Read Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] for Free Online

her plate—and he wasn’t confronted with the distraction of her looks—it was easier to recall that. If he’d succeeded in attaching her affections, then she, too, would now bear the stigma of a connection that made her own parentage look like the very pattern of propriety.
    Or perhaps she wouldn’t have borne it. A lady so concerned with social status might very well leave her husband’s house, in such circumstances, and go back to the lesser evil of residing with her mother and father.
    Nothing to the purpose, all this speculation. He hadn’t won her affection, and he wouldn’t repine. All scandal and stigma aside, a woman who thought herself toogood to be a barrister’s wife was a woman he could never make happy, nor ever quite fully respect.
    Besides, he’d come here to learn about Lord Barclay and the opportunity. Not to covertly admire Miss Westbrook, not to fall into a melancholy reverie over respective family dinner tables, not to get caught up in a debate over other people’s marriages and whether youthful feelings might change.
    He bent his attention to his plate, and silently reckoned how many courses remained before he was left alone with Mr. Westbrook, a bottle of port, and the letter of opportunity.
    T HANK GOODNESS for steady, resilient Mr. Blackshear. If she’d disappointed his hopes three years ago—
    No, that was disingenuous. She had disappointed his hopes. There was no
if
in the matter. She might not shuffle about feeling guilty for the fact, but she would at least face it honestly.
    At all events, the important part was that he’d absorbed the disappointment quietly and then recognized his sentiment for the superficial infatuation it had been. No nursing his wounded pride, as so many men liked to do. No turning up his nose at the friendship that was all she could offer. He’d kept his connection to the family and now here he was, ready to show kindness to Rose for Rose’s sake, not because he hoped to rise in her own estimation.
    Kate climbed the stairs to the room she shared with Viola, skirts caught up in one hand, candle held steady in the other. Likely the gentlemen wouldn’t appear in the parlor for some time, with Lord Barclay’s letter to dissect and interpret like some exhibit admitted into evidence. She’d have a few minutes’ respite from the chore of acting lighthearted. A few minutes to indulge her still-saggingspirits, and then she’d be fit for company once again.
    The bedroom sat all in darkness, naturally. A barrister’s income didn’t provide for constant lamplight when the entire family was downstairs. A marquess’s income, now …
    She crossed to the dressing table and sat, setting the candle directly between herself and the mirror to cast the most merciless light on her reflection. A lady needed to be rigorous in her self-appraisal, when beauty was all the dowry she had.
    One small section of her hair was not perfectly smooth; she adjusted the pin. If Mr. Blackshear entered into a professional association with this Lord Barclay, she would be but one friendly remove from the connection. If she could only prevail upon Mr. Blackshear to somehow bring her to the baron’s notice, she would at least make the excellent first impression she always did with men.
    And a marquess-to-be—was she tempting disappointment by daring to think of this?—might suit her purpose even better than a marquess. He would have grown up without expectations of inheriting, and thus he might have a broader conception of what kind of woman would make him a suitable wife. Too, if he interested himself, as Papa had said, in matters of public welfare, perhaps he was one of those modern sorts who argued for the dignity of all people and could easily be brought to see that the daughter of an actress might have every virtue that really mattered.
    Altogether too many
mights
in that vision of events. In the mirror her mouth twisted with dissatisfaction; she huffed out a small breath that made the