Shipmate: A Royal Regard Prequel Novella (18 page)

“We could have waited to attend a party. We
haven’t settled into the house yet, and the trip wearied my husband
more than he will admit. I must be concerned for his health.”

“Nonsense. Myron is as spry as ever.”

Bella’s lips compressed into a thin line;
Charlotte’s constant references to the thirty-two-year age
difference had started even before she married him, and only Bella
knew how dangerously ill Myron had been on the trip back to
England. Even Myron pretended he had no notion.

“You have been here more than a week without
attending any parties,” Charlotte nagged, “and you would never
present yourself anywhere unless forced to it.”

“I have become quite adept at parties, and
in any case, common courtesy would have forced the issue soon
enough. It is simply easier to feel elegant and refined in the
company of people with every reason to be kind to a man and his
wife on His Majesty’s business. Myron has more influence in Ceylon
or Barbados or Sierra Leone than in London, and no one likes a
bookish girl in England.” Bella bit her lip. “I know my place,
Charlotte. I just would have preferred to face the ordeal in the
dress I had made for the occasion.”

“You look quite handsome,” Charlotte argued.
“Your hair is straight as a plumb line, but the color is brilliant
as ever, not even a trace of grey.” Charlotte smoothed it in the
front. “And you have finally grown into your face.”

Bella’s nerves fled with a cynical laugh and
an impudent curtsey. “I am ever so grateful for the backhanded
compliments, Your Ladyship.” A habitual, playful disparagement
raked over her cousin. “I can be as handsome as I want since I
caught and kept a husband, and I am offended you discount my
scintillating conversation after I have worked so hard at it all
this time. The Governor-General of British India finds me
fascinating.”

“And no doubt the commandant of the penal
colonies.”

“The title you are looking for is Governor
of New South Wales, and yes, Governor Macquarie and Myron have been
acquainted for many years, beginning in India, and his wife,
Elizabeth, and I were quite bosom friends both times we were in the
Antipodes. She is the one whose care of the natives—”

She broke off when Charlotte held her hand
out. “I beg you not continue about natives.”

To distract Charlotte from further comment,
and put an end to any argument, she inclined her head toward
Malbourne, murmuring, “He is very handsome.”

Across the room, he was under siege by a
young lady on the shelf at two-and-twenty, scandalously dressed in
near-translucent silver muslin, whom, it seemed, had been pushed
into the inappropriate pursuit by an ever-vigilant mother trying to
find a way to compromise her daughter.

Charlotte spoke even more quietly than her
cousin. “Leave off any interest in Lord Malbourne. He’s
French
, as though you need to know any more. You must not
let him flirt so.”

“Keeping a Frenchman from flirting is like
keeping a snake from a mongoose.” At Charlotte’s raised eyebrow,
Bella explained with a half-smile, “The mongoose might win, but
most likely, the snake will slither away to try again.”

“Why is he here?” Bella asked when Charlotte
stopped giggling. “I know the war is over, but I confess I thought
London hostesses would be fighting yet. And why ‘Lord?’ Is he not a
duke?”

“He is a
French
duke,” Charlotte
said, as though it were explanation for any rudeness she cared to
inflict, “though he has been in England most of his life,”
Charlotte started, clearly enthralled by the prospect of passing on
delicious tittle-tattle. “You may have met him when—”

Bella shook her head.

“Well, you were only in London a few weeks.
His late wife inherited land near Dover, and he took possession
just before the Revolution. I heard he left her to die by
guillotine, but Alexander says she was taken in childbed.”

“Does Alexander know everything about
everyone?”

“Yes. Now, hush, or I won’t pass on what
he’s told me.” Bella closed her mouth before Charlotte made good
her threat. “He entertained King Louis at his manor house during
the exile, and it’s said he loaned King George half a million
pounds toward the war debt, but that is probably a lie. Everyone
knows he lost all his money when he ran from the rabble in Paris.
Now that the Little Corporal has been deposed,
Monsieur le
Duc
is making the rounds of London again, pretending to be
better than he is. They say he is looking for a wife, but he won’t
pay attention to any one girl.”

“Why did a pedigreed
émigré
not
return to France when—”

Before Bella could complete her question,
their husbands joined them at last. Alexander Marloughe, Marquess
of Firthley, moderated his lengthy stride to match Bella’s spouse,
who tottered on a cane, supporting a gouty leg and declining state
of frailty, both of which had precipitated their return to
England.

When Alexander held out his arm to provide a
steadying hand, the elderly man stumbled slightly to the side to
avoid it. Myron Clewes, Baron Holsworthy, could be a stubborn man
when he so chose. Stepping to his side, Bella slipped her arm
through her husband’s, in order that he might lean on her
surreptitiously, an inconspicuous position both comfortable and
well established.

After many years of salt winds and tropical
suns, they were both unfashionably tanned. For her part, Bella
welcomed it, for it helped to hide the lines she was starting to
see in her mirror, although one more mark against her in polite
society. On Myron, the lines were years past hiding, as was his
thinning shock of white hair, twice as bright just by proximity to
his darkened face.

“My dear, I am so sorry to have kept you
waiting,” Myron said, grasping Bella’s arm more tightly than usual.
“Was that Malbourne I saw?”

“Yes.” Bella was taken aback. “You know
him?”

Myron’s lips were suddenly thinner, his face
almost ashen. “I know of him, and will not allow his attentions
toward my wife.”

“Of course, husband,” she said, bowing her
head to the chastisement, letting any irritation drift into the
crosscurrents of rumor and innuendo. Myron would entertain her
thoughts, opinions, observations, questions, or arguments on any
topic she chose—at home. In public, she always agreed with him.

