informed, for her own sake. She would surely be mortified if she knew the figure she might make in a man’s thoughts.

“I suppose he may have found my own ideas to be of interest.” Right, philosophy. And Hume. The baron still had things to say, and Andrew’s job was to hear them, with a show of keen attention. “You needn’t be told, I’m sure, that the Empiricists—the Rationalists too, for that matter—concerned themselves chiefly with ways of knowing. With the question of how we know what we claim to know.”

“Yes, of course.” Really. If there was a more futile, unproductive, dog-chasing-its-own-tail occupation for a man’s mind than the study of
how we know what we know
, it was beyond him to name.

“Which is all very well for books and papers and elevated discourse with other philosophers. But then we come to the matter of morality, and how to apply the philosopher’s wisdom to the average man’s daily life.”

Well, this he couldn’t disapprove. Morality was a subject always worthy of study, and if Lord Sharp had bent his efforts toward a moral application of philosophy, one that could better a man’s everyday life, then—

“In short I wrestled with the question of how we are to define a moral life, absent the superstitions and mysticism that have made up our moral scaffolding for all of history.”

Andrew bit down on his tongue. He felt for his wineglass, found it, and took a very long drink, not trusting himself to look at either the baron or his daughter. Good God. Had the man just proclaimed himself an
atheist
? To a guest in his house, good as a stranger, and in front of his own child as well? No wonder the girl lacked decorum. No wonder she marched about the neighborhood with her hair hanging like a heathen’s. No wonder she didn’t know any better than to stare at men.

“I’d never presume to say I influenced Hume, but anyone familiar with his
Dialogues on Religion
may attest that he, too, gave substantial thought to that question.” Sharp used his knife to shovel green peas onto his fork, speaking all the while with a sunny affability suited to a man discussing his trout-stream, or his prize hothouse roses. “And we come to the same conclusion regarding man’s innate virtue. Though of course the philosopher said it more stylishly than I ever could: ‘The smallest grain of natural honesty and benevolence has more effect on men’s conduct, than the most pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems.’”

Right. A gentleman could tolerate only so much. He set his own knife and fork down, with precision directly proportional to the flare of his temper. He would politely but firmly change the subject, demonstrating to Lord Sharp and Miss Sharp the sorts of things civilized people discussed over dinner.

No, he wouldn’t. He would follow their example, and say precisely what was on his mind.
Speak of pompous views
, he would begin, or perhaps he would formulate some cutting remark involving the morality of birds—the glass of wine was impeding his wit, but in another several seconds he’d come up with the right thing and then—

“Papa, you’ll recall I mentioned finding grounds for further discussion of Miss Blackshear’s prospects as a falconer.” Miss Sharp piped up with this before Andrew could quite get his cutting remark in order. “I learned a bit more from Mr. Blackshear on our trip to the mews. His sister’s husband-to-be doesn’t keep a bird, true enough, but the gentleman has hunted sometimes with friends. In particular, with a neighbor in their district who has his own mews.”

Andrew stared, and fought to keep from gaping outright. None of what she’d just said was true. Not the neighbor, not the husband-to-be’s hunting experience, and certainly not her having heard any such thing from him on their trip to the mews.

She sent him a quick smile and then returned her attention to her father. “I wonder if it wouldn’t be sufficient for Miss Blackshear to rely upon her husband for elementary knowledge, and to apply to this neighbor if any more challenging situations should arise.”

“Well, that does put a different complexion on things, though I must say I’m disappointed to hear that Miss Blackshear’s betrothed should have tried the sport and not become an
aficionado.
” The baron shoveled up a new forkful of peas. “A dog man, I suppose.”

Andrew cleared his throat. “I believe he keeps some gun dogs, yes, and also rides out with the local hunt.” He busied himself with his own peas, to avoid crossing glances with Lord Sharp and Miss Sharp both. This appeared to suit them, as they fell into a discussion of what situations might call for the expertise of this mythical neighbor, and also which bird Mr. Blackshear ought to take away.

He ate peas without tasting them. What the deuce was she about? Couldn’t she have given him some warning, when they were speaking outside, that her plan was to reassure her father with flagrant falsehoods? For that matter, why had she made him stay to dinner? Surely this tactic would have been just as effective without waiting for the baron to consume his several glasses of wine, particularly considering what little effect those glasses appeared to have had.

The mantelpiece clock chimed, adding a musical underscore to his discontent
,
as well as inciting the first stirrings of alarm. Curse this strong wine and the distracting girl opposite; he’d lost track of the hour and he had a long drive home. “Forgive my very poor manners.” He set down his silverware. “I was so engrossed in the conversation that I fear I neglected to notice the passage of time. I must take my leave within the next fifteen or twenty minutes if I’m to be home tonight.” He’d have to stop halfway along for a change of horses, and he might have a considerable wait at that time of night. “Is there a servant who can be sent to put the bird into whatever sort of carrier is appropriate?”

“Oh, there can be no question of your traveling all that way tonight.” Lord Sharp delivered this verdict with great good cheer. “It’s begun to be dark already, you see, and the roads will be in poor shape from the rain. Much better you wait until daylight. We keep a room made up for just such occasions, and a place in the grooms’ quarters
,
as well
,
that ought to suit your driver. Everyone will be fresher in the morning, horses included.”