Royal Regard

by Mariana Gabrielle

  “Have I not made my interest known all these weeks you have forced me to dance attendance on you, as though you were worthy of the attentions of a duke?”

  She shook her head, attempting to clear, or at least logically arrange, the massing confusion. There was no time to waste on silly questions, and she refused to be a feather-headed chit wringing her handkerchief and waiting for rescue.

  She tried to insert a measure of Charlotte’s command into her tone, but her voice was even smaller than the space he had left for her crumpled lungs. “I demand you take me to my husband!”

  Malbourne’s ducal tone outranked her without even trying. “You have no husband. But never fear, you shall not be without for long.”

  “What are you—?” She was starting to believe this really was a nightmare, and one chock-a-block with silly questions. “How do you know Myron is—? Oh, good God. Michelle. Michelle.”

  “So, you begin to understand.”

  Just barely beginning, Bella suspected. Malbourne must be somehow controlling Michelle, most likely by money or blackmail, and had carefully planned this abduction. If not, he wouldn’t have acted so dreadfully at Vauxhall. He would still have been trying to charm her into compliance, rather than doing his best to ruin her to force his suit.

  “Before the sun rises, you will board a ship with me to France, and while at sea, we will be married.”

  “Married? Are you mad?”

  “Such a ceremony is not entirely correct before God or man, but the priest I have acquired, he will confirm the banns and vow we have joined together in the True Church before we left England. Once we have reached the Vosges, there will be no question you are une Duchesse de France. Whether or not you survive the journey.”

  “Whether or not I—What do you—”

  “Ma petite, you make much of your intelligence, but I see none in evidence. Must I train you to listen when your husband speaks?”

  “You will not be my husband. I would not marry you to save myself starving to death!”

  “Ah, but yes, my sweet, you will.”

  She pulled her hand back to slap him, but he caught her wrist and held it like a shackle. “You will board a ship at my direction and become my duchesse, not such a miserable life, je t’assure, or you will board one bound for the white slave markets in Africa. Travelled as you are, I am certain you understand the life of a woman of your complexion sold at auction in Carthage or Maghreb.” The color drained from her face. “Yes, I see that you do. I suggest, my dear, you consider very well the choices you have before you.”

  He leaned down smoothly, as though he would adjust the fit of his boot, and before she could even think to fight him off, he attached an iron ring and short chain around her left ankle, bolted to the floor. He didn’t follow with any additional restraints; he didn’t need to.

  She had no weapons. Anything she could accomplish with her hands or fingernails would only be painful enough to make him angry. He was too big to fight off indefinitely, even if she had the use of all her limbs. Now, the way her foot was bound, she couldn’t use her knee to disable him, and even if she could, there was no way to escape the carriage without finding the keys he had secreted somewhere on his person. Then she would have to jump out of a town coach running at speed. Her mind went completely blank, but for the realization that she was the only person in this carriage in danger of dying.

  Once she was secured, he ran his hand up under her dress, leaving her cuffed leg bared and his clammy hand on her inner thigh, but made no further move toward her abasement. She did her best to hide the shudder through her body, but it was impossible. At her involuntary movement, his hand tightened its grip.

  With a minor shrug of his shoulder, as though he were discussing the disposition of old clothes, he remarked, “This would be simpler for me, in point of fact: to sell you. I accept ten thousand pounds for a possession of little value, and am left your fortune and no wife to plague me. I appear in France with the contract I have agreed with your husband, a man of God who has witnessed our marriage, and a bride unfortunately lost at sea.”

  “You will sell a countess under the protection of the King of England?”

  “I do hope, my dear, you will prove more valuable than the ten thousand pounds you are worth to a slaver. Our marriage will be much more credible when presented by a happy wife.”

  “You believe you can keep me from telling everyone I know at Court in Paris, including the king? You believe you can force me to be happy?”