“He’s right, Bella,” Alexander said.
“Slippery man, that. Not good
ton
.”

“‘Good
ton
,’” Bella pronounced, “is a
contradiction in terms.”

Alexander didn’t disagree, only turned to
his wife, saying, “I wish you wouldn’t force me to Almack’s,
Charlotte. Knee breeches are as bad as a ball gown.” He shifted in
his clothes, pulling at his cravat until it was drawn askew. With
his hair tied and powdered in the manner of several older, more
influential members of Parliament, and attired in formal black
breeches, clocked cream stockings and a coat of black superfine, he
appeared closer to Myron’s age, a quarter-century beyond his
one-and-forty. He had not yet matured, however, into the same sense
of quiet dignity.

Charlotte smiled and adjusted his collar.
“Don’t be ridiculous, my love. You are most distinguished and would
look frightful in a frock. You haven’t the figure for it,” she
laughed, continuing, “You will be pleased to know if Bella has her
way, we shall be removed from the guest list entirely before the
evening is out.
Naked savages
, indeed. Myron, it is
scandalous you give her license to throw indecent stories around
like brickbats.”

Myron patted his wife’s hand. “She needs no
license from me. She is a grown woman, perfectly capable of
speaking her own mind.” Myron inclined his head toward Charlotte’s
mutinous expression in a half-conciliatory gesture. “Though I’m
sure you understand the way of things in London much better than
I.”

Irritated at being discussed as though she
weren’t present, Bella spoke just as the music stopped: “I don’t
give a tuppenny damn for the way of things in London!” Her voice
carried much further than she had intended, and a collective gasp
rose from everyone in hearing distance, followed by a buzz of
denigration that spread across the room like a wave across
water.

Charlotte snapped her fan much harder on
Bella’s hand, her mouth opening and closing, choking on the words
to express her outrage. Lips twitching, Alexander and Myron covered
their amusement with observations about the orchestra’s rapidly
chosen next selection, a polka.

“You will kindly moderate your language, or
I will take you home at once,” Charlotte hissed, rounding on the
gentlemen. “And you two! Encouraging her!”

“I am not a child to be sent to my room
without supper, Charlotte,” Bella snapped. “I have a voucher, so I
will be staying.” She would rather dine on rotten meat than endure
another hour at Almack’s, but a breakfast of ground glass was
preferable to yielding to Charlotte.

“If anyone is to send her to her room
without supper, my dear Lady Firthley, it will be me.” Myron spoke
gently, in the tone he always used to forestall further argument.
Bella’s coy smirk sent a message to him that shut out everyone else
in the room without being at all inappropriate.

Charlotte snapped, “I might think you would
encourage her to act like a proper wife, before it gets back to the
king that she is still an incurable hoyden.”

“I daresay you might think so,” Myron
answered, “but I assure you, His Majesty is well aware she is a
hoyden. He has come to see it as a great asset.” Bella flushed at
this encomium and lowered her eyes under Myron’s indulgent smile.
“He has never failed to ask after her, and often remarks on the
outstanding results of her wit and charm.”

“‘Tis true, Charlotte,” Alexander agreed.
“Prinny holds a great fondness for Bella. He has said so several
times in my hearing.” Angling his head away from Charlotte, he
winked at Bella, adding, “No one can credit his partiality for such
a hoyden.”

“I fail to see any wit or charm,” Charlotte
sniffed. “She will be barred from polite society, and Seventh Sea
Shipping will follow suit.”

“Pray, do not act like those stuffy women,
Charlotte. You shall become old and boring long before your time.”
Bella could not resist the jibe. “The look on your face will bring
on even more wrinkles.”

Clearly afraid talk of wrinkles might turn
into a brawl, Myron interceded. “I expect my business can withstand
a bit of scandal. In fact, I know it can.” Myron held Bella’s arm
tightly, running his thumb across the back of her hand. He said,
though not loudly, “This is not the first time she has deservedly
shown an aristo the rough side of her tongue, nor will it be the
last, and I’m certain plain speaking causes no affront to God.”

Nodding her head sharply in agreement, Bella
turned her nose up at Charlotte in a childish pretense. Finally
unable to contain his building mirth, Alexander started laughing
aloud.

“I say, Holsworthy,” he remarked with a
grin, “you and your wife are just the fresh air we need at Court.
It is so very dull listening to the same
on-dit
day after
day. You’ll ruin yourselves by morning, but it will liven things up
nicely.”

“I take back everything I said about missing
you all this time,” Charlotte declared, looking down her nose at
her wayward cousin. “I had forgotten what a heathen you are.”

“Then I shall endeavor to remind you as
often as I can,” Bella released a melodramatic harrumph. “There are
more ladies headed our way. Shall I tell the story of the
Gongulobibi priests revering me as a goddess?”

Read the rest of Bella’s story in
Royal
Regard
, available now in print and for e-reader at all major
online retailers.

Charlotte Amberly would rather eat a lump of coal
for Christmas dinner than marry the Marquess of Firthley, so when
her parents cancel her London Season in favor of a rush to the
altar, the feisty debutante takes husband-hunting into her own
hands.

Alexander Marloughe, reluctant heir to a
marquessate, would rather not spend his holiday dashing through the
snow after a flibbertigibbet just out of the schoolroom, but no
woman before Charlotte has ever led him such a merry chase.

In this collection of novellas, the Bluestocking
Belles bring you seven runaway Regency brides resisting and
romancing their holiday heroes under the mistletoe. Whether
scampering away or dashing toward their destinies, avoiding a rogue
or chasing after a scoundrel, these ladies and their gentlemen
leave miles of mayhem behind them on the slippery road to a
happy-ever-after.

***All proceeds benefit the Malala Fund.***