Read Shipmate: A Royal Regard Prequel Novella Online
Authors: Mariana Gabrielle
Tags: #historical romance, #sailing, #regency, #regency romance, #arranged marriage, #mariana gabrielle, #royal regard, #sailing home series
December 15, 1803
Somerset, England
The snow falling outside the frosted drawing
room window blanketed Charlotte Amberly’s mood as surely as it did
the garden on which she gazed. Usually, she loved the Yuletide
season, but she could hardly keep her mind on wassail and holly
berries, knowing who would be staying at least through Twelfth
Night, assuredly planning to meet her under the kissing bough.
The Marquess of Firthley, Charlotte’s new
betrothed, was expected in a few days for an indefinite stay, and
if Charlotte’s mother had her way, he wouldn’t leave until they
were married. When a viscount’s daughter snared a marquess, it
behooved her to leg-shackle him before he could run.
"Lord Firthley’s note said he was bringing
his grandson." Minerva Amberly, Lady Effingale, calmly stitched the
outline of a Christmas rose on an altar cloth intended as a gift
for the vicar’s wife.
"Yes, Mother. You’ve told me twenty times. I
must be kind to the poor, motherless child, so the marquess will
believe me a good grandmother for his heir."
"Quite right, and you needn’t take that
tone."
"I will be a grandmother before I am
eighteen," she grumbled.
"Better than a spinster before you are
twenty."
"I’ve not even met him!" she argued, going
so far as to stomp her foot.
Lady Effingale would brook no such nonsense
from a recalcitrant daughter. "Then it is fortunate he wants you
sight unseen."
Between the flare of her mother’s nostrils
and the arch of her left eyebrow, Charlotte’s rebellion
fizzled—briefly.
"He wants Papa’s voting bloc, not me,"
Charlotte protested under her breath, but before her mother could
castigate her again, she moaned, "I was to make my curtsey next
month! How can you just ignore an invitation from the queen?"
"One of your husband’s relations will
present you at Court as his marchioness. He has the king’s ear, you
know."
Dropping onto the window seat, hiding her
grimace behind the curtain, Charlotte muttered, "Yes, Mother.
You’ve said."
Lady Effingale set down her needlework to
sort through her basket of silks, finally finding a length of dark
green. "You should be grateful to be the wife of a man of
considerable fortune and influence."
"Yes, Mother."
The sounds of running and yelling down the
hall came rapidly closer until Charlotte’s two younger brothers
dashed into the room, throwing a rounders ball between them. The
ball promptly slammed into the teapot and sent it flying off the
table next to Charlotte, into the skirts of her new pale pink
dress, leaving a huge brown stain. Guy and Hugh, ages twelve and
fourteen respectively, stopped short at their mother’s screeching
and Charlotte’s rage.
"You hellions! Get out! Get back to the
nursery before I break you into pieces and return you to Eton in a
box!"
Although she had complained endlessly to her
mother and Bella about the wishy-washy color of the gown, it was
not improved by being soiled. And she was in a far worse temper now
than she had been a week ago.
Guy scurried to retrieve the ball, while
Hugh drew himself up into a dignified and offended stance worthy of
the viscount he would one day become.
"We no longer reside in the nursery, and you
have no call to screech. I heard Mother tell you just this morning,
you ‘must improve your sense of decorum.’"
By contrast to his brother’s false
indignity, Guy’s sheepish smile apologized for the teapot, the
yelling, and Charlotte’s dress, though he was not contrite enough
for their mother.
"But for her execrable language, your sister
is quite right," she snapped. "Where is Isabella? She was to be
keeping watch over you, was she not?"
Now Hugh looked a bit chary. "Er, she is…
was… uh… detained. And we are too old for a governess, at any
rate." He straightened his shoulders. "We are both Eton men now.
Papa said so."
Charlotte strode toward him, and he fell
back. "Little Eton boys, rather. Go let Bella out of whatever
closet you’ve locked her into, or I will shut you up in the nursery
on bread and water and give your Christmas gifts to the children in
the poorhouse!"
Both boys ran out of the room, still
throwing the ball between them, gaining more volume once they
cleared the door. Lady Effingale took up her embroidery again,
remarking, "You will wish to be gentler with the marquess’s
grandson."
Charlotte dabbed at her dress with a table
napkin, but the exercise was hopeless. The stain reached from waist
to hem and crossed the dress from side to side. She dropped the
napkin on the tea tray, waved her hand toward the door, and turned
up her nose. "No sane woman will ever want to marry either of them.
You will be stuck with them your entire life."
"I’m sure that is not true," her mother
said. However, her lips quivered just slightly when she added,
"They are both growing up too handsome for any girl’s good, and
Hugh will be Effingale one day. Surely some woman will suffer him,
if only for his title and lands. I do agree, though, his brother
may ever be a bachelor, and probably an incorrigible rake."
Dropping the altar cloth in her lap, peering through her lorgnette
at her daughter’s dress, she added, "You’d better go find Isabella,
so that she can help you change your dress and try to remove the
stain."
Yes
, Charlotte thought,
Bella is
sure to be more sympathetic
.