A Ravishing Beauty in Disguise: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Emily Honeyfield

  Now, Baxter hustled up beside her, digging his nose between her knees and crumpling her dress. She all-but shrieked with laughter, tossing her curls back. Zelda snorted. Harriet turned to face her, smirking.

  “Zelda, what is it about dogs? You’ve never liked them.”

  “I know my limits with animals,” Zelda returned.

  William cut out in front of Zelda, taking long strides towards Harriet and Baxter. Harriet’s heart nearly flopped from her body. William’s mighty hand dropped to Baxter’s head, flopping his ears back and forth. Baxter allowed his pink tongue to roll from his mouth. He panted, his face a portrait of intense pleasure.

  “I’ve never seen him so happy!” Harriet cried.

  “Goodness.” Zelda sighed, her voice heavy with sarcasm. She moved back towards the side of the garden and dropped onto the wooden swing. Renata scampered to sit beside her, only for Zelda to shove at her with a rogue elbow. “Don’t crowd me.”

  But Harriet hadn’t the energy to listen to her cousins’ near-constant carrying-on. She howled with laughter as William began to play with Baxter, teasing him with quick motions. His excitement grew, making him wild. Within minutes, he scampered around them in a wild circle, his eyes enormous and manic.

  “They’re just children, aren’t they?” Zelda said to Renata, her words rueful.

  But Harriet was far too exhausted to care. She and William scampered off to the further, nearly-hidden area of the rose garden, perhaps 100 feet from where Renata and Zelda swung on. Baxter collapsed on his side, his belly rising and falling. Harriet fell alongside him, slipping her hands across the fine strands of hair along his stomach. William peered down upon them, his hands on either side of his waist.

  “You’re going to mess up your dress, you know,” he said. “All this rain.”

  “What are you going to do, huh?” Harriet asked. “Are you going to report me to Zelda? My mother?”

  “I just want you to be prepared for the future. They’re going to come down upon you with a wretched hammer of judgement.”

  “Oh, trust me. I already know,” Harriet said.

  Silence fell. Baxter rolled over, so that his head scraped across the grass. Harriet allowed her chin to fall to her chest. “How simple it would be to be a dog, hmm?”

  William fell to the other side of Baxter. His hand seemed careful not to touch hers, even as he took to petting Baxter. “I have to assume that dogs don’t have to constantly tell their mothers what they do and do not want in their lives,” he agreed. “And that, in and of itself, would be a godsend.”

  Harriet chuckled. Again, a wave of fear crashed over her. “And, as a dog, it’s not as though you’re faced with all the injustice of the world. It’s not as though you—you attend the ball of the Marquess and are forced to reckon with the fact of his near-constant thieving from those less-fortunate than he. How are we meant to proceed in this reality, knowing that men like that will always win?”

  William’s face remained thoughtful. Harriet was grateful that, unlike her mother and father and cousins, it seemed that William held onto her emotions, turned them over. “I have to tell you, Harriet,” he said with a sigh, “although I studied law for years and years, I feel much the same as you. I have no sense for how to bring justice to the wretched men of this world. All we have to do is, I suppose, press forward with our own concept of right and wrong. Administer it as best as we can in our everyday life …”

  “Yes, but William!” Harriet cried. “Our everyday life exists within the stony walls of rose gardens. It exists in mansions and ballrooms, at tea time.” She leaned towards him, speaking almost conspiratorially. “I know my mother has spent very little time south of the Thames. She’s only heard whispers of what happens there …”

  “And I suppose you haven’t spent much time there, have you?” William asked. A little wrinkle formed between his brows.

  Harriet cast him a flippant shrug. “It’s not as though I’m a stranger to those parts.”

  “Is that so?” William asked.

  Harriet wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed. She pressed her teeth into her lower lip, nearly drawing blood. Panic flooded her. She couldn’t be so stupid, so reckless. Baxter leapt from his stance and scampered towards the side of the garden, trailing his nose across a pile of leaves. Harriet drew her hands across her knees. How could she proceed? Her tongue felt heavy, far too heavy for the English language.

  “By the way, Harriet …” William said, now. His voice was tender, as though he was whispering to her from beneath the sheets of a bed they shared.

  How ridiculous to think such a thing, Harriet knew.

  “What is it?” Harriet murmured.

  William reached across the grassy gap between them and touched her hand, atop her knee. Harriet felt a jolt of panic, of excitement, shuttle up and down her spine. She felt she might go completely insane if she turned her eyes towards him.

  Why was he touching her?

  How could she possibly explain how much she liked it?

