A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5) (20 page)

He could blame the wine, if he’d had any. He could blame his lack of sleep, or the accumulation of mishap and disaster, or any one of a number of things conspiring to make him act all out of character.

He could do that.

For the moment, he did this: cupped the angle of her jaw in his palms at either side. Worked his fingertips into the hair behind her ears. And kissed her, with an explorer’s mix of zeal and caution, following the path mapped out by his thumb just a moment before.

She took her time responding. That was the advantage of a private room: you could decide at your own pace what you thought about matters and how you wished to go on.
If
you wished to go on. It wasn’t like the mistletoe, with people at either side hounding you to get on with it. If he perceived any sign of unwillingness—a flinch, a tightening of her jaw, even the limp stillness that signified mere passive forbearance—he would leave off.

She
was
still at first, but it was an intent, listening sort of stillness. Her lips went softer and softer; then she began to make answer, with all the tentative trial and error made possible by a closed door.

Her mouth was every bit the wonder he’d imagined, shaping itself against his with infinite variation. Feather-light teasing kisses across his lower lip; those were very fine. A bolder kiss that took that lower lip in between hers; that was even better. By and by he dared a single short stroke with his tongue; her lips parted on a breath of surprise and stayed parted in sweet invitation.

He let go her face to settle his hands on her waist, and he put his back against the wall and pulled her in close enough that her bosom brushed his chest, and Lord help him, he wanted to do this forever. Hang the wheelwright; hang the rest of the party; hang everything he’d meant to do this Christmas Day: he only wanted to stay here against the breakfast-room wall, Lucy Sharp in his arms, the two of them wringing every ounce of pleasure there was to be got from a meeting of mouths.

From the touch of hands as well. The feel of the fabric of her gown under his fingertips: the way the sheer white outer layer whispered against the yellow silk underneath, and the way the silk gave up the contours of her corset; of that elegant ladder of lacing he’d done up himself this same morning.

Then,
his touch had been chaste and careful, his hands still prickling with the shame of how he’d wronged her in the bed.
Now,
as his every small advance met with her eager response he could give his hands their liberty, sliding his palms over the layers of fabric to feel the curve of her hip, the assertive jut of a shoulder blade.

She had bold hands too. They landed on his jacket-front and crept upward, feeling with spread fingers for the muscular shape of him underneath. She slipped her thumbs into his jacket where it opened to make way for his cravat, thumbnails dragging against the linen of his shirt and tickling his chest in gloriously impertinent fashion. Then out went her hands across the width of his shoulders, down over the sinews of his upper arms, and he felt glad and vain and grateful to have been gifted with the Titan proportions that made him a match for such a woman.

Maybe they
were
a match. Was it so completely out of the question? Maybe their bodies understood already what their brains hadn’t had time to know. Maybe this wasn’t merely the predictable result of two young people with un-fed carnal hungers thrown too much together in the absence of a chaperone.

And maybe it was. Yes, that did seem the likelier explanation, that they’d got into exactly the trouble you’d expect a young man and woman to get into when they went traveling alone and posed as husband and wife; but in this moment, deep in the whirlpool of his appetites, he couldn’t quite be sorry to have got into that trouble, nor sorry for the way it must resolve. And there was only one way, after all, that such a business could honorably resolve.

“Lucy.” He was breathing hard. His hands found their way to her jaw again and he put an inch or two of space between them, that he could catch his breath and say these words with the dignity and gravity they required. “Lucy, surely now you’ll agree that—”

“No.” Her eyes, so very near, flashed with temper. “Don’t you dare say we must marry because of this. Don’t you dare.”

“This isn’t like last night.” He would make her see reason. “We can’t claim it happened without our knowledge or intent. There’s no such exoneration here.”

“Exoneration!” She stared at him for two seconds, then twisted away, abandoning her hold on his arms. “Why should we be in need of exoneration? Why can’t this just be something we did because we wanted to, instead of some wrong for which one or both of us must atone?” Her voice wavered with frustration and perhaps a thread of despair.

