Royal Regard (48 page)

Smythe addressed himself to Charlotte,
turning his back on Nick, who immediately determined that in the
morning, he would show this man exactly what a mistake it was for a
soldier, no matter what rank, to offend the Duke of Wellbridge.
Nick’s shoulders stiffened, his chest expanded with his own
self-importance. He could hardly remember being so insulted.
Smythe, for his part, completely ignored Nick’s nascent fury,
fanning the flames of his own destruction.

“I admit, Lady Firthley, I harbored a great
deal of resentment against you and your parents. My father, too,
for gambling away what would have been my inheritance, which is why
I set aside the title and took the new name. Well, not new anymore,
I suppose, as no one outside this room still calls me
Smithson.”

“One cannot set aside a hereditary title, Sir
John,” Firthley observed.

“No, but as the Smithson male line
disappeared in 1807, so did the baronetcy unless the king confers
it elsewhere. A title was a liability in the areas I was forced to
frequent, as was my last name. And with no disrespect intended, I
take credit only for honors I have earned myself.”

Firthley inclined his head. “Very well, then.
If His Majesty has not called you to account, nor will I. Please
continue.”

For the first time, Smythe seemed slightly
unsure, so Nick placed the gun on his lap, barrel turned toward the
interloper, more than happy to encourage insecurity. The movement
rather had the opposite effect, however. Smythe just sat back,
crossed his legs and smirked, implying by stretching his fists and
rolling his shoulders that Nick might need a gun to dispatch him,
but all Smythe would need to kill the duke was his bare hands.

“As you know, my brother and I were left
nothing from our father but duns. We were turned off our uncle’s
land, though he was generous enough to pay Father’s legitimate
debts to keep us out of prison. We hadn’t a shilling between us,
but for the value of our grandfather’s cravat pins and fifty pounds
Aunt Minerva gave me on the condition we never come back to
Somerset. Which we did not.” He nodded to Charlotte, who looked
away.

“Of course, our father’s name was utterly
disgraced, lawful creditors angry his death had cheated them of a
hanging, and less honorable men—quite the wrong sort—trying to take
his gambling debt from his sons’ hides.”

Charlotte took up Firthley’s glass and walked
to the sideboard to refill it, while Nick and her husband both
straightened in their seats, watching Smythe carefully to make sure
he didn’t move even one inch toward her.

When Firthley asked, “Are you sure you
wouldn’t like something, Major?” Charlotte poured the water back
into the decanter and left Firthley’s empty glass on the cart,
sauntering back to her seat without so much as a glare toward her
husband.

Smythe’s lips turned up just slightly, as
though enjoying an amusing memory.

“Even Bella’s husband refused to help us,”
Smythe continued, his face hardening again into detachment, “then
Jeremy was killed, so I did the only thing I could to get out of
the stews without a knife in my gut: I took the king’s shilling,
signed on as a private. I used the incentive money to pay my gaming
debts—though not my father’s—and left London.”

“You paid your vowels,” Charlotte sniffed. “I
suppose that is something.”

“Quite,” he admitted, “given what I learned
at my father’s knee.” He didn’t linger on those lessons, which Nick
though was probably wise, given the look on Charlotte’s face. “Had
you bought the commission I requested, Lord Firthley, I would have
remained the same entitled, resentful little boy I had always been,
and likely would have killed hundreds of soldiers out of sheer
incompetence.”

At least he hadn’t managed to take out an
entire regiment. In fact, if Nick were feeling generous, he might
admit Smythe had risen through the ranks on his own merit, and the
British military was anything but a meritocracy. It was rather
admirable he had taken responsibility for his disgraceful behavior.
However, Nick was not at all feeling generous.

“Given my position as cannon fodder, I was
only worth what I earned—so paid in floggings the first year, until
I decided working toward promotions was a better prospect for a man
who had been nominally raised a gentleman.”

“Nominally?” Nick jabbed.

