“But surely, my lord, you are a pious man. One has but to speak a short time with you to understand it.”
“I conduct my life in such a way as to never be ashamed to speak to my Savior of the day that has just passed, but I am no example to follow. I have been a sailor for almost four decades, and only a sinner like all others, trying to keep myself right with Him and allow others to do the same. I have no right to judge my fellow souls, in any circumstance in which I might find them. Are you a religious woman, Miss Smithson?”
“Plain speaking, my lord?” Bella heard Aunt Minerva choke a few feet behind, so sped up to maintain a modicum of nonexistent privacy.
“I would always have it so between us.”
“I am not overly religious, my lord. I attend services every Sunday and help the vicar with anything he needs at the village church, but I would not claim myself devout…”
“This is not displeasing, as such. You are much like most other English girls, and as I say, it is never my place to define the Creator for you. Any… er… any family I might nurture in the future would be confirmed in the Methodist church.”
“Of course, a man wishes his heir to be raised to his own faith,” Bella agreed. “Lord Holsworthy, have you any objection to secular thinkers?”
“Isabella!” she heard from behind, her Aunt Minerva apparently unwilling to allow Bella to ruin everything by appearing to be a godless bluestocking.
“My lady?” Bella queried.
“Do tell the baron about your work with the village school. She does quite well there, Lord Holsworthy. All of the tenants’ children attend. Isabella is excellent with children. She’s had a hand in raising my own sons, Lady Firthley’s brothers. She will be an excellent mother for any man who might marry her.”
Bella fell silent, face burning again.
“A village school, Miss Smithson? I am intrigued. I admit, I am less an evangelist for the teachings of John Wesley than educating the heathen in the English tongue, the rule of law, and the principles of economic freedom.”
The topic carried them some time, he contributing stories of similar enterprises he had both observed and financed in foreign climes, she detailing the structure she had helped create in Evercreech and at Brittlestep Manor, during the course of her regular work about the estate.
“Do you mean to say, Miss Smithson, you undertake management of your aunt and uncle’s estate?”
“No. No, of course not. Not in any meaningful way. Only… I oversee things when the household removes to London. They move staff, so I stay behind with a few maids and footmen…” Bella trailed off, aware in an instant she had just irreparably branded herself the poor relation. How she would be able to help that, though, she had never understood, as she was naught but an extra upper servant at Brittlestep Manor.
“Am I to understand you are not averse to a mop and broom, Miss Smithson?”
“I am not averse to honest work, my lord. I did not spend my entire life at the manor house, nor my time there at ease. Admittedly, as a member of the family, I am more familiar with household management than household tasks.”
Though he faced forward, his fingers tightened momentarily on hers, and she caught the smile in the corner of his mouth.
“If you did not spend your entire life at Brittlestep Manor, Miss Smithson, where else did you reside?”
Uncle Howard cleared his throat behind them. “Rather parched, you know. Perhaps things are ready for us, back with the carriage?”
“I agree,” Charlotte added. Bella turned away from his question, declaring herself quite peckish, indeed.
On the return stroll back to the picnic site, Bella forced herself to ask questions of Lord Holsworthy, to avoid having to answer many more of his.
“From all you have intimated, His Royal Highness has set you a task to accomplish during your travels, and it is a matter of some urgency, is it not? It must be, or you would not be in such a rush back and forth to London and preparing to leave in so short a time?” At Uncle Howard’s cough behind her, she stumbled, grabbing more tightly at Lord Holsworthy’s arm to stay upright. “Oh, please do forgive if I overstep myself, my lord. Your arrangements with the prince are not my concern.”
“There is nothing to be forgiven, my dear. In this case, I believe the prince would prefer I share our plans. Or rather, his plans.” Lord Holsworthy’s wry smile drew Bella into a commiseration over the unreasonable demands of the Crown.
“You do not share the prince’s vision?”
“Had I my way, I would presently be planning to sow an oat crop at Holsworthy Hall.”