“The fact of wanting to do something doesn’t make that thing right.” His hands still hovered where her face had been. The taste of her was still on his tongue. “A wrong act is a wrong act, regardless of whether—”

“It
wasn’t wrong.
” She’d gone away only as far as the sideboard and stood there, her rigid back to him, her chin dropped to direct her words to the polished wood.

Slowly he lowered his hands. How was he to answer her? It certainly wasn’t
right,
what they’d done. He’d thought to make it right the only way he knew how, and succeeded only in injuring and incensing her with his offer—with his preamble to an offer, rather. He hadn’t even got to the proposal.

He brought one hand back up, to drag it across his weary-all-over-again face. He’d misled her. Himself as well. With his fit of laughter after the mistletoe debacle he’d fooled them both into thinking he was the sort of man who could forget all of propriety’s claims and kiss a girl for the pure pleasure of it.

He wasn’t that man. He might forget himself for a minute or five at a time, but he would always remember himself again, and there would be duty and propriety at the core of the remembering. If she’d hoped she was witnessing his transformation into someone more to her high-spirited taste, well, she ought to have known better, and that was that.

And that was that.

The soft steady ticking of a clock on the sideboard filled the silence that had fallen between them. Andrew stepped away from the wall, rubbing the back of his neck. “I suppose I ought to be starting out for Downham Market very soon.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.” She didn’t turn.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. Because this has been a disappointing holiday for you. But for me…” Her hands hung at her sides. Her fingers curled and uncurled. “I’ve never had such a Christmas. I don’t expect I ever will again. And I’m not ready for it to end.”

“But it’s not ending, is it? You’ll be at your party soon. Where you wanted to be all along.”

“Yes. I’m sure it will be very fine.” Her shoulders rose with a deep breath. “But this part—the part with you in it—I’m not ready for this part to end.”

Less than ever did he understand. The part with him in it wouldn’t need to end at all, if she married him. How was he to fathom this kind of attachment that grieved its own ending, yet turned up its nose at permanence?

Never mind. There were more immediate concerns. “The longer I delay setting out, the scarcer my chance of getting the wheel repaired, and the greater the chance of our being stranded here another night. I trust I needn’t explain to you the urgency of avoiding that prospect.”

“But we might not be able to avoid it, for all your efforts.” Her head turned far enough to give him a view of her cheek, if not of her eyes. “You might depart this minute, and travel a long way through the cold only to find the wheelwright unwilling to leave his celebration and journey back with you.”

“Believe me, I need no reminding.” Apprehension danced up and down his nerves: the specter of that failure took on a discomfiting solidity when it was voiced aloud. “But as long as there’s any chance at all of the errand succeeding, it’s my duty to make the attempt.”

“Must it always be duty, with you?” Her hands clenched into fists and her voice went thin. “Can no other consideration ever take precedence?”

“I don’t take your meaning.” How had they even got into this conversation? How had they gone so quickly from that heedless bliss against the wall to
this?
“
Duty,
by its very definition, refers to the thing that must take precedence—”

“You’re enjoying yourself at this party. I know you are. I’ve seen it. Why can’t that be the thing that takes precedence? Or why can’t it at least be one of multiple considerations that you weigh against each other?” She tipped up her chin to aim her words high on the opposite wall, as if she thought she might find a more reasonable audience there. “Why can you not weigh your enjoyment against the improbability of succeeding with the wheelwright, and conclude that the better course is to stay?”

He felt a strong impulse to sag back against the wall. Hadn’t they had this same argument five or six times already? Doing what one wanted versus doing what ought to be done? Again and again they came up against this essential difference between them. Why she insisted on wrestling with it was entirely beyond him.

“Truly, Miss Sharp, I don’t understand you.” His voice had ragged edges, to match his frayed patience. “You’ve given every appearance, these last few minutes, of being discontented with me—of wishing I were some other kind of person from the person I am. Why then would you take my departure as a loss? Why concern yourself with whether or not I enjoy the party? Why should any of my actions have any bearing on your own happiness?”

