A Ravishing Beauty in Disguise: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Emily Honeyfield

  Despite Harriet’s inner anxieties about the state of the world, even she felt a whirlwind of excitement about the gowns, the food, the glittering drinks and swells of gorgeous music.

  “You’ll come over to get ready before the ball, won’t you?” Renata asked at the door, watching as Harriet scuttled down the steps of the mansion. “It’s tradition.”

  “I wouldn’t think of doing anything else,” Harriet affirmed.

  Despite the rather blissful, although confusing, afternoon with her cousins, Harriet felt awash with panic when she returned home. When she entered the door, her parents’ uproarious laughter swept through the halls, seemingly pushing her back up the steps to her bedroom. She felt unable to join them for dinner. She yearned to pester them continually regarding what had occurred the previous evening, about what they actually thought about the poverty in London, yet knew they had said everything they could possibly say on the subject. They would simply roll their eyes in response, demand why she was so caught up on something she couldn’t change.

  Harriet slowly stripped off her day gown and stretched her lithe frame over her mattress. The candle flickered on the side table, casting shadows and light across her stomach and legs. She always looked at her body curiously, still sometimes surprised at the woman she’d become. In many ways, time had ticked along without her readily noticing.

  When the maid appeared to inform her of dinner, Harriet shot out some sort of apology, asking the maid to inform her parents that she felt ill and would be missing it. This was something quite uncustomary in the lives of the Arnolds, leading the maid to peer at Harriet curiously.

  “You’re quite all right, aren’t you, Harriet?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Harriet sighed. “Just exhausted. I’ve lost my appetite.”

  Once the maid disappeared, Harriet leapt from her bed. She reached for her diary and her quill, dotting the quill several times in the harsh black ink. Without pause, she began to write, feeling overcome with a fire that crept from her belly and into her throat.

  “How ridiculous to think of it. Renata, Zelda, and I living on carelessly, drinking tea and eating cookies, giggling and gossiping, whilst men like Lord William Abernale remained elsewhere, filling their heads with actual useful information and attempting to take matters into their own hands. I feel as though I’ve spent the majority of my life blind to the horrors of the world. But what can one do, when one is suddenly aware of one’s own missteps? I suppose all one can do is—rectify those wrongs in any way possible.

  “In this case, I must uphold my value systems above all things. Perhaps this doesn’t mean I should bark orders to parents and cousins and friends—no. It doesn’t seem that that sort of pestering does any good, beyond creating a sort of boundary between myself and them. I do not believe in the necessity of war. I do not believe in the act of fighting to bring people together.

  “However, what father explains regarding the evils of the world is terribly troubling. How would these rich and prosperous people fall, when they already have so much? It seems that no one is questioning their tactics. Are they too afraid of what they might do to them, given the chance? It seems that these rich, evil creatures look at everything in the world based on what it can give them in return.

  “Must think on this. Must understand the law, and perhaps then, take that law into my own hands. I cannot sit by idly—like Renata, Zelda, my parents—and allow this treachery to continue. I will speak more on this at a later time, when I actually decide on what to do. I only know that right now, on this late day in April, I, Harriet Arnold, resolve to act. William Abernale cannot be the only creature in the world looking to right wrongs. He needs assistance.”

  Chapter 6

  William stood in the rain on that drizzly early May afternoon, surrounded on all sides with suitcases, his entire existence stacked together and shipped along with him back to London. Before him stood the enormous being of his childhood home, the mansion in which he’d become a young boy; the hallways of which he had mapped out in his brain like a general might have the map of the battlegrounds and hills and lakes and rivers.

  Still, he felt he couldn’t move forward, to draw his things back into the belly of the estate and dive into lacklustre conversation with his parents, his younger sister, Evelyn. His head still ached from the long journey; his brain still sizzled with last-minute conversations with Peter. He still felt every bit the Glasgow boy he’d left behind, unsure of how to fall back into old London habits.

  Now, one of the maids pushed open the window near the dining room. She batted bird-like eyes, casting out towards the road. Luckily, she didn’t see him. However, the opened window allowed for any sound close to it to flee out onto the lawn and into William’s ears. He was surprised to feel panic at his mother’s voice, which had taken on a screeching quality—perhaps only in the midst of preparing for his arrival. He couldn’t be sure.

  “You know William doesn’t like pheasant!” his mother shrieked, seemingly yelling at the cook. “I told you specifically that I wanted to have turkey. Turkey! For his arrival dinner! How do you think he’ll react if he comes home—finally, after eleven years away—to discover that we’ve forgotten how he likes his dinner? Don’t you think he’ll just turn around immediately and go back to Glasgow? I certainly would.”

