Royal Regard (27 page)

Bella stomped her foot, setting the tea tray
rattling on the side table. Once Charlotte had finished dealing for
the next game, she abandoned the cards briefly to pour herself
another cup, the last in the pot. Finding only a scant half-cup,
she seated herself in one of the new shepherdess chairs to make
more.

“I am not going to marry a man because he
isn’t the worst I could do! I am not going to marry at all! For
heaven’s sake, am I the only person in London who remembers
I am
still married?
”

Charlotte dumped the dregs into the slop
bowl, then measured out new tea leaves from the silver caddy. When
she tipped the samovar to release the last drop of water into the
teapot, she had only enough to brew another cup or two, so she
strode to the bell pull to summon a maid.

Taking her lukewarm cup back to the desk, she
responded, “Of course you will marry. You can’t just shift for
yourself with all that money. You need someone to manage it, and
you don’t want to spend the rest of your life lonely just to make a
point.”

She picked up the remainder cards and turned
over the first three. As she stared at the board, her brows turned
down and face grew hard. Apparently deciding there was no time like
the present, without looking at Bella, she delivered the
coup de
grace
: “You might still have children.”

Bella’s face drained of all color and she
abruptly stopped pacing. “Children are the very last reason I would
consider another husband. I have lost six. If God were willing, I
would be a mother by now.”

Charlotte dropped the cards on the table,
hands shaking. “Six? I only ever knew about… you never told
me.”

Bella was almost silent. “I withheld it from
even Myron most often, and it was not something I wished to dwell
upon in every letter.” She squared her shoulders. “In fact, I
prefer not to dwell on it now.”

She proved herself by changing the subject.
“I am more than capable of managing my own affairs, no matter how
many men Myron would rather find to do it for me. This fortune can
do no good at all if it is squandered to pay for the illicit
pleasures of a rake like Wellbridge.”

“He has no need of your money to pay for his
pleasures.” Only Bella would notice the cunning in Charlotte’s
smile as she moved the second column to the fifth, to finish a
tableau. Turning up the Ace of Clubs, she began a new foundation
and opened a new column. “And you might enjoy his improper
behavior, if you’d stop acting like such a widgeon.”

“Enjoy it?! I think not! I have been in the
company of nothing but men all my life—first Father, John, and
Jeremy, then at sea with Myron and a hundred sailors for fifteen
years. There is not one so enjoyable as sitting at my own hearth in
my own home making my own deuced decisions!”

“You’ll never catch a husband using filthy
language and always talking about making your own decisions.”

“Is that not the point?” Bella shouted. “I
will spend the next fifteen years—the next fifty!—enjoying my own
society, as I am far more interesting than any man I’ve ever known.
Ev—Especially Wellbridge!”

“So Wellbridge is interesting, is he?”
Charlotte couldn’t entirely erase the amusement from her voice, but
she did manage not to laugh aloud.

Charlotte dropped the stack of remainder
cards on the desk at a quiet knock on the door. “Come in.”

Mrs. Jemison poked her head in tentatively,
so Charlotte said, “I shall protect you from Lady Huntleigh’s
tempers if need be. We simply need more hot water for tea, if you
please.”

Once the door closed, Charlotte asked, “I’m
sure Myron has been a very nice husband all this time, but don’t
you want to know what it would be like to marry for love? I mean,
since you have the chance. Most women never do, you know.”

“
Love
. Flattery. Frivolity. Folly. An
old wives’ tale designed to make women dissatisfied with their
lives.”

Charlotte’s face dropped, and she lowered her
eyes, quietly admitting, “I love Alexander.”

Bella sniffed and turned up her nose. “I’m
sure you do, but you have grown into it, not been hit by some
proverbial lightning bolt. You didn’t love him on your wedding day.
You wailed like your mother was selling you to gypsies.”

“How very silly of me, was it not? You might
grow into it, too.”

“With
that
man? I think not.”

“From where I sit, you already have.”
Charlotte wisely hid her face in her teacup, finishing the last,
then took up the cards again while Bella’s mouth opened and closed,
trying to find words adequate to her rage.

“
In love with him
? I was
never
in love with him! He is a thick-headed jackanapes with more muscles
than sense, and I hate him!” Furniture shook at the impact when she
stomped her foot. Charlotte just smiled and played a red four on a
black five.

