by Abby Ayles
“I can assure you,” Harrison said. His tone was a low growl. It sent shivers up Regina’s spine and made her skin feel hot all over. She loved that growl but it also scared her. She was glad that she was not on the receiving end of it. “No one will discover anything untoward between Miss Regina and me.”
“See to it that they don’t,” Cora said. Her tone grew icy and hard.
Regina felt caught in the middle. Both seemed deadly to her. Harrison was fire and Cora was ice. But neither were to be trifled with.
“If it is discovered that you and she have shared an understanding, the kind of understanding only a husband and wife are permitted to have, it will ruin her.” Cora’s eyes flashed. “Not just her. Her sisters as well.”
Cora turned to Regina, her expression softening. “You are young. It is easy to see only the goodness of love. I know how when one is with your lover, you can forget the dangers. But you mustn’t. It is not worth being thrown away by society.”
“Society will not throw her away. Society will know nothing.” Harrison made it sound like a command. Like he could order the very universe, make the future bend to his will.
“I understand why you are afraid,” Harrison added. “You are sensible. But I will be cautious. We both will be. No rumors shall start of a liaison between Miss Regina and me. I can promise you that, if nothing else.”
For a moment they stood there, poised like tigers. Neither one wanting to give an inch. It was like Elizabeth and Natalie bickering, only worse.
Regina couldn’t stand it anymore. “Has it occurred to either of you,” she said, “That I am in the room and do not appreciate being spoken of as if I am not?”
Both turned to look at her. Shock was writ large on both of their faces.
It felt a little like Regina’s stomach had turned inside out. But she’d spoken now. She had to continue.
“I appreciate your thoughtful words, Cora.” She took a deep breath. “And I understand why you are concerned. But Harrison and I have taken pains to be undiscovered.
“Nor,” she added when she saw Cora about to speak, “Will either of us let our guard down. We’ll be vigilant. I promise you.”
She then looked at Harrison. “Your protectiveness is appreciated. But I can fight my own battles as well. Or at least my half of our battles.”
Harrison laughed. “I told you she was a minx.”
“You are right, Miss Regina.” Cora inclined her head. “My apologies.”
She curtsied to both of them. “I wish you both a goodnight.” Then she left the room.
Regina wished she could stay. But it was already quite late. Aunt Jane would be worried.
“Shall I escort you home?” Harrison teased. “It is only a couple of buildings but trouble could still befall you.”
Regina laughed. The sound was startled out of her. “Certainly. Why not?”
Chapter 16
Harrison offered her his arm. She took it, and he led her down the back servants’ steps and through to the back door once again.
It felt like a lifetime since she had entered. Since this afternoon she had started to see an entirely different world. She had met people she never would have thought to meet.
If someone had come up to her yesterday and told her that in the course of the next twenty-four hours she would be dining with such people as this group, she couldn’t have believed them.
Yet she had enjoyed the evening. Much more so than she had enjoyed previous gatherings.
The night air was chilly, and she had neglected to bring a shawl or coat. Harrison felt her shivering and drew her closer to him. She sank into his side, appreciating the warmth.
“I must apologize,” Harrison said. His voice was somber. “I did not realize they would make such assumptions about us.”
“It seems you aren’t the best liar either,” Regina said. “They didn’t buy the cousin bit for a second.”
“I wish that they had. It was unfair to you to put you in such a position.”
“I think it was unfair to both of us. You can’t blame yourself. You did what you had to. I’m just glad they didn’t discover the real reason.”
“Yes, I agree.” Harrison grimaced. “I dislike lying to such close friends. I had no siblings growing up. They are truly like family to me. But if they knew, then they might accidentally let something slip. Whether it was in their behavior or in their words. It would be an accident of course. But it could happen.”
“And we cannot risk that,” Regina said, completing his thought for him.
Harrison stopped. They were outside Regina’s door. “No we cannot.”
He looked down at her. Regina smiled. “You look like him now,” she told him. Her voice had gone oddly soft. “Oberon.”
“You ought to see yourself,” Harrison replied. “The moonlight. It makes you a proper Puck.”
Regina laughed without quite knowing why. She felt oddly nervous.
“The others should be gone tomorrow,” Harrison said. “Although Cora might stay longer.”
“I was hoping for it. I want to talk to her about my sister. I have many questions.”
“Then you are welcome to them. But we must play as well.” Harrison sighed and looked off into the distance. “I’ll have to have the others over as often as possible. You must practice every day. The game has to be ingrained into you, or you will never beat Lord Pettifer.”
“I held my own well tonight.” Regina felt frustration and pride prick at her.
“Yes, in a friendly game where three of the players have never been in a proper gambling hall,” Harrison replied. “Quentin was holding back. As, I suspect, was Cora, although she’s never been in a gambling hall.
“When you are in a proper game for real stakes it all changes. It is more intense. People play more passionately. And more ruthlessly. And you didn’t come close to beating me.”
“You and I were neck and neck.”