  William allowed his shoulders to sag. Truthfully, he hadn’t disliked pheasant since he was a boy. The fact that this had stuck in his mother’s mind over the years filled him with a sense of loss he couldn’t explain. His eyes welled with sadness. He sniffed, reaching for one of his suitcases.

  “There he is.”

  The words rang out, both familiar and scratchy. William lurched back up to standing, dropping his suitcase once more at his feet. Just a few steps to the right stood Thomas Manfred, his best friend since age seven: a full three inches taller than even William, with long and lanky limbs and a crooked, still-boyish smile. On either side of his skull, light grey hairs had begun to sprout, showing his age.

  “Thomas Manfred,” William said. He shot forward and wrapped his arms around him, feeling as though he was reuniting with a brother. Their hug went on perhaps a second too long, making both of them feel a bit awkward, ambling back.

  Thomas switched his gaze towards the mansion, listening as William’s mother continued to prattle on with her insults and anger towards the maid. “She really hasn’t changed much over the years, has she?”

  “I haven’t seen her since Christmas,” William said, sniffing. “I think she’s an anxious wreck. Can’t believe I’m coming home. Doesn’t think it will stick this time.”

  “Well, truth be told, you have been saying you’re going to return for a few years now,” Thomas said, chuckling. “We’ve planned countless of these little celebrations. Now that you’re actually here, how are we supposed to believe it’ll stick? We’ve been fooled so many times.”

  William adjusted his black hat. His cheeks burned. He remembered those other times, dancing around the idea of coming home, yet always finding a reason to remain in Scotland. “I’m staying this time,” he said with a sigh. “For better or for worse.”

  “That accent of yours,” Thomas said. “It’s like you’re a foreigner now.”

  “Perhaps I am, in many ways.” William shrugged.

  Inside, something fell to the ground and shattered. William clenched his eyes shut, listening as his mother berated whoever had deigned to drop whatever it was.

  “To be honest, I think I would be standing out here, anxiously thinking about retreating back to Scotland as well,” Thomas said, laughing. His eyes burned into William’s. “How was the journey, anyway? It must have taken ages.”

  “I’m a bit exhausted,” William affirmed.

  “You look it.”

  “We’re both looking a bit older, aren’t we?” William said.

  “I suppose that means it’s nearly time for us to settle down, isn’t it?” Thomas said, chuckling. “We’re going to lose that handsom
e boyishness soon, aren’t we? Although, I’m sure you’ve been speaking with Zelda. I always thought it a wonder that she never settled with anyone after you never returned.”

  “And yet here I am …”

  “Eleven years later, my friend,” Thomas said. He arched his thick black brow. “Tell me. You’ve spoken with her, haven’t you?”

  “Hardly.” William sighed. “And to be honest, I can’t even remember much of a flicker of those old emotions. We were just children back then. We were idealistic. In love, maybe, if that’s a possibility when you’re 17 and 18 years old.”

  “Certainly many of our parents married around that age,” Thomas tried.

  “I wouldn’t say many of our parents have the greatest of marriages. Although, I’m sure, they make do.” Again, William wrapped his hand around the handle of one of the suitcases, marvelling at its weight. His eyes flashed with the image of his old bedroom in Scotland, of all the things he’d travelled with lining the walls, hanging in the closet. Now, they were protected from the rain with only a thin bit of suitcase.

  “This has been an illuminating conversation,” Thomas teased him. “But I suppose it’s up to me to deduce the fact that—you’re not entirely in love with Zelda any longer. Which means! I suppose you’ll be up for the ball thrown by the Marquess.”

  “The Marquess?” William scoffed. “I’ve heard only wretched things about that man.”

  “Of course. But name a filthy rich man in London who isn’t wretched,” Thomas said. He, too, collected a few of the suitcases. The men began to wander towards the front door.

  “I don’t know if it sits well with me to attend those sorts of parties.” William sighed.

  “It’s not as though you have to marry the Marquess,” Thomas said. He dropped two suitcases upon the porch with a double clank and then spun back, hollering as he approached the last of the suitcases. “Besides! Isn’t it something of an evil thing, the perfect party? I wouldn’t trust a good person—the sort that gives to the poor, supports various missions—to throw a party. Would you?”

  William sensed he had a point. Just before he reached forth and knocked his fist against the door, Thomas dropped the last of the suitcases beside his feet. He drew his lips towards William’s ear, murmuring, “Besides. If you’re not going to marry Zelda, then it’s time for you to find another debutante. It’ll take your mind off of coming home.”

  “As if love has ever been the antidote to anything,” William said.

  “You really have grown increasingly pessimistic, haven’t you?” Thomas said.