“Is it something Wellbridge has done? Has he
somehow been cruel? Is he dividing his attentions between you and
some other woman? Truly, I haven’t heard anything of the sort.”

“He’s conspired with my husband to control my
life! Is that not enough?”

Charlotte found the Ace of Hearts and topped
it with the two, three, four, and five. “Don’t be silly, Bella.
There is no controlling you.” She turned three more cards,
finishing a tableau, but found no more new cards for her
foundations. “So, does that mean you are done with him?”

“The only way I could be more finished with
Wellbridge is if I’d had the chance to cut his heart out!”

“So you don’t mind if some other woman wants
a dalliance?” Charlotte added the six and seven to the Hearts pile,
and the eight and nine of Clubs in the next.

“Some other woman is welcome to him. More
luck her!”

“Excellent. I have had my eye on him ever
since we met that day at Gunter’s, but I didn’t want to push in. He
is so very handsome and has a reputation for stamina.”

“Charlotte!”

“Yes?” Before Bella could give voice to her
indignation, Charlotte continued, “You don’t want him, and I’ve
heard the most wonderful things from Rowena Astewithe. She says
he’s quite splendid.”

The trajectory of Bella’s pacing shortened,
and all of the things she now wished to say piled up on her tongue
like stalled London traffic.

“So you will start fluttering your fan at
him?” Bella finally retorted. “You just said you love
Alexander.”

“Well, of course, but he’s so busy with The
Lords, and just between us, after sixteen years of marriage and two
children, the lovemaking is a bit stale. I could do with some
variety, and everyone agrees Wellbridge is the perfect man for
that.”

Bella felt heat rise from her rapidly beating
heart to the tingling of her hair standing on end, but Charlotte
just continued on, paying no notice to anything but adding the ten
and knave to the Hearts foundation. “A girl needs a bit of
attention. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, after fifteen years
of Humdrum Huntleigh.”

“I see what you are doing,” Bella hissed.

“And what is that?”

Stopping in her tracks, Bella lowered her
voice and said, “You never would.”

Charlotte played the King of Clubs and set
the pile aside, then finished the foundation of Spades, adding it
to the stack. Bella’s head twisted from Charlotte to the logs in
the fireplace and back again. Twice. Then she repeated, “You never
would.”

“Why not? You have no need of him.”

“But—”

Charlotte played the King of Diamonds. “But
what? You say you aren’t in love with him. Why should I not go find
him now?” She finished her game with the Queen and King of Hearts,
then stacked the deck. “It’s early enough in the day that he will
still be abed. Perhaps he would like company.” She stood.

“Charlotte!”

“Yes?”

“You cannot!”

“Why ever not?”

Bella sat suddenly on the sofa, her face
stricken. “Because…” She stood again, her arms folded, staring with
watery eyes at the Italian marble, as though it had been cut from a
quarry filled with the incomprehensible language of love.

“No reason at all.” She waved her hand behind
her, then dashed the tears away. “Go then. Go warm his bed. And I
don’t want to hear one more word about it.”

“If you say so, my dear.” Charlotte began to
gather up her things. “I expect I might not see you for a day or
two. I’m sure once he’s started…”

Bella swallowed a gasp and a whimper whole,
but only sat watching Charlotte pull on her gloves. Charlotte
strode to the door and opened it, halfway through before Bella
said, “No, stop.”

“Yes?” Charlotte shut the door quietly, one
eyebrow raised, hand motionless on the knob.

“I do love him.” The tears now fell in
earnest, her breath becoming a sobbing wheeze.

Charlotte came over and rubbed Bella’s
shoulder until her cousin turned into her arms.

“Of course you do, darling.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Bella sobbed.
“I’ve never loved anyone before, and he can’t possibly want—”

“No one has ever seen him act the way he does
with you. In truth, Lady Rowena is so jealous she’s spitting
andirons. Everyone knows a lady who speaks of an affair with
Wellbridge has never had one. What did he say when he asked you to
marry him?”

Rather than answer, Bella hid her face in the
rouleaux
of Charlotte’s morning dress. She might be angry
enough to take a short knife to both men, but the reasons for their
plotting were humiliating enough to never want to repeat. And her
heart was so raw, it might bleed outright given further attention
from a certain duke.