She was silent for a moment, staring at that spot high on the far wall. “I don’t know,” she finally said, her voice sunk nearly to a whisper. She lifted a hand to her face: angled away as she was, it took him a moment to work out that she was touching her fingers to the corners of each eye in turn.

Could she really be weeping for the loss of a man who’d repeatedly disappointed her? Or were they perhaps tears of pity, as she despaired of his ever outgrowing his narrow staid existence to lead a full and vivid life?

The thought galled for half a moment, and then he let the gall go. She was crying. On Christmas. When a quarter-hour ago she’d been flushed and radiant and so happy in the dance.

With two strides and a turn of her shoulders he had her in his arms, his hand at the back of her head, his cheek resting against hers. “I’m sorry, Lucy.” His fingers spread over the silk of her hair. I should never have—” He stopped.
I should never have kissed you
would hurt her.
I should never have allowed any attachment to develop between us,
the same.
I should never have agreed to take you to your aunt’s house in the first place—
He couldn’t bring himself to voice the words.

“What should you never have done?” Her muscles went tense against him as she braced herself for his answer.

“I should never have said whatever I said that’s made you cry.” That felt better than any other reply he might make, and really, perhaps it was as true as any of them.

“It’s not your fault. It’s nothing you said.” She turned her face away to swipe at her tears again. “I’ve been very foolish; that’s all.”

“I think we both have. But we’re sensible enough to have recognized our foolishness, and thus we can arrest its progress, and prevent any…” His rallying speech trailed off. These weren’t the words to comfort her.

Lord, he was every bit as bad as she was, wasn’t he? Shaping his remarks to suit some level-headed version of her that dwelt in his fancy, rather than the version that stood disconsolate here in his arms.

He could console this version, if he chose. She’d told him how in plain terms.

He closed his eyes and took a breath. “Do you still wish I would put off my errand to Downham Market?” It would cost him more than a little in conscience and self-respect. But maybe, in this moment, there were other duties, other claims, more important than conscience and self-respect.

“I do.” She let her hand fall from her face to his shoulder. “It’s not sensible, I know. It’s selfish and silly and it goes against all your plans. But I do wish you would stay.”

Another breath, since the first hadn’t gone quite deep enough. “And tonight?”

“I’m not afraid.” Her voice dropped low: he fancied he could feel its vibrations where his palm cradled the back of her head. “I would kick you if there were any need, this time. I wouldn’t be taken so by surprise, as I was last night. I would drive an elbow into your ribs.”

“Well. What man could resist such an invitation as that?”

She laughed without sound, a single exhalation that coasted across his cheek and warmed his ear. It felt nearly as good as kissing her had, and for a second or two he ransacked his brain for another witticism, to feel her laugh again and to show her he wasn’t entirely the humorless prig she’d despaired of.

No second witticism obliged, though, and just as well. If nothing was to come of this—
since
nothing was to come of this; there was no place for
ifs
in the matter when she’d made her position on marrying him so clear—since nothing would come of this perverse, misguided attraction, each to an idealized variant of the other, then he oughtn’t to seek these small intimacies, or exert himself to gain her better opinion.

He brought his cheek away from hers, taking a half-step back. “We should think of rejoining the company. We’ve been absent for rather a long while.”

“Oh, Lord, the company.” She winced, and didn’t meet his eyes. “I can’t begin to imagine what they must be thinking of us now.” So maybe she’d learned a little after all, on this journey, about the value of society’s good opinion and—

No. Enough. It wasn’t his place to harbor hopes of what she might or might not be learning. It never had been. Henceforward, for the remaining hours of their acquaintance, he could at least do her the courtesy of meeting her as she was.

“I doubt they’re thinking of us at all, and if they are, what do we care for their judgment? You know yourself to be innocent of any wrongdoing.” It felt a bit like speaking round a mouthful of rocks, but he persevered, releasing the hold he still had on her and clapping her lightly on the upper arms, like a boxing-master with a prizefighter. “Hold your head high, as befits a baron’s daughter, and if anyone dares to look askance at you, answer with your haughtiest stare.”