“I was playing lazily,” Harrison admitted. “Please, don’t feel discouraged. You did very well for your first time. I was surprised at how well you read everybody. But do not mistake this victory for more than it is. We have won the first battle. Not the war.”
Regina rubbed her temples. “Why must this be so difficult?” She asked. She knew she sounded like a child in asking that. “I feel as though needlepoint is the only thing that has ever come easily to me. Everything else I bumble my way through.”
“You didn’t bumble your way through anything,” Harrison replied. His tone was sharp but not out of anger. He actually sounded surprised.
He took her hands in his. It seemed to be a habit with him. “Miss Regina, please believe me. You value yourself at far less than your true worth. You are a beginner at cards. That is true. But you are a brilliant beginner. Everyone must start somewhere.
“And you delighted everyone at dinner. I think they were a little surprised by you. In the best kind of way, I mean. I understand that you are not inclined towards balls and the like. But that doesn’t mean you are bad at social situations or that you have nothing of value to say.”
It sounded as though he really meant it. Regina found her eyes growing hot. It was a telltale sign of impending tears.
Only Bridget had ever talked to her in such a way. And even Bridget, darling Bridget, had left Regina to her own devices. She’d never pushed her.
Harrison was pushing her. He was demanding more and better from her. But he was doing it because he believed in her. He truly thought that she was worth something.
It made her think that maybe he was right. Maybe she could be something if she kept at it.
“Thank you,” she said, and she meant it.
Harrison seemed surprised. “For what?”
“For helping me,” Regina said. All right, so he was getting something out of it as well. But he didn’t have to encourage her. He didn’t have to welcome her into his circle of friends.
He was being kind to her when he didn’t have to. That meant a lo
t.
A fond look stole over Harrison’s face and he sighed. He gently squeezed Regina’s hands before letting them go. She thought that would be the end, but then he brought his hand up to cup her cheek. It was the same gesture he had done right before he had almost kissed her earlier.
As if in anticipation of that, her breath picked up. Which was ridiculous. He wasn’t going to kiss her. Harrison was in love with Bridget. Why would he bother kissing Regina?
She really had to stop with these childish fantasies.
“You have been quite a surprise from start to finish, Miss Regina.” Harrison’s voice was soft. Intimate. “It makes me wonder all that will occur before we are through with this little venture of ours.”
“I hope that the surprises will all be pleasant ones,” Regina replied. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if they ended up being unpleasant ones. Like if she lost everything.
“I’m certain that they will be.”
Regina went stiff in shock as he leaned in to her, but he didn’t kiss her. At least, not on the mouth. Instead he brushed his lips against her forehead. It was almost chaste.
Almost. If the rapid beating of her heart didn’t try to make it into something else.
“Good night, Miss Regina,” he murmured.
Then he turned and walked into the night, back to his house. Regina stared after him longer than she should have. Her heart was still beating wildly in her chest. That heat was back on her skin.
Oh, dear, she thought. She was in terrible trouble.
Chapter 17
What was he thinking, Thomas thought furiously to himself.
He walked back through the darkness to his house. He couldn’t even begin to explain the strange emotions warring inside of him.
All right, he could explain them. He just wasn’t sure that he wanted to.
Thomas had been longing for Bridget Hartfield ever since he had first met her. So had a third of the men in England, it seemed. The third that wasn’t lusting after Natalie or Elizabeth. And then, when he had thought all was lost, she had been dropped right into his lap.
By her younger sister, of all people.
But now…
He had been drawn to Regina from the start. This, he could admit. Something about her had intrigued him.
When he had learned of her family’s plight he had thought it was because she was a kindred spirit. They were both missing at least one parent. They both had fathers ill-suited to business. And they both had to rely upon their wits and gambling to restore their family’s fortune and honor.
Then he had spent the evening with her, and he knew it was more than that.
But was it? How much of what he was feeling was real, he thought. And how much of it was a result of playing the part to his friends?
God, but his friends could be so rude. When they felt like it. They were also the most giving and understanding people he’d ever met. Nothing like a little adversity to make you compassionate towards others.
When they wanted to be pains, however…
Of course they had seized upon the idea that he and Regina were a couple. How could he have been such a fool as to not realize that’s where their minds would go?
And did they have the decency to make subtle jibes about it? No. Instead they had forced him and Regina to kiss.
The poor girl. She must have been terribly frightened and embarrassed. She’d brushed it off as if it was nothing, just now. When he had tried to apologize. But he’d seen the hesitation in her eyes right before he’d almost kissed her.
Would that have been her first kiss? A strange kind of possessive heat swept through him. Part of him wanted it to be first kiss. He wanted to possess her in that way.
And what kind of man did that make him?
If her first kiss had been a charade, partially coerced, it would have been awful for her. First kisses were for passion. They were for the innocent bloom of first love. They weren’t something to do because you had to in order to maintain a cover.
It made him feel a little sick.