“Nothing. He said nothing,” she sniffled.

Charlotte set her chin on the top of Bella’s
head and patted her back the same way she had when Nigel Tarkinton
and the rest of the village boys took up Bella’s brothers’ tease
when they were children, chanting wherever she went, “Is’na Bella!
Is’na Bella!”

“Well, of course he said something, or you
wouldn’t be ready to cut out his gizzard with that awful
dagger.”

Bella sniffed and tried to bring her crying
under control, almost whispering, “He never asked, just said he and
Myron thought it best he protect me and my money from fortune
hunters.”

“
He and Myron thought it best
?”
Charlotte squawked. “He used those words?”

“Yes. The beef-witted lobcock.”

“Sapscull,” Charlotte agreed.

“Hulverhead.”

“Shall we continue in this vein?” Charlotte’s
question sounded sincere, but her face was now rife with amusement.
“Or will you tell me the rest?”

“Nick-ninny.” Bella giggled weakly at the
absurdity, before the laughter was hindered by a new surge of
crying. She tried to slow the sobbing, choking and coughing out,
“He said I wouldn’t have to follow fashion, which means he thinks
I’m ugly.” She hid her face again in Charlotte’s shoulder. Far
easier to call herself unattractive than to hear it from someone
else, especially a man pretending to flirt with her.

“Don’t be absurd. He has never pursued a
woman who’s in fashion—why he’ll never want Lady Rowena—and I won’t
believe for one minute he thinks you ugly. He said nothing of
loving you?”

Bella’s tears swelled again. “No. Because he
doesn’t. Myron’s only talked him into this. My husband is paying
him to take me in.”

“The gossips say he is mad for you.”

“The gossips are wrong. He has said his whole
life he’ll never marry. Why would he suddenly decide to wed the
ugliest woman in England? He is in league with my husband, because
Myron is afraid a mere woman will lose his fortune buying
dresses.”

“That doesn’t sound at all correct.”

“They are unspeakable cads, and I cannot
allow them to win.” Another wave of tears flowed onto Charlotte’s
dress, wet blotches on the long-since-ruined silk. Still, she
contained this rash of tears more quickly, perhaps even for the
last time today.

Charlotte chuckled, rubbing Bella’s shoulders
the way she did with Jewel on the back end of a temper tantrum. “Of
course not. That would be an awful precedent.”

Mrs. Jemison slipped in through the servants’
door and set down the tea tray as quietly as possible, leaving
before either woman could require anything else.

Bella was now sniffling and rubbing a sulky
face with her sleeve, so Charlotte took a handkerchief from her
pinner pocket and pushed it into her hand, adding, “We shall make
the silly men rue the day. And win you Wellbridge into the bargain.
Why don’t I pour and we can work out a plan?”

Bella sniffed again, her tears still starting
and stopping, but with considerably less frequency. Shoulders
hunched, face long, she dragged her feet to the sofa and sat,
mutely watching Charlotte perform the ritual of preparing and
serving them both tea.

Three more bouts of crying, two screeching
outbursts, and six cups of Ceylon later, they had a plan. Staring
into the fireplace, wondering if she could actually manage to
perform the extremely difficult tasks ahead, Bella was still not
convinced her time with Wellbridge hadn’t been a well-conceived
plot.

He must have his pick of any woman in
London—no, England—no, the entire world. No matter what Charlotte
said, a little bit of conversation wasn’t nearly enough to keep the
attention of a man like him. And even if Charlotte were right, and
he did want her now, it wouldn’t be long before he lost interest.
If they were married when it happened, it would break her heart
daily the rest of her life. With a clean break now, she might
eventually recover.

Based on Charlotte’s puffed-up, smug
self-satisfaction, Bella could tell that not only would she be
taking orders from Charlotte in the plan they had just devised, but
her cousin also had a covert strategy. As usual, Bella wasn’t able
to tease out even a hint. Charlotte just denied and denied any
machinations until Bella finally had to give up, knowing, at least,
that Charlotte’s plans were usually effective and rarely
discovered, a miraculous skill built during years of evading her
despotic mother. Bella had never been so lucky against Aunt Minerva
or anyone else.