  He laughed in a way that froze the cooling air around her, leaving her trembling, her stomach locked in a way she hadn’t felt since the Russian tundra. “I believe I can force you to act happy. Whether you are or not is irrelevant. Until you can present yourself properly, you will see no one you might tell. Even were you given leave to plead your case, your king will never enter into a war with mine to break a legal contract over a woman.”

  When explained that way, Bella understood she could not rely on the friendship or loyalty of either king.

  “I am sure you will find reason to demonstrate to Louis how pleased you are with our arrangement, should I choose to present you at Court.”

  “That would be more forgery than your contract. No one will ever believe you negotiated anything with Myron when he wouldn’t even talk to you.” Especially since Wellbridge’s contract had already been certified before the House of Lords. Fortunately, a split second before she threw that information at him in a fit of temper, she rethought herself. If Malbourne’s false contract was worthless, so was she.

  “You think me low enough to negotiate with a shopkeeper to relieve him of his homely wife? But as forgeries go, my dear, a very convincing one, written in your husband’s own hand, signed with his own seal.”

  The muffled noises from outside the closed window shade ran together like the mumbling, stumbling of her thoughts, trying to put one idea together with the next to find a way out of this unbelievable predicament.

  She gathered up as much detachment as she could muster. “I would have to be mutton-headed not to see whom I have to thank for this betrayal. I suppose Michelle has been poking her nose into my husband’s papers.”

  “As she has all our lives, Michelle pokes her nose into anything I say. Unlike you, she understands what she will gain by encouraging my esteem.”

  More puzzle pieces fell into place, including the irrelevant fact that she might never be able to confront Charlotte with her inability to choose proper servants. If Bella survived, she would never let anyone wait on her again.

  “So, Michelle is your lover.”

  “Ah, ah, my duchesse,” he kissed Bella’s fingertips before she could stop him, “you will not make so bold as to discuss my lovers, lest you find yourself replaced by one.”

  A sharp glitter in his eyes cut into her, shattered glass blades honed to diamond-like precision. Her whole body trembled at the ruthlessness living in the space between the shards, and an acerbic response died in her throat. Being ‘replaced’ might not merely end in her sale to foreign marauders. And he might yet prove worse than a hundred marauders.

  His fingers continued caressing her palm and wrist, increasing the involuntary shaking, which he must have taken as desire, given his smug smile.

  “Your impertinent questions I can forgive today, ma chère. As a commoner, you will naturally have questions about your role in my household, but do not be tempted to insolence. Insolence is unbecoming of any wife, least of all a royal duchess.”

  If Wellbridge had said that to her, Bella would have given him a loud, lengthy lesson on insolence that he would remember into the afterlife. She had never before valued a man who would allow her to yell with impunity, but it was too late to value him now.

  Her nostrils quivered, along with her shoulders, and she could barely force the words from her lips: “I do not wish to displease you, Monseigneur.”

  He kissed her palm, gently closing her hand around the gesture. “And so we begin our lives togeth
er, my pet. You have not yet disgraced yourself at the Tuileries, so I am sure we shall, as the English say, rub along well together, once you have been made aware of your duty to la famille Fouret.”

  “Can you…” she nearly choked, “explain to me what my duties might be?” She couldn’t help the half-sarcastic emphasis, but corrected herself after the first syllable. Malbourne apparently noted her small rebellion, for his look was enough to have her staring at the floor.

  “I can see you will try to be a good girl for me, my dear,” he said, finally, thumb sliding across her knuckles. “The accounting clerk could hardly enforce dignity, so I understand you must be instructed in the obligations of a noblewoman. This is an inconvenience to me, and a waste of my time, should you prove too stupid or baseborn to learn, so I must weigh the value of such a wife. But do not fear, ma poupée. Should I allow you to remain in the civilized world, I shall gently correct your transgressions until you can be a credit to me.”