“Not Eton, I’m afraid, but my uncle did not
skimp on our tutors. Jeremy and I were educated with Lady
Firthley’s brothers, with an eye toward attending university,
although neither of us did. By that time, our father’s resources
were such that—”

“Such that you felt the need to steal for
your living,” Charlotte interrupted with a sneer.

Smythe’s face looked like it had been carved
from limestone. “Such that our father felt the need to use both his
sons to fleece the aristocracy. Perhaps you are not aware, Lady
Firthley, of the threats he used to ensure our compliance, but I am
certain Bella can provide you examples.”

Firthley cleared his throat, placing his hand
on Charlotte’s before she could respond. Her face paled and mouth
slackened, looking for all the world as though she wanted to beg
Smythe’s forgiveness.

Before she said a word, Firthley offered,
“You may call me Firthley, Major. Where did you serve?”

“Thank you, Firthley. Please call me John.”
He nodded to acknowledge the tentative approval, then replied. “In
Ireland first, but then recruited for the Guards and spent almost
ten years on the Continent in various locales, my last posting at
Waterloo. When I returned to England after the war, I was given
command of the men now lining your street. My post in London is
permanent—as permanent as these things can be.”

Before Nick could explain how very temporary
military postings could become at his request, Charlotte asked,
dubiously, “Why haven’t you come before now?” A very good question,
which Nick should have asked as soon as the intruder had walked in
the door.

“Have you considered it might take a few
weeks to work up an apology for selling my sister into near-certain
death?” Charlotte conceded the point with a shrug. “By the time I
found the courage for abject contrition, she had been made a
countess, and her husband had the confidence of the king. Lord
Huntleigh had no reason to allow me contact. I might not be here
now if she weren’t in danger with no husband.”

Nick growled, “She is protected quite well,
so you need not feel compelled to stay.”

Firthley snapped, “Enough, Wellbridge.”

Nick’s opened and closed his mouth in
impotent outrage. After everything he and Firthley had gone through
saving Bella, he couldn’t credit the man suddenly taking up against
Nick with this… this criminal… this parvenu scum. They had no way
to know the man’s intentions, nor what he might do if left to his
own devices. If there were the slightest chance Smythe might hurt
Bella, physically, emotionally, or financially, Nick would stop
him, even if it once again meant murder.

Nick was sorely tempted to use the gun on
Firthley when he added, “You may throw Major Smythe out of your
drawing room the next time he is there, Wellbridge, but this is my
home, not yours. Keep a civil tongue.”

Smythe turned a cynical eye toward Nick, but
again, spoke to Charlotte. “I have no desire to push in where I’m
not wanted, but I need to know Bella is safe—most especially from
men with inappropriate intentions and an eye on her money.” Smythe
all but growled at Nick, who tightened his hand, finger on the
trigger.

“Civil tongue, Major,” Firthley warned. “The
duke has earned his right to be here, while you, as yet, have
not.”

“Of course, Firthley,” Smythe said, his eyes
narrowing. “I would never think of offending your guest.” His tone
said he might think of nothing else until he accomplished it. “Lady
Firthley, might I see Bella for a moment?” He held up his hands. “I
have no weapon.”

Charlotte nodded swiftly, but didn’t speak.
Nor did she look him in the eye.

Firthley stood. “I will be happy to accompany
you, and Wellbridge can take up the rear, so long as his purpose is
not shooting you in the back on my staircase.”

“If he presents no threat, I have no
intention of shooting him at all.”

As all three men stood, Firthley commented,
“Good. There has been enough pain and scandal in this house to last
a lifetime.” As Nick was about to add something scathing, Firthley
chided, “Civil tongue, Wellbridge, or out the door you go.”