Bella tapped her fan on his forearm. “You surprise me, Sir.”
“I do? That, in turn, surprises me, as I am generally the dullest and most predictable of men. How have I defied expectation, Miss Smithson?”
“Are you not a sailor to the core, Lord Holsworthy? I can see it when you speak of your ship. Would you not be horribly stifled, stuck in the country as a gentleman farmer?”
He shrugged. “One does not know whether new experiences might stifle, until one tries.”
She thought for a moment before asking, “Do you grow weary of travel?”
“Of travel?” he scoffed. “Impossible. But I grow weary of naught but men day-in-and-out, and of making my home in a room the size of a band box. I wish to leave a legacy less fickle than a life at sea. Having been granted a barony in close proximity to Bristol, it had seemed the Lord was guiding me back to England to manage my company from dry land. I have spent the last half-year in expectation of that course.”
“I see.” She giggled. “So, Our Lord will not gainsay the prince?”
“So it appears,” he laughed, pinching her fingertip. “You are a cheeky girl, Miss Smithson.” Aunt Minerva’s throat cleared behind them, and Lord Holsworthy continued, patting Bella’s hand, “and I find it inexplicably delightful.”
“Might I ask,” she asked cautiously, her words placed as carefully as her steps on the uneven ground, “why does His Royal Highness so wish you to take on this mission? Can he not find another sailor? What have you to offer the Crown that he cannot hire elsewhere?”
He stopped short and stepped back from her, causing Uncle Howard and Aunt Minerva to draw up short, and Charlotte and Alexander behind them. He said nothing for a long few moments. Bella became more and more self-conscious. Aunt Minerva fidgeted, Uncle Howard twitched. Charlotte looked over her father’s shoulder to catch the action, and her husband pulled her back.
“Miss Smithson, that might be among the most insightful questions anyone has yet asked about this endeavor.” He stepped back into place next to her, leading the column of aristocrats to luncheon. He squeezed her hand inside the crook of his elbow. “I will opine on the topic after I have given the matter some thought, but for now…” They took a final turn to bring them back into the clearing, where a footman awaited them with lemonade and canapes.
“My lord, it seems you have brought your entire drawing room,” Bella teased, gesturing to the tables and chairs that would accommodate a party twice their size.
“Kitchen, too, it seems,” Alexander observed, at one of two tables, heavily laden with food in warming pans.
Everyone hung back, milling about, with no hostess and no upper servant to direct the order of things. Eventually, Lord Holsworthy asked, quietly, “How are your manners, Miss Smithson?”
She stiffened. “My manners? Do you find something amiss, Sir?”
He patted her arm. “No. Heavens, no. You are everything modest and demure, and a refreshing change from the young ladies flitting about without an ounce of sensibility. What I mean, is that I ran away to sea before I was fully fledged as a gentleman. I haven’t the right manners or training to be a diplomat, and even in a setting so casual as an outdoor party, my deficiencies are painfully clear. A woman who is a stickler for etiquette…” his eyes flitted toward Aunt Minerva in question, and Bella shrugged agreement, “is likely to find me a great disappointment.”
“I am certain that cannot be true, when you have brought half of your furniture to make certain I am comfortable and am never required to dirty my dress sitting on the ground,” Bella said, teasing him before she realized she might be flirting. Flushing, wishing to turn her attention elsewhere, she surreptitiously made arrangements with one of the footmen for service of luncheon at Lord Holsworthy’s dining table, the expansive surface covered in pristine linen, fine china, sparkling crystal, and intricate silver.
For a man with little confidence in his comportment, and manners that sat uneasily, Lord Holsworthy hosted a good table. He waited for someone else to start eating, and Bella saw at once he wasn’t sure what fork to use, so without delay, she broke protocol and ate before her host. Charlotte and Alexander followed, and Aunt Minerva, miraculously, held her tongue, in part, because Uncle Howard looked as though he might make a scene if she did not.
