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

particular that’s precipitated her interest?” She leaned a few degrees forward. As if by proper application of will she could somehow compel him into giving an answer more to their liking.
    His eyelids lowered; he frowned at his tea. He didn’t like the questioning, obviously. But he was too polite to say so. “She’s to be married soon, to a fellow of sporting tastes.” His left hand held the saucer and that thumb was fidgeting, edging back and forth along a half-inch of the rim. “He likes shooting and fox-hunting and so forth. A hawking bird will give her a way to…” His thumb stilled, all energy redirected to choosing the proper words. “Share in his amusements… without simply adopting all his preferences for her own.” His cheeks were flushing. He seemed a little amazed at himself for telling so much. “I thought she ought to have something that belonged only to her.” He ended with a long swallow of tea, eyes still lowered, thumb now clamped down hard on the saucer’s concave surface.
    Lucy slanted another inch toward him, consciousness blooming like a spoonful of cream dropped into tea. This was why he’d come all this way in the rain, and why he sat here now submitting to impertinent questions, uncomfortable in his still-damp cravat. He cared for his sister. He wanted her to be happy in marriage, but to remember her separate self. It was admirable and elegant, from a philosophical perspective. It was also…
    She bent her head to study her own cup as a tiny fissure opened just under her heart. Mama had not lived long enough to give her brothers or sisters.
    There was little point in mourning a thing you’d never had, and so she didn’t mourn, most days. Indeed she’d had a fine childhood, full of books and occupations for the mind and of course Papa’s benevolent attention, doled out in such measures as would not have been possible had there been other children among whom it all must be shared. She understood that. Only, confronted with this example of a brother’s warm affection, it was difficult to not at least reflect—in an objective way—on how different life might have been if she’d grown up with siblings.
    “Do you mean to say the falcon isn’t her own idea?” Papa’s voice jerked her back to the business at hand, and rightly so. Brotherly affection was neither here nor there in the question of whether the bird would go to a fit keeper.
    “It’s mine, I suppose.” Mr. Blackshear set his tea down on the table by his armchair. Impatience threaded through his voice. “But it’s an idea based on three and twenty years of acquaintance with my sister. I know her habits. I remember her picking up fledgling birds fallen from the nest and feeding them on bread dipped in milk when she was but seven or eight years old. I wouldn’t have come all this way to purchase a bird without I was sure she’d care for it properly.”
    Poor Mr. Blackshear. So well-intentioned, so sure of himself, so very very handsome in asserting his case, and so woefully mistaken. She sent one look to Papa. I shall manage this. Leave it to me.
    She would be honest with the man, perfectly honest, because she almost always was. But she would be mindful of his fine feelings, too. As gently as truth and facts allowed, she would disappoint him.
    She set aside her tea. “I think we ought to visit the mews now, Mr. Blackshear. I’ll have the butler fetch your coat.”
    * * *
    “The one nearest you is a goshawk. Don’t offer him a finger; I cannot vouch for his manners.” She made the joke for her own benefit. Clearly Mr. Blackshear had not the least intention of approaching the goshawk or any of the other birds.
    Nor of approaching her. He’d stationed himself mere inches from the mews door and remained there, hands thrust in his greatcoat pockets, face still showing remnants of the abject disapproval he’d worn when Papa had raised no objection to her leaving the house with him.
    Well, it made a useful