  She tried to pull away, and he dropped her hand back into her lap as though it were covered in filth, setting her off-balance. Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping his fingers, he snapped, “If you do not wish my fond caress, ma mie, you shall not be forced to suffer it. But I can hardly imagine bands of infidels will be so patient when teaching you their expectations.”

  Tears finally welled up in her eyes, and his demeanor changed again. He used the handkerchief to wipe her cheeks, clucking his tongue at her upset, murmuring sweetly in French, as one might do to comfort a child with a scraped knee.

  Her weeping stopped in the face of the sudden kindness. He was something beyond a lunatic. She couldn’t anticipate him one minute to another. He rubbed the pad of his thumb across her lips, tugging her mouth open just slightly.

  He moved her wrists above her head, restrained by his left hand, and his lips to her ear, soothing, coddling her growing fear like a puppy that would become a favored pet.

  “I think you will try, for me, to be worthy of this honor I bestow. And I shall be tolerant of your many faults until you have been fully instructed in my requirements.” He kissed her forehead, holding her hands motionless against the squabs, and she fought the urge to pull away.

  When his lips traced her temples, though, and his tongue drifted to her other earlobe, she whispered, “You are a monster.”

  He pulled back and snapped a shackle about her right wrist, holding it behind her head, a sneer twisting his face into lines of revulsion. When he saw the insurrection directed at him from her no-longer-watery eyes, he held his hand around her throat.

  “Are you so stupid as to insult me before I have decided what will become of you? Unwise, mon ange.”

  He squeezed ever more tightly until she was struggling to push him away or tear his strangling fingers from her neck. When she began to black out from the pressure, he suddenly released her to gasp for air, sucking in the dank air of London and the closed carriage, but even before her hand flew to her throat to relieve the bruises, his vice-like hand wrapped around her wrist. As he sat back, he forced her closed fist open, bending her little finger backward until the slightest pressure would pop it from its socket.

  “You will do better to think how you might please me, how to earn my forbearance, so I will decide to keep you.”

  Pressing her palm to his sex, he wrapped her fingers around the rod she was sure he would soon use to punish her for imagined sins. Even as she considered how she might use this vulnerability to her advantage, his grasp tightened around her hand until he could surely snap bone with the least provocation.

  “You will not think to hurt me, mon chaton, but only consider my pleasure. For you cannot escape me, and the punishment for such an act will make you beg for the chance to service me. You will count yourself lucky to be sold into slavery if you should think to thwart me in this way.”

  Her right hand dug into the tufted leather seat, almost tearing her fingernails from their moorings. She couldn’t stop her legs shaking, the chain cold and rattling against her thin satin slipper, gooseflesh raised as soon as he had bared her knee.

  Eyes shut, bile rising, she let Malbourne guide her hand up and down his… Dear God, I will vomit if he… No, God no. If I soil his carriage, it will not go well for me.

  She swallowed hard to keep her stomach and her head, mentally severing her hand from the rest of her body, so she could think even while he did whatever disgusting… His fingers moved like a jungle spider up her thigh.

  “Do not fear,” he murmured in her ear, “As my duchess, you shall be treated with all respect due the highest nobility, will entertain the Kings of France at your table. As long as you reflect well on your husband, ma minette, your life will not be so difficult to bear.”

  He squeezed her hand, by extension his cock, and groaned against the nape of her neck. “And this I promise, my lady wife: in the dark, I will not consider how unsightly you are, but might instead imagine your face and body worth the effort to give pleasure. I am a fair man. I will allow you to earn my generosity by displaying proper deference in all things.”

  The coach was slowing, but with a suspicious rolling motion that seemed to align with her heartbeat: thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump… Thump… Thump.

  The carriage lurched to a stop.

  Malbourne loosed her hand and peeked out the side of the window blind, seeking the source and nature of any trouble. Bella looked around again for a weapon or escape or key or… miracle.

  Malbourne’s lip curled as he opened the window to the driver, hissing, she assumed to avoid calling attention to his transportation, “What is happening? Why have you stopped?”