After that, both food and company were generous, flavorsome, and satisfying, and his conversation was intelligent, broadminded, and showed evidence of a contemplative nature. With dinner came talk of Lord Holsworthy’s travels, and the exotic viands with which he was most familiar. The spit-roasted pheasant and venison pasties called up the American West, where the savages were red Indians and one might also eat buffalo or snake. The Jerusalem artichoke a la crème inspired a tangent into his last voyage to the Holy Lands, which inspired Aunt Minerva to great heights of intolerance that embarrassed everyone else at the table, before Uncle Howard told her to finish her supper. Following on the heels of her sudden, sullen silence, with roasted root vegetables, the discussion turned, once again, to philosophy.
“Earlier, Miss Smithson, you asked if I looked on secular thinkers with disfavor, and the answer, though some might not credit it, is no.” He tore a piece of bread from a long baguette, buttered it, and gestured with it in his right hand, his left indecorously draped across the table next to his plate. “I do not believe Our Lord wishes us to close our eyes to alternative viewpoints, or He would not have designed so many. I have, in fact, done business with some of the fomenters of the American Revolution, after they won their war, during which I earned my money robbing their ships under His Majesty’s letters of marque. We have shared many late-night hours plumbing the depths of the question of the rights of man.”
“The rights of man,” Uncle Howard suggested, “is too intellectual a topic for our young ladies.”
Aunt Minerva punctuated that thought with, “Indeed.”
Alexander disagreed, “I should not like to think any topic held out as too intellectual for Charlotte, certainly nothing to do with politics. She has a fine mind, and was well-educated alongside Bella, and I would not be as successful in The Lords without her counsel.” He cast a glance at Lady Effingale. “She wanted only confidence to become an excellent political hostess.”
Charlotte, then, under the baleful glares of her mother and father and proud gaze of her husband, continued the political dialogue over the brandy-poached pears and Stilton cheese, even drawing Bella in, culminating in a revealing and insightful depiction of the delicate role Lord Holsworthy played as the owner of Seventh Sea Shipping.
He acted as an economic lever into areas of the world not yet civilized, reporting back to his investors—chief among them, the Prince of Wales—on what might be gained by incursion into uncharted lands, with an eye for portable value. That he was now being given royal authority and backing might signal real change in other parts of the world, but, as yet, Lord Holsworthy was reticent to speak in much detail about his charge.
He did say it would begin in India, where he had made his start many years ago, and earned the money to buy his first ship, and now he would take possession of a sizable tea plantation and a place in the diplomatic corps. When Uncle Howard pressed, he explained he had letters of introduction and contacts to renew there who would determine how long he stayed in India, how much travel he would do on the subcontinent, and where he would go next. And that, he concluded, was the nature of his life.
“While, of course, I always hope information from my travels is of benefit to the Crown, what the king learns from me must be weighed in the balance with information from hundreds of others like me in different parts of the world, before a political or military strategy can be devised. One does the best one can for one’s monarch, Miss Smithson, but one is a very small cog in the machine of the British Empire. In the main, at the moment, I provide the Crown money.”
It was not until much later that evening, while Bella was lying in her bed, that she was able to judge she had acquitted herself admirably, mostly without fear, from her first curtsey to Lord Holsworthy until he handed her down the carriage steps in front of the Effingale’s town house. She had expected many things of her first outing with a gentleman, but never that.
Chapter Five
April 16, 1805
The Effingale Town House
Bath, England
Bella and Charlotte shoved each other back and forth, both trying to be closest to the keyhole in the door leading to Uncle Howard’s study. Five minutes before, Lord Holsworthy had arrived at Number 14 Royal Crescent and asked for an audience with both Lord and Lady Effingale—without having himself announced to Bella first.
“He’s going to offer for you,” Charlotte whispered.
“No one will ever offer for me,” Bella scoffed, pushing Charlotte away from the crack between the doors. “Besides, he has only spoken to me twice. One picnic is not grounds for a betrothal.”
