Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] Read Free

show of unbowed civility to her aunt.
    They weren’t really so unlike, she and her sister. She, too, intended to be known. One day the door to that glittering world of champagne and consequence—the world that ought to have been her birthright—would crack open just long enough to admit a girl who’d spent every day since the age of thirteen watching for that chance, readying herself to slip through. Even at two and twenty, she hadn’t given up hope. Enough attentions to people like Lady Harringdon, and
something
must finally happen.
Someone
must recognize the aristocratic blood that ran through her veins, and the manners and accomplishments worthy of a nobleman’s bride. Then she’d dart through that open door, take her place among her own kind, and single-handedly haul her family back into respectability.
    “Do what you must.” Viola’s shoulders flexed, as though the insult of a trip to Berkeley Square had an actual physical weight that wanted preparation to bear. “
My
pride shall take the form of waiting across the street while you go about your errand. Anyone looking out the window may see that
I
am not ashamed of our mother.”
    That was petty; the argumental equivalent of jabbing her with a sewing pin. And it smarted every bit as much. “Neither am I ashamed of her. Only I’m not willing to dismiss Papa’s family as a lot of villains because they objected to his marrying an actress. No family of good name would desire such a union for one of their sons.”
    “ ‘Such a union?’ To a woman of character and intelligence, you mean, daughter of a proud theatrical family, who studied Sophocles and spat on indecent offers from gentleman admirers? Yes, doubtless any reasonable family must abhor that match, and strive instead to get their son shackled to some insipid chit who hasn’t any interests or passions of her own and whose talentsextend only to a few polite pluckings on the harp.
There
is a recipe for conjugal felicity, to be sure.”
    Kate made no answer, beyond a small inward sigh. Really, it must be very pleasant to live in Viola’s world, with everything drawn in such broad strokes. People and actions easily classified as righteous or knavish; no margin granted for human fallibility or the claims of society. No energies squandered in pondering extenuating circumstances. No time wasted on doubt.
    One of the
Pride and Prejudice
volumes was pressing a sharp edge into her forearm, so she switched to a one-handed grip, like Viola with her
Vindication
. Conjugal felicity, indeed. That came in several guises, surely, or at least you might get there by more than one path. If Mr. Darcy, for example, had come to
her
with that first grudging proposal, openly acknowledging his abhorrence at so lowering himself, she would have swallowed her pride long enough to choke out a
yes
. Affection and understanding could come afterward—or if they never came at all, she would have a good name and the grounds at Pemberley on which to build all the felicity she required.
    As they made their way into the residential streets of Mayfair, she tipped back her head for a view of remote upper windows. Surely somewhere in London was a gentleman who would suit her needs. Surely some aristocrat—some marquess ripe for stupefaction—must appreciate a beautiful bride with such pragmatic expectations of the wedded state. Surely someone, someday, could be brought to lower himself as Mr. Darcy had, and spirit her out of that middling class in which she had never truly belonged.
    Surely that man did walk and breathe. The trick was only to find him.

    R OUND THE landing, down the stairs, and through the heavy oak front door, Nicholas Blackshear spilled out into the cold sunlight of Brick Court, black robes billowing in his wake. T IME AND T IDE TARRY FOR NO M AN , warned the inscription on the sundial where he paused to confirm the hour. It told the truth, that inscription, but far from heeding its exhortation to haste, he always