A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5) (23 page)

“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 pictured.

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.

“Once or twice a year. I think my aunt would like to see me more often.” A thin thread of melancholy wove through her voice. She’d sounded this way outdoors when she’d spoken of liking to find things out. “She and my uncle proposed to raise me after my mother died, but Papa wouldn’t have it.”

“You would have grown up among cousins then. Do you ever wish you had?” He stepped back to his place behind her and started on the knot to her stay-laces.

“Oh, no. Not really. I’m fond of my cousins, and also of my aunt and uncle, but not so fond as I am of Papa. And it would have been so different.” A quick look found her to be frowning at her reflection, perhaps picturing the girl she would have been if raised at Hatfield Hall instead of Mosscroft. “Of course, I would probably know more about how to behave in society. I suppose that would be for the better.”

“Are you worrying about the party again? Don’t. You’re going to be a grand success.” The knot succumbed to his efforts much more quickly than last night’s knot had, partly because this one was his own handiwork and partly because last night he hadn’t had the first idea what he was about. “Only think of it: all those people will have had two days to begin tiring of each other. They’ll crave nothing so much as a new face, and there you’ll be, with your intriguingly late arrival and your infectious appetite for enjoyment. You’ll be just what the party was wanting.”
Note how I speak of the party. You can see, can you not, that I’ve accepted what your future will be, and accepted that I’ll have no place in it.

He glanced up at the mirror again, and this time caught her looking back at him with a half-solemn smile. “You’re very good to say so.” Her head tilted and her expression grew more earnest, eyes glimmering in the light from the tabletop candle. “You
are
very good, Andrew; so much better than I thought at first.”

“Did you think me a priggish hypocrite? A dreary sobersides, perhaps?” He raised an eyebrow and put a jocular lilt into his voice, to steer them both away from any earnest mood.

“I thought you rigid and un-thoughtful, I’m sorry to say. I thought you overly proud of your own virtue, and inclined to be too severe on everyone else.”

“Don’t be sorry. I gave you ample reason to think so.” The laces sang against linen as he drew them briskly through their threading-holes. The sooner he was done with this task, the sooner he’d be out of this conversation, which was sounding already as if it could lead him nowhere good. “And even now I wouldn’t call it an unfair assessment.”

“I would.” Her spine seemed to vibrate, under his fingers, with the weight of this sentiment. As though she’d dredged it up from her very core. “I want you to know that. I don’t expect we’ll have much chance for speaking tomorrow, so I just…” Her lips pressed together and her chest rose with an inhalation, he saw from the corner of his downward gaze. “I want you to know I do see your worth.”

“Thank you. That’s kind of you to say. I’m sensible of your merits too.” He kept his attention firmly on the progress of the corset-string, out through the left hole, out through the right, out through the left. Whatever softened or heartfelt look might grace her features now, he did better to not see it. “There’s your lacing all out.” He wound it on the breadth of his hand and set the coil on the tabletop. “I’ll withdraw to the hall. Tap at the door when you’re ready for me to come back in.” Without waiting for a reply he whisked himself out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him, and leaned his weight on the wall. His pulse drummed in his ears and he had to fold his arms against the chilly hallway air.

I can’t,
his brevity and quick exit had meant her to know.
I’m sorry but I cannot have this conversation with you.
Maybe if they somehow encountered one another some months from now, he’d be able to listen calmly while she spoke of his worth. But not now. Now, with a night in the same bed but minutes away, he needed all the philosophical detachment he could scrounge. Lying mere inches from her with a confession of her regard ringing in his ears might be more than he could bear.

Behind the door, the floor creaked. She would be moving about, probably folding her gown away in the trunk, picking out a nightgown, unpinning her hair.

He stepped away to a window at the hall’s near end. There under moonlight was the little hill where they’d gone to release the falcon.
Faith,
she’d said just before letting the thing fly off,
and hope that your efforts will be enough. And as much peace as you can muster with the possibility that they won’t.
And in the moment he’d felt as if that might be as good a plan for marriage as anyone could have.

But one person’s plan, like one person’s wishes, amounted to nothing where marriage was concerned. One person’s hope and faith could never be enough for two.

He set his knuckles to the window; to the lead strips that separated the diamond-shaped panes, and leaned near to watch his breath cloud the cold glass. His task for the remaining hours of their acquaintance was simple: to do what he knew was right. At every turn, to consider what action best served duty and decency, and to choose that action. Nothing more.

Her tap sounded at the door and he began counting, meanwhile filling his lungs with draughts of icy air that crept out from his center to his limbs and brain. Thirty seconds gave her time enough to get into bed and pull the curtains. He left the window with a cool clarity of thought and purpose, and went back into the room.

She’d kept a gap in the curtains on the near side, presumably to indicate that this side would be his. Sensibly done. He went to the hearth, where his latest borrowed nightshirt hung over the back of a chair, and he stripped off his coat and waistcoat. Undressing without a valet felt odd to begin with; undressing with a woman in the room odder still, but as she herself would no doubt tell him, it wasn’t materially indecent given that she was behind curtains and couldn’t see. And really, he oughtn’t to be troubling himself about this at all when he’d seen her in chemise and stays.

He changed his shirt for the nightshirt and sat to wrestle off his boots. That was as far as the undressing would go. A man who cared for propriety had to draw the line somewhere, and breeches seemed a fit place to draw it.

At last all that remained were the candles, and getting into bed. Wick by wick he darkened the room until only the glow of the fire lit his way, and by that glow he drew back the bed-curtain and climbed in between the sheets.

He couldn’t see her, and took care to not touch her, and his whole body felt her presence all the same.

But he’d expected that. “Will you wake me in the morning, if you wake up first?” he said, in a gratifyingly calm and neutral voice.

“Yes, if you like,” came her answer through the darkness, and that took care of that. There’d be no fraught conversations in this space about his worth and her appreciation thereof.

He tugged up the covers on his side to arrange them about his shoulders. It felt good to have things properly sorted; to be once again a man who observed rules of conduct and found a way to enforce respectability even when lying a foot or so away from a lady in bed.