But that possessive part of him wouldn’t go away. It crowed in triumph at the notion of being Regina’s first. The first to kiss her. The first to brush his lips over her forehead. The first to plant a kiss into her hair. The first to brush his fingertips against her cheekbone, as if she were made of glass.
The first to take that first step of intimacy.
Thomas shook himself. No. He was in love with Bridget. He wouldn’t let himself lust after her younger sister. A woman who was, by the way, eight years younger than he was. He was a better man than that.
Yet he couldn’t help but remember how her skin had felt beneath his fingers. Or how she’d fit so nicely against his side, in the crook of his arm. How he’d loved to push her hair back from her face. She so easily went pliant against him. It showed how well she trusted him. Even if he didn’t quite feel that he was worthy of that trust.
A part of him could not help but see how easily Regina would fit into his life. She loved his home and his library. He was sure that she would love Whitefern, too, and that he could get her to love London and society just with some coaxing and some encouragement.
The poor girl merely needed people to believe in her. He would be happy to provide that. He could show her how to be happy and content with who she was.
It would be so easy to picture her in his life—yet he had only just met the girl. How could he possibly be having such feelings for her?
And wanting to take her under his wing like that when he was already tutoring her and helping her to skirt propriety? Nonsense. And what of his fickleness when it came to his own affections? Could he really have forgotten Bridget so quickly? What kind of man was he to think he loved one woman only to then turn his affection rapidly onto her sister?
No. No, he was going to stop having such awful thoughts.
He opened the door and stepped inside, making his way up the servants’ stairs to his room.
Bridget. He must think of Bridget. He loved Bridget. With her green eyes, and smooth, cream colored skin. Her full laugh. Her dark red hair.
Try as he might, though, when he tried to conjure her up… all he could think of was Regina.
Regina’s warm brown eyes. The way you could get lost in them. The quirk of her mouth. The way she pursed it when she wanted to say something but was scared to speak up. How her hands would twist in her lap or her fingers drum against her leg. Like she ached for something for them to do. Needlepoint, probably.
Thomas stepped into his room. The fourth bedroom was the master bedroom. Done up in various shades of blue, it was called the Sky Room.
He had never felt fully at home in it. Part of him still felt like he belonged in the nursery room. Or the Robin’s Room, as it was also called, for the color of the walls was said to match the blue of a robin’s egg.
It was just that his parents had used this room. He felt odd for using it now even though it was his by right. He was master of the house now. Not his parents. They were gone.
Sometimes he truly missed them something fierce.
Thomas quickly got ready for bed. As he did so, he continued to war with himself.
He merely conjured up Regina because he had now spent more time around her. She was the girl right in front of him. The moment he saw Bridget again, all thoughts of Regina would flee. He would remember how he longed for Bridget.
Soon, he would know all of Bridget’s quirks the way that he knew Regina’s. It was all a matter of proximity. He was letting his imagination run away with him, that was all. He had to remember his heart.
For some reason, the arguments felt hollow to his ears. As though he was trying to convince himself to fight a battle that had already been lost.
He crawled into bed and tried very hard to picture Bridget in it. Instead the face he pictured had a myriad of darling freckles, an adorably pursed mouth, and big dark brown eyes.
Thomas sighed and stared up at the ceiling. He was in deep trouble if h
e did not find some way to get a hold on this.
Chapter 18
Regina was not surprised to find that Aunt Jane was asleep when she got home the night before. Indeed, the entire household had been abed.
Having said that, she was equally as unsurprised when Aunt Jane brought the affair up at breakfast.
“I was rather worried, dear,” she said. Aunt Jane was ostensibly buttering toast but Regina could tell she was completely focused on her. “I had no idea where you’d gone.”
“It was thoughtless of me,” Regina said immediately. And it was. She didn't deny that. “I was only a couple of doors down.”
“I hope you were with good friends,” Aunt Jane said.
“I was with Lady Cora Dunhill.”
Regina wasn’t sure why she had chosen Cora out of all of them. It had just seemed right. Aunt Jane set down her toast.
“Oh?” Aunt Jane’s eyebrows had climbed high up onto her forehead. “I didn’t realize you had certain preferences.”
“What?” It took Regina a moment to realize what Aunt Jane was getting at. Then she laughed—albeit a little hysterically. “Oh, no, not at all, Aunt Jane. Miss Cora is an old friend of the family.”
“That does sound familiar.” Aunt Jane tilted her head. She seemed to be in thought for a moment. Then she said, “Ah, yes. She was dear friends with your sister, Miss Bridget.”
“Yes, she told me so as well. She knew my mother before she died. I had been hoping to speak with her about that, actually. That’s where I’m going this morning.”
“She is a delightful woman, from what I hear.” Aunt Jane picked up her toast again. “Fortunately few people know of her inclinations. Take care not to spread it. From what I hear her family averted one scandal when she was young.”
“Could she not go to the continent?” Regina asked.
“I’m sure that she could. It would be easier for her there. Something in England compels her to stay. From what I’ve heard, it’s related to that business when she was younger.”