Shipmate: A Royal Regard Prequel Novella (2 page)

Bella must be in
a servants’ corridor, because the men’s voices receded in the
opposite direction, leaving her to the silence she had been
craving. She stole the few minutes to will away the sick headache,
and compose herself for another hour of veiled, and not-so-veiled,
insults from her family and an endless round of gentlemen who
didn’t want to look at her, much less ask her to dance.

On her way back, only a few feet from her
aunt and cousin, a tall man stepped into her path and bowed before
her. His features were handsome where hers were plain, but his
bronze hair and blue-green eyes were a mirror match to Bella’s. He
escorted her the last few steps to her destination, greeting her
family politely, “Lady Effingale. Lady Firthley.” He tweaked
Bella’s nose. “Sissy.” Bella yanked her face away. “Have they
married you off to the highest bidder yet, my sweet?”

“We’ll not be able to marry her to anyone if
she is seen with you, John Smithson, pockets always to let.” Aunt
Minerva growled. "And your contemptible brother had better not be
lurking." He opened his mouth to confirm or deny Jeremy’s
whereabouts, but she spoke right over him. "After his behavior last
Season with Charlotte… if Lords Effingale or Firthley see him,
there is no telling what they will do, and whatever it is, it
cannot be painful enough."

"I offer apologies again for my brother’s
despicable plan, Char—Lady Firthley. You may be sure he is
vanquished in body, mind, and spirit after the duel with your
husband, is grateful for the mercy shown his unworthy hide, and
plans no further incursions into your vicinity."

"See that it remains so," Aunt Minerva
warned, shaking her finger at him. “Now, take yourself away from
here, should you wish Isabella ever to have any prospects.”

“Not before I take a turn about the floor
with my beloved sister.” His face was taut and eyes sharp as he
grasped Bella’s hand and placed it on his arm. She tried to pull
away, but his hand tightened on hers as he walked her to the dance
floor for a
minuet
. Unless she made a scene, which would
call Aunt Minerva’s wrath down on both of them, she was resigned to
performing the set. At least the dance was half finished.

As she curtsied and he bowed, he whispered,
“Jeremy has decamped for a house party somewhere in the country, so
you needn’t worry about him turning up today, but Father will soon.
He has taken it in mind to find a bridegroom for you himself.
Someone from whom he can demand a portion of your dowry. He will be
here two days hence.” She missed the fourth step, so John held his
hand out to steady her. “Careful, my dear, or the gentlemen will
not see what a perfect dancer you are.”

“But Father said—”

“Nevertheless, he will be here shortly to
see what advantage he can gain. I said I would open the house and
arrange invitations before his arrival.”

Since her father had long since lost
everything in the Smithson house in Bath, except the house itself,
which was under entail, the men in her family would survive as they
always did in the social centers. They would live in the empty
Smithson town house with a cook/housekeeper, entertaining at clubs
and gambling hells, and the baronet and Messrs. Smithson would ply
their trade as entertaining dinner guests, unparalleled cardsharps,
and terribly charming fellows.

“‘Twould be easier to stop him, in truth,
had Effingale not made it known he would replace your dowry.”

“But he cannot—”

“Have you ever known him to leave a shilling
on the table if he could find a way to put it in his pocket? This
will be his last chance to use you to bleed Uncle.”

She sighed, her next turn slower, her feet
dragging as though through mud.

“But for the warning, I cannot spare
you.”

“I know.”

She pasted on a smile for the benefit of
company and forced her steps into the faultless precision she had
practiced for months at Dame Hester’s Seminary for Young Ladies, on
the slim chance anyone might ever ask her to dance.

“Please say you’ll not assist him this
time.” She hated the note of pleading in her voice.

John said nothing, only squeezed her hand
tighter on the next turn.