  “I was curious. Are you—are you doing well?” he asked. “The reason I ask is you do look awfully tired. I know it’s terribly nagging of me to ask it, especially after all the ruckus with your mother and my mother and your cousins. But I want you to know that you can trust me. You can tell me if something is truly bothering you. If—if you’re up at night thinking about the injustice of the world. You can tell me.”

  Harriet allowed the next moment to carry on far longer than she should have, perhaps. She swallowed softly, then drew her hand away from his. His palm fell flat upon the grass. Her smile was shy and sad.

  “I think it would be best if we return to the others. Don’t you?” Harriet said.

  William shot to his feet without another word. Harriet’s cheeks burned. He strode across the garden towards Renata and Zelda, both of whom rose from the wooden swing, greeting him. Harriet scuttled after him, feeling woozy. Had that just really happened? Had he actually touched her, asked if she was all right?

  Had he really told her he would care for her, if she needed it?

  “There you are,” Zelda said, her words scornful. Her eyes burned into Harriet, filled with questions. “I don’t suppose you wish to continue our walk? Where’s the dog?”

  “He’s scampered off somewhere,” William said. “There’s no containing him.”

  “I see.” Zelda sighed.

  Almost on cue, dark clouds blotched over the sky once more. Little droplets splattered across their shoulders. The four of them fell in line, not speaking, drawing back towards the house. Harriet was painfully aware of how near to her William was, just a few inches in front of her. Her nose could have scraped against his back, if she pushed it. How she yearned for any kind of contact again!

  Once inside, Lady Arnold’s voice rang out. “There they are!”

  The two older women slipped into the hallway. Both of them had stained lips, showing that they’d transitioned easily from tea to berry wine. Renata let out a wild cackle and requested some, saying it wasn’t fair to leave them out.

  “The gossip only flows better, doesn’t it?” Renata said, gripping her skirts and hustling in after them.

  Again, William turned his eyes towards Harriet. They seemed to burn into her. A blush crept across Harriet’s cheeks. She prayed William didn’t notice, although she suspected that nearly anything her body wanted to reveal about her today, it would—whether that was her fatigue or her sudden, overzealous sexual desire.

  Now, she found herself falling into the same chair she’d been in earlier. Her mother’s voice rattled on about another bit of gossip, something that glossed over Harriet without latching on. Renata reached for a biscuit and cranked her teeth over it, casting crumbs across her lap.

  Again, Harriet felt William’s eyes burn toward her. She shifted, drawing her face away. Her curls fell down her shoulder, towards her breasts. The sweep of the hairs across that tender part of her body sent shivers across her frame. Her nipples grew pointed
, something she didn't recall happening as a result of someone just being close to her, acknowledging her.

  “The thing about Thomas you have to understand,” William was saying, “is that he really doesn’t have a clue what he wants. He’s always been a bit lost, a bit unsure of himself. I’m not sure, of course, if that’s the sort of man who belongs with Tatiana. But I can tell you, he’s incredibly lost to her will right now. If that girl said jump, he would jump.”

  Lady Abernale chuckled, looking at her son with enormous eyes. “My, you speak so frankly!”

  “I think he would be true to Tatiana, if she allows him to be,” William said. “But it’s hard to say. These matters of the heart …”

  Again, Harriet swallowed hard. His voice boomed through her. She felt at mercy to its power. He shifted in his chair, casting one of his enormous shoulders forward. Harriet’s mind grew heavy with thoughts of what that shoulder might look like unclothed. She imagined coarse, black hairs, snaking down his muscular chest, towards the flatness of his stomach. She imagined him pressing that chest against her, causing her breasts to bulge up against him. How she longed to feel his lips across the tender, soft bits of her neck, her chest …

  How she longed to be in a room with him alone!

  Now, in the depths of her fatigue, Harriet willed herself to think about William’s hand across hers back in the rose garden. She prayed for it again. Her eyelashes stirred against her cheek, casting her deeper into a daydream. Her heart fluttered, then burst up into her neck.

  Finally, her mother’s voice pierced through her reverie.

  “Darling, you really do look wretched,” she said with a sigh.

  Harriet blinked her eyes open. All four members of their party gaped at her, looking at her like she was about to break in two. Finally, she rose onto rickety legs and marched towards the hallway, feeling like a ghost.

  “I suppose I had better lay down for the afternoon,” she said to them, feeling as though her voice was a foreign object, nothing that had ever belonged to her.

  “I suppose so,” her mother returned.

