Read Online Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] by A Woman Entangled - Free Book Online

silence as an invitation to further reproach. “He calls rarely enough as it is, and he’s one of the few tolerable men among Papa’s protégés.”
    “I’m sure that’s not true. Papa knows any number of agreeable young men.”
    “Agreeable to you, I’ll grant, since they spend the visit staring at you slack-jawed.” Vi picked up her hair ribbon from the tabletop and wove it through her fingers as she spoke. “Mr. Blackshear has better sense. He remembers to ask after my book, and Sebastian’s drawings, and what Mama thought of Mr. Kean’s
Othello
. Did you not see how attentive he was to Rose? I would have thought you’d appreciate that.”
    “I did see. I did appreciate it. He was very good to her.” She plucked the ribbon from her sister’s fingers and wrapped it round the tail end of the plait. “I hope … if I’ve offended him, I hope he may not hold that against the rest of you.”
    If
, again. She’d offended him. She hadn’t meant to do so, at least not so deeply as she had, but she’d offended him all the same. He wouldn’t hold it against the other Westbrooks, though, would he? He
did
have better sense, as Viola said. A brief squabble with her, and an accidental slight, couldn’t put him off the household altogether.
    Though it wasn’t just the squabble and the slight. Too vividly she remembered the speed with which he’d turned from her and taken interest in his tea; the long, sinfonia-filled pause in which they’d stood there, the echoes of his rash utterance dancing circles round them both.
    She tied the ribbon tight, measuring out the loops andtrailing ends to make a neat symmetrical bow. Vi was right. Mr. Blackshear
wasn’t
like Papa’s other young men who came to call. She could not permit her parents and siblings to lose his society merely because of some awkwardness or a misunderstanding between him and her.
    She would apologize, in some way that wouldn’t further pierce his pride. She wouldn’t even wait for his next call—she could go to whatever court he was practicing in, and find a moment to tell him she was sorry. Perhaps he’d apologize, too, for having spoken indiscreetly. Or perhaps they’d simply pretend, both of them, that he never had. Either way, they would return to the easy cordiality that had been their habit, and they’d both be more careful with how they spoke, in the future. They would not again risk jeopardizing a friendship that affected more people than just themselves.
    “Viola.” She found her sister’s eyes in the mirror. “Do you think our brother could be persuaded to chaperone us for an errand to one of the courts?”

Y
OU ’ LL PARDON me, I hope, for questioning the extent of your authority on the intricacies of better society.
Well into the next day, he could remember her words verbatim. They’d burned themselves into the folds of his brain.
    Nick flexed the fingers of his right hand one by one, a small, inconspicuous action that vented some of his bodily restlessness. A barrister couldn’t, after all, give himself a quick shake while sitting at the courtroom table under the eyes of judges, jury, and opposing counsel. Possibly the eyes of Lord Barclay, too, but he’d forbidden himself to look.
    The ridiculous part was that he couldn’t even be sure whether she’d meant to make reference to the family scandal. She had a history of plaguing him for his habit of staying in and studying when other young men went out to balls. That might very well have been the target of her remark. He’d never seen any sign that she knew how his name had been tarnished.
    Yet it certainly wasn’t out of the question that she would know. She took a greater interest in these things than others in her household did. And if the subject should come up in passing between her mother andfather—
Any day of the week will do for inviting Mr. Blackshear; he hasn’t any cases of late to take up his time
—he could picture her inquiring, and her parents