She closed her face and resolved not to say
another word, which John seemed to fully accept, not speaking again
until he delivered her back to Aunt Minerva and Charlotte,
whispering in her ear before he left them to find the card room to
earn his keep, “I am sorry, Sissy. I will help if I can.” Which
meant he would be no help at all.

Aunt Minerva kept her eyes on the rest of
the ballroom, alternately looking for
not-too-terribly-objectionable men, and making certain no other
Smithson males were hiding behind something, waiting to harm
Bella’s chances even further. Charlotte grasped Bella’s arm as soon
as John turned his back to stride away.

“What is it? What did John say?”

False smile firmly attached, though the
blood had long since drained from her face, Bella whispered, “Not
here, nor in front of your mother,” If the evening’s entertainments
had ever held the slightest appeal, there was none left now. All
she wanted was to find a mail coach and buy a ticket to Scotland.
No, a ship to South America would be safer.

***

Myron had never seen so many marriageable
young ladies, nearly all of whom had been trotted out to be
introduced to the new baron in the neighborhood. Apparently, being
in trade wasn’t the barrier it might have been in London—not when
Lady Pinnester made it a point to broadcast news of his growing
fortune and the favor so recently shown by the Crown. It seemed the
entirety of Bath now knew Myron was a wealthy—if brand-new—peer
seeking a wife.

Unfortunately, not one unmarried lady, nor
any of their mothers, would entertain the addresses of a man who
planned to leave England for unknown environs in two months’ time.
With no luck, he had worked his way from prettiest to plainest,
youngest to oldest, richest to poorest, starting with the one girl
in the room whom Lady Pinnester said spoke of nothing but
converting heathens. Sadly, no matter how well her godly
temperament might suit Myron, she couldn’t see past Ireland.

Perhaps Pinnester was overstating the need
for a girl raised among the nobility. Surely, Myron could buy a
book about which fork to use at a formal supper, much as he had
bought this ridiculous suit of expensive clothes he might never
wear again. Or he could continue what he had always done: follow
along with everyone else, to the point it ran up against his faith.
Adaptability was a key trait for a successful merchant, and in all
his years, he had yet to
entirely
disgrace himself among the
upper classes, or he would not now be in this disagreeable
position.

Best yet, he could talk the prince out of
his desire to make Myron into a diplomat. There was no reason to
believe he would be an effective representative of the Crown among
civilized men. He had been educated as a son of minor landholders,
followed by years in service with the East India Company, then
eventually, his own enterprise, but had fallen in love with the sea
by the time he could walk, and run away to it by fourteen.

It would be best to find a way around the
prince’s edict, if a way could be found, before choosing a bride,
and in any case, he needn’t choose tonight. Once in London, there
would assuredly be more places to meet ladies.

Lady Pinnester sidled up and whispered
mischievously, “No young lady will wish to wed a man who scowls so
much.”

He immediately glued a smile on his face,
but had never felt so false. She indicated with a tip of her head
that there was, apparently, one girl he had missed in his endless
turns about the room. “You will wish to seek an introduction to
Miss Smithson. Her familial connections are dubious, and she has no
dowry or prospects to speak of, but she is a daughter of the
gentry. Her aunt is sponsoring her, and I never met a more
unpleasant woman than Lady Effingale. I might marry Beelzebub
himself to be removed from her care, though the viscount is not a
bad sort. I believe I saw him head to the card room.”

“As she is the last young lady left who has
not turned me down flat, perhaps it is time I should make her
acquaintance.”

Charlotte had
accepted a dance with her husband. Aunt Minerva was in deep
conversation with two other matrons, probably about the trials of
sponsoring an ugly debutante. Uncle Howard had escaped his wife in
the card room. Everyone was so accustomed to Bella playing the
wallflower that, even when she was the one husband-hunting, it was
easy enough, by force of habit, to leave her to her own devices.
Hoping against hope their party would soon depart, Bella was happy
to be left alone on a bench in a quiet, darkened hall, facing away
from the ballroom.

