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

reminder, didn’t it, of how the world viewed a young lady’s conduct with men. Papa might put his trust in her good sense, and in the three or four outdoor servants who worked within earshot and would spring to her aid at the slightest alarm, but Papa’s views, as Aunt Symond and more than one governess had gently hinted, were not quite regular.
    Nothing to be done about it now. She would be more mindful of appearances when she went into society. And in the meanwhile, she would not be cowed by Mr. Blackshear’s dour looks.
    “The next two are both peregrine falcons, and the small one there is a sparrow-hawk.” He did at least glance from bird to bird as she pointed each one out. “The sparrow-hawk kills, as its name suggests, the sorts of birds your sister used to rescue. In fact all of these birds kill those birds. None of them is meant to eat bread and milk.” None of them is suitable for a tender-hearted lady. She would give him a minute to draw that conclusion for himself, before voicing the words.
    He tilted his head, frowning up at the rafters. His jaw worked for a moment; doubtless he was seeking some tactful reply. “I appreciate your being plain with me as to the nature of these birds. I hope you will do me the courtesy of believing that I—” He stopped. His chin came down and his gaze met hers through the afternoon shadows. “Pardon me, but can we please acknowledge that we met earlier, in the lane? To speak any further without owning that fact feels… less than proper.”
    “Of course.” Lucy sent her own gaze to the straw-covered floor. So very odd, the effect he had on her, when she ought by rights to find his manner irritating. She ought to pity him, really, his behavior so constrained by rules and precepts he’d had no hand in forming, nor probably ever once subjected to a rigorous evaluation. She oughtn’t to feel so diverted and disarmed. “I did suspect you to be the gentleman from Cambridgeshire, when I saw you. Probably I ought to have said something.” She brought her eyes back to his, because to keep them averted was missish and silly. “It wasn’t my intention to take you by surprise.”
    “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