Bella slowly opened her eyes,
blinking to bring the room into uncertain focus. Apart from the
same sort of spinning and nausea she experienced after too much
champagne, the room was innocuous. Moving only her eyes and
fingers, she could tell she was resting on a soft mattress on a
curtained, four-poster bed frame. Pomona-green brocade drapes hid
any hint of the hour and muffled the quiet songbirds of a back
garden. Muted light from beeswax candles glowed atop a secretary
desk and an inlaid armoire, leaving the room dim. She let her eyes
flutter closed again, but before she could drift off, she was
startled by a voice right next to her ear.

“Bella, darling. You’re awake.” She shied
away from an earsplitting whisper. “Oh, thank God, you are awake.”
Nick was nearly crying; she could hear it in his tone, but she
wasn’t sure why.

“Have I been sleeping?” She tried to bring
her hands up to rub her eyes, but she found herself swaddled like a
child. Nick loosened the blankets and took her hand once she had
rubbed the sleep from her lashes.

“Ten days, my love. The worst ten days of my
life.”

She turned her head slowly, trying, with
minimal success, to keep the room from whirling like a Sufi dancer.
His face went in and out of focus, and he looked older, as though
ten years had passed, not days. Perhaps, she thought, it was a
trick of the light.

“You are fuzzy, Your Grace.”

He held up two fingers to test her sight, but
she giggled weakly and touched the scruff of his tenth-day
beard.

“She’s saying you need a shave, old man, and
she’s right. You look like a tap-hackled toss pot.”

Nick used the same two fingers and showed
John the back of his hand and Bella, with a frown, turned to take
in the second visitor. John just tilted his head and gave Nick a
sardonic smile.

“My brother is here,” Bella mused. “Must be
sleeping.” She reached her hand out to touch his face, but grasped
at the air a few inches away. She looked back at Nick. “Dreaming, I
s’pose.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Or the afterlife.”

John smiled and took her hand, holding it to
his stubbly cheek. “No, sweeting. Not the afterlife and not
dreaming. I’m here. Chaperoning this hairy miscreant who claims
you’ve decided to marry him.”

She looked over at Nick, even more confused.
“Marry? I’m already married.”

As soon as Nick’s eyes met John’s, sheer
horror filled her mind, clearing up her bleary confusion. “Oh, no.
Myron.” She struggled to sit up, but both men pushed her shoulders
back.

“Myron died… is that right? Is he buried?”
Her voice rose and speech quickened. Her agitated struggling
against their hands shook the entire bed, rattling the frame. “Has
my husband been buried and I don’t remember? And where am I? Why am
I not in my own bed? Oh, God,” she moaned, searching Nick’s face,
but the room began to spin so quickly she thought she would fall,
so she grabbed on to the mattress with both hands.

Nick loosened her fisted hands and wrapped
his arm around her shoulders to help her lean up in the bed.

“Here, my love. Have a sip of water.”

John pushed two pillows behind her back. With
every movement, her head throbbed a bit more. When her hand moved
to her temple to ease the aching, she found another surprise. “My
hair…” She combed through the close crop, which likely looked like
a hedgehog’s quills if she had been in bed so long.

She drank deeply, then pushed the glass away
with a weak hand. “Someone please tell me what’s happened.” Before
they could answer, she again put a hand to her forehead. “My head
hurts. And I’m feeling faint. I am never faint.” She dropped her
head back onto the pillows, but kept her eyes open and stared at
the wall.

“I remember I was at your house…” She blushed
when John arched his brows. “Having… tea… I think I remember a
carriage, but no crest. Lord Malbourne was… No, that makes no
sense.” She finished faintly, “My head hurts.”

John spoke up, running his hand over her
shorn hair. “That’s enough for now. Wellbridge, why don’t you go
find Charlotte? And make the acquaintance of a razor while you are
gone.”

Bella sat up again, hand at her temple,
shifting uncomfortably under the blanket. “I need the—” She looked
ever so briefly at the chamber pot on the other side of the room.
When John reached for a bedpan, as though such things were
de
rigueur
, her cheeks went bright red, and she nearly whimpered
to Nick, “Please call for Charlotte or Michelle.”