Not more than a few minutes after she closed
her eyes to shut out the light now boring into her skull from the
few candles and a dying fireplace, a dark shadow fell across her
face. “Bella, my dear.” A low, familiar rumble near her ear, a hand
touching her shoulder.

Her eyes blinked open in the dim
candlelight, and she scrambled to her feet at the sight of an
unknown gentleman bowing. Instinctively, she stared over her
shoulder, to see if he meant to speak to the brocade-covered wall
rather than her.

She turned back and caught sight of the
source of the familiar voice: her uncle at the man’s elbow. Letting
out a deep sigh of relief, she stammered, “Unc… Uncle Howard. I—”
She dropped into a curtsey, looking around for any distraction from
the immediate requirement to speak to a man she had never seen
before.

“Lord Holsworthy, my niece, Miss Isabella
Smithson. Bella, the baron asked if you might stand up with him for
the next set.”

“Um.”

She stared at Uncle Howard, waiting for him
to answer for her, as he often did—as everyone often did—and when
he only stared back in expectation of her answer, she kept
searching the room over the man’s shoulder, for her aunt, her
cousin, even her brother would do at the moment. Anyone to say
something that would carry the conversation before she might have
to.

“Myron Clewes, Baron Holsworthy, at your
service, Miss Smithson. Your uncle tells me you are an excellent
dancer. Might you allow me the pleasure?”

“Er.”

Her fingers were once again twisted in her
gown, and all the blood that had drained from her face now rushed
back full force. The room must have just gained ten degrees, as she
could feel the perspiration on her forehead and upper lip, and in
light of this new, more pressing, problem, and some inconvenient
lightheadedness, her headache melted away.

“Bella?” her uncle queried.

“Um-hmm?” Bella replied.

Lord Holsworthy held his arm out. Lacking
the capacity to speak a full sentence, and with an approving nod
from her uncle, she had nothing left to do but take it.

He was quite tall. The top of Bella’s head
barely reached his chest. And broad; his shoulders seemed as wide
as a ship’s mainsail. Were he to put his arms around her, she might
disappear completely. His greying hair was long, loose, and wild,
and the lines in his face were deep, as though they had been carved
with a chisel. Much older—perhaps even older than her father—his
large hands were gentle against her fingers on his arm, and his
smile tender.

He was the first man not a blood relation to
ask Bella to dance. Ever.

When they took their places in the line for
the
contredanse
, Charlotte nearly fell over her own feet
trying to pay concurrent attention to her husband, the dance steps,
and the mysterious gentleman who had asked Bella to dance, after
she and her mother had both agreed everything had been done that
could, until the next assembly.

“You are a lovely dancer,” Lord Holsworthy
remarked as he led Bella clumsily through a turn. “You put me to
shame, I’m afraid, though I am certain my skills are improved
merely by proximity.”

“Er. Uh. Thank you?”

When their dance was finished, mercifully
with no further need for words, Bella found herself unfortunately
thrust into the conversational fire at the refreshment table, with
Lord Holsworthy, Viscount and Viscountess Pinnester, and a glass of
lemonade.

Before Bella was required to think of
anything to say, her aunt and uncle rushed across the room, and
Lady Effingale wrapped her arm around Bella’s shoulder.

“My lords, my lady, I hope you will allow me
to introduce my niece, Miss Isabella Smithson.” Lady Effingale
kicked the side of Bella’s foot to initiate a curtsey, as though
she hadn’t already been introduced and made a perfect bow to each
in turn.

Bella’s throat had closed at the attention
from strangers who so definitively outranked her, combined with the
likelihood of some new public humiliation at her aunt’s hands. The
viscountess kindly took her hand and made her compliments on her
embroidered dancing slippers, begging the name of the maker. The
ploy might have worked if Bella hadn’t answered without thinking,
“My aunt’s maid gave me the pattern, but I did the stitching
myself. The cobbler in the village set the soles.”