  William didn’t bother to answer. He pounded the door, putting an end to the seemingly-endless, wild diatribe by his mother. He could almost feel her skirts sweeping over the marble floor as she approached. Seconds later, she pulled open the door. Her clenched face immediately loosened. She gaped at him, her lips parting, as though she couldn’t actually believe he stood there. After a long second, she leapt towards him, tossed her arms around his neck, and nuzzled against him. A low sob escaped her lips. William blinked towards Thomas, stretching his hands across his mother’s shoulders.

  “You’re actually here,” Lady Abernale wept. “I didn’t think—I imagined you’d send another one of those wretched letters again. Letters that explain why you’re still needed in Glasgow.”

  “I’m staying this time, Mother,” William murmured, scarcely able to believe it himself. “I really am.”

  His mother ushered both Thomas and William into the mansion, hustling them into the dining room. Within just a few minutes, William found his plate filled to the brim with pheasant—which he assured his mother he liked, now—and steaming potatoes and freshly-baked breads. Thomas spoke to his mother amicably, seemingly thrilled to be back at the Abernale estate after so many years without William.

  “I watched the two of you grow up together,” his mother said. She gripped Evelyn’s hand beside her, making her shriek. “Evelyn, look at your brother! Doesn’t he look like such a man?”

  William’s father soon appeared at the dinner table, greeting his son with a firm handshake and a simple, “How was your trip?” He dropped himself into his familiar chair, allowing the maid to fill his plate and pour wine into the glass.

  As the dinner stretched on, William found himself falling into the once-familiar role of his life, uttering the same phrases he might have said fifteen years before. Each time he did, his father’s eyes glowed at him, seemingly thrilled that William still upheld the same belief systems he’d instilled in him growing up.

  Of course, with each utterance, William felt himself drifting further and further away from the persona he’d cultivated in Glasgow. This made his stomach lurch with apprehension. Would he so easily strip away his newfound sense of politics and comprehension, all to please his father and mother? Would he halt all the work he’d done, only to fit back into society?

  That evening, Thomas remained at the Abernale estate for a nightcap, and then a second nightcap, which ultimately led both William and Thomas to sputter out from the back of the mansion, sit in the garden, and gape up at the stars. The rain clouds had fled for the night, and the twilight was a strange and eerie purple. William felt heavy with fear and desolation. He wished he could translate this to Thomas.

  But ultimately, he allowed Thomas to dive back into his humdrum views about the upcoming Marquess ball—explaining the various women he couldn’t wait to see while there. “There’s Margaret. And Annabelle …” he began, counting them out on his fingers, which glowed beneath the moonlight. “And Natasha. And Natalie …”

  “Are you collecting them?” William asked.

  “It’s not that. It’s just good to know your options,” Thomas said. “Although I must say, your judgement is quite alarming.”

  “What of Renata?” William asked.

  “What do you mean, what of Renata? You can’t possibly go after Zelda’s sister,” Thomas said.

  “That’s not it.” William sighed. “I just was enquiring about her … her health. Her wellness. Her life.”

  “I’ve heard she’s courting someone, although I can’t be sure who,” Thomas said. “The girl’s 22 years old, now, you know? I’m sure when you left she was little more than …”

  “Precisely. She was 11. And that other one. Their cousin. What was her name?” William asked. Of course, he was pretending with this comment. He very much remembered Harriet’s name—and the strange, overzealous energy that lurked within her.

  “Oh. The one with those fierce green eyes.” At this, Thomas lent William another of his crooked smiles, allowing his shoulders to shake with the humour of it. “She must have been young, as well. Although I seem to remember the two of you making eyes at one another at a previous Christmas? She hasn’t yet paired off, you know. Although I’ve been told she can be quite hard work. She’s one of those idealists. Like you.”

  Of course, William remembered this about her. He had an image of her as a young and free, bickering, dirty-cheeked girl, deciding on the rules of a game that didn’t matter at all. “It has to be equal. It has to be fair!” William remembered her saying.

  And for reasons he couldn’t fully name, he felt his cheeks crumple into a smile. He drew his head back, gazing up at the impossibly dark sky over London, and felt, for the first time, a bit glad to have returned. He hadn’t a clue what would happen next.

  Chapter 7

  The first ball of the season was to be held at the Marquess’s grand estate near to the Vauxhall Gardens, in southwestern London. It was tradition that the Marquess started the societal parties, and Harriet was already awash with the vision of it: the Marquess marching down the grand staircase of his home, bowing his head to onlookers, looking every bit as regal as royalty. In her more youthful days, Harriet had found it nearly impossible to do anything but daydream in the midst of such grandeur, to float upon the luck that had been given to her through her birthright.

  Of course, things felt a bit different this year.