  Bella had no idea if she were in the middle of the city or the middle of nowhere, or whether the driver knew she was here unwillingly. But if Malbourne wanted their presence kept quiet, it behooved her to be as loud as possible. Bella shouted, “Help! Help me! I need help!”

  Malbourne once more hit her across the face with the back of his hand, her head flying into the unforgiving wall like it had been hit by a cricket bat, her body slammed against the door, yanked back by the ankle and wrist chains just before she might have broken her neck.

  Her body went limp against the seat, eyes rolling loosely in her head.

  “On yer way soon, Yer Grace, but it weren’t the—”

  Her body wracked with convulsions, twisting her stomach, retching, choking on the pain shooting from just behind her eyes to every extremity of her body.

  Just before everything went black, she heard, “You stupid bitch! You’ve ruined my coat!”

  Chapter 25

  “Making myself bosky won’t accomplish anything, will it, Blakeley?”

  The stillness of the darkening library was mirrored in Nick’s impassive factotum, who had consented to sit, but abstained from the drinking, citing the need for at least one of them to retain all his faculties. Blakeley had no objection to acting as a clearheaded companion, if only to keep Nick from seeking out his former associates in the low-class hells.

  “Drunkenness is most often the beginning, rather than end, of one’s problems, Your Grace.”

  At Blakeley’s prim look, Nick thought perhaps he should go to White’s to make himself bosky there.

  “May I have Cook send up dinner?”

  Nick set down his half-full glass, aiming for the tray, but hitting the table, almost upsetting the decanter. The smell of gin rose around them, taking Nick back, inescapably, to a time in his life when he could still rail against the unfairness of his responsibilities.

  “No, I have to go after her.” Under influence of the drink, his certainty took only a moment to wear thin. “Do I not?”

  “You are a duke, Your Grace. You do not have to do anything the king has not ordered.”

  While he knew this to be true, his sense of duty reemerged. “No, I have to go.” He shook his head to try to clear it. “If I would take her to wife, I must be of use as a husband, whether she likes it or not.”

  �
�Being of use is better than the alternative, I find.”

  “Call ‘round the curricle, if you please. And quickly.”

  “I’ve already done so. With a driver who is not in his cups.” Nick turned his head and stared. “I have been in your employ almost twenty years, Your Grace. I’d like to believe I understand something of your disposition.”

  “A pay rise when I return.”

  “My wages can be settled with your new duchess. I might suggest you allow me to tidy your person, but I believe that would put too great a strain on your patience. I think the countess will forgive the lapse.”

  Nick took the stairs two at a time, threw himself out of the front door and onto the seat of the one-horse conveyance, next to the driver, his momentum almost oversetting the man, if not the carriage. “As fast as you can to Russell Square.”

  The driver whipped up the horses, and did his best to weave through the London traffic, staying mostly to side streets where he could pick up speed, at least for a few minutes at a time. Finally, however, when they reached the turn to Bella and Myron’s town house, carriage traffic jammed in both directions, impeded by a horse that had balked. With drivers screaming invective from all sides, the coachman of the stalled hack seemed further and further from calming the rearing horse that had broken from the traces.

  Rather than wait, Nick jumped down and ordered his groom to meet him at the Huntleigh house and wait. By sheer luck, the brisk drive had cleared his wits enough to keep him from tripping over his own feet, so he ran, if clumsily, the last quarter-mile.

  When he arrived at the front door, breathing hard, he banged with his fist until Watts opened the door.

  Breathing hard, bent with one hand on his knee, Nick demanded, “I must see Lady Huntleigh immediately.”

  “I’m afraid, Sir, there is no—”

  Charlotte flew into the vestibule at the sound of his voice. “Wellbridge! What is it?” She looked around and spoke in almost a whisper, “Is Bella with you?”

  He looked at her in puzzlement. “With me? She’s here.”