“He was quite attentive. Perhaps he was instantly besotted.”
“Perhaps you are a ninnyhammer.”
They both quieted completely at the tiniest creak of the door as Bella pushed it just slightly open over the sudden sound of Lord Holsworthy’s unfamiliar voice.
“So, you see, I am rather pressed for time, and my request is most unusual.” He coughed. “While I am hopeful, I rely on those who know her best to assist in understanding the best course for Miss Smithson.”
“Isabella will be perfectly happy to accept your proposal,” Aunt Minerva pronounced, but Uncle Howard rejoined, “I should like to hear more about this situation before I commend my niece into your care."
"I should hope so."
"You understand her dowry is not excessive.”
Charlotte’s mouth dropped when Lord Holsworthy replied, “Miss Smithson’s dowry is of no consequence. What I propose offers no great measure of security, so any monies of the sort will be used to ensure her safety and relative comfort to the greatest extent possible.”
“Isabella will welcome the security of your name and title. Her dowry will be payment for placing a roof over her head, and that is all there is to that. It is not as though any other barons have come calling.”
“Lady Effingale!” Uncle Howard snapped. “Your comments are unwelcome, and I shall ask you to leave the room if you do not desist.” In a quieter, but still firm tone, he returned the conversation to its moorings. “You understand, Lord Holsworthy, Bella will not be left destitute should she be disinclined to accept your offer.”
“That’s right,” Aunt Minerva retorted. “She is perfectly well trained as a governess or housekeeper or companion. She needn’t marry if she is disinclined.”
Bella and Charlotte almost fell over themselves to escape the sound of Aunt Minerva’s footsteps striding toward their concealment. Uncle Howard, apparently, had shown her the door. They had just reached the turn in the hallway where they could hide when her matronly skirts swept along the floor in the other direction, leaving the two girls giggling as quietly as they could.
Their listening post at the door was much improved by Aunt Minerva’s exit, as in her haste, she had left the door just slightly ajar.
The sound of her aunt’s retreating footsteps was followed by the clinking of Uncle Howard’s crystal carafe against the rim of a glass.
“No, thank you. None for me, though I would make no objection to tea, if it might be had.”
Charlotte sacrificed proximity, sliding back down the hall toward the turn, so she could give Bella warning before a footman appeared to respond to the bell. Bella would not now leave the side of the doorway unless she were bodily removed.
“You would ask me to send my niece—my very shy and timid, very young niece—to sea on a ship filled with sailors, under the protection of a man whom I’ve met but thrice.”
“I wish to speak bluntly, if I may.”
There was something reassuring about the rumble of Lord Holsworthy’s voice.
“There is scant time for social niceties if I am to put your fears to rest and still have time to adjust my situation to a wife and prepare Miss Smithson for the journey. To make matters worse, on the morrow, I must leave for at least another sennight in Town, at the direction of the prince. I am back and forth from London at his whim.”
“Pray, speak your mind, Sir.”
Bella heard the creaking of the leather armchairs before the fire, so the two men must have moved from the desk to a less formal position, though Bella wasn’t sure if this were a good sign or bad. In fact, she hadn’t been able to decide anything to do with Lord Holsworthy since his first bow.
“I am given to understand His Royal Highness wishes to see you wed.”
“Yes. Well, that is not entirely true. The prince commands I take up his charge to act as envoy, and my wish for marriage and a settled life on land was met with his idea of a compromise. I may be as settled as I like, once aboard ship.”
Uncle Howard’s laugh was only half amused. “Not fond of compromise, our royal son.”
“No, indeed. I am granted six more weeks to solve my dilemma or leave the shores of England unwed.”
“It seems there is no shortage of men who will vouch for you,” Uncle Howard’s measured tones were no more in favor of one course than the other. Had he decided in favor of an alliance, a smile would be audible. Against, and his words would be clipped. “Your name is on all lips in Bath, and none with a sharp word.”
Shipmate: A Royal Regard Prequel Novella Page 3