  Upstairs, Harriet didn’t allow herself to feel a shame she probably deserved. Instead, she slipped off her gown slowly and then strung her arms through the sleeves of her white nightdress. Before she stretched out in bed, she drew her curtains closed, creating of her room a dark, cave-like dwelling.

  It didn’t take more than a second or two for Harriet to fall into a deep slumber, one she didn’t rise from until the following morning. She awoke as though she was rising from the dead, prepared to start anew. She prayed she had the energy to keep going.

  Chapter 17

  It wasn’t long before another opportunity presented itself.

  In the beginning of June, the spring clouds parted, certainly for good, casting them all into a blissful summertime. Zelda and Renata both seemed to entertain an intense feeling of satisfaction, neglecting their normal bickering for darker days. Renata and Hayward’s correspondence had continued its course, leaving both Zelda and Harriet to believe that Renata would be married within the year.

  This filled Harriet with a sense of longing she couldn’t quite name. Of course, in the course of her chosen “career,” she couldn’t very well grow close with anyone. How could she possibly describe to her husband where she’d been in the middle of the night? “I’m terribly sorry, darling, but I’ve been south of the Thames, distributing objects I stole from a much richer man. I’ll be retiring for the morning. Wake me in time for tea.”

  But the more Renata discussed her increasing love for Hayward, the more Harriet craved a similar love. One she felt strongly could be found with William—

  If only she had the time.

  Another ball was being held by the cousin of the Marquess, a man named Lord Walter Clemens. Due to his close relations with the Marquess, Harriet’s ears perked up in the days leading up to the ball, trying to peg him as a man worthy of her “scheme” (and thus unworthy of his riches).

  Sure enough, in the midst of preparing for the ball, Zelda let it slip that Lord Clemens had previously been on a business expedition with both the Baron AND the Marquess, which had ultimately led to them scheming against another family member of the Baron’s—ridding him of thousands and thousands of pounds.

  At the news of this, Renata’s jaw dropped with horror. “How is it that we’re surrounded with such wretched men?” She curled a blonde strand with an anxious finger, gaping at her sister. “We wouldn’t get away with such things.”

  “You’re right,” Zelda said, her voice sarcastic. “All we get to do is gossip behind one another’s backs. How wretchedly boring.”

  “And yet it’s enough for me.” Renata sighed.

  Of course, Harriet’s mind was forced into overdrive at mention of this. She felt her eyebrows stitch low of their own accord. She’d assumed she would catch wind of someone worthy that evening at the ball, but she hadn’t imagined it would be the very man who owned the estate. She brought her palms together and rubbed them quickly. The friction burned her.

  “What is it?” Renata asked, gaping at Harriet. “You’ve been acting so strangely, darling.”

  Harriet shrugged her shoulders and then returned her fingers to the buttons at the back of her light pink gown. Her eyes gleamed in the mirror. If she’d been her cousins, she knew confusion would have been a near-constant. But she knew she could never offer a lick of explanation.

  Once at the ball, Harriet found herself on a now-familiar course.

  It was simple, far simpler than she could have imagined. Initially, she mingled with the appropriate people, the men and women, young-adults and ageing aristocrats she’d known throughout her life. She heard her laugh ringing out at the right times, knew full-well she was operating on a kind of script. Eyes glowed towards her, telling her: she was fooling them all. Nobody would ever suspect.

  Of course, William and Thomas were amongst the patrons at the ball. Harriet allowed herself a very short, yet entirely emotional, dance with William. When he asked, she pondered for a moment too long, leaving William to begin to move away.

  “A man knows when he’s unwanted,” he said.

  “No, no,” Harriet said, frightened at the sincere fear in her own voice. “I’m terribly sorry.” A genuine smile drew itself across her cheeks. “I’m just lost in my own head sometimes.”

  “I hope you find yourself. Just for a few minutes,” he said.

  The orchestra sprung up, forcing them into a dance that was a bit too fast to allow any sort of soulful eye-gazing. Harriet found herself chuckling, lost in the frenetic footfalls beneath them both. They created a perfect rhythm.

  William whirled her away from him, and she flung her free hand out, watching the feminine way it pointed towards the far end of the room. Then, when the beat pushed forward, she swept herself back into his arms. This time, her breasts pressed against his chest a bit too hard, creating within her a sudden, overwhelming desire. Her smile faltered. She blinked at him as the music subsided, allowing her hands to fall to her side. He, too, stopped smiling, as though they’d come to some sort of resolution.

  “I really should be going,” Harriet murmured, forcing her mind’s eye away from her sudden emotion. “Thank you for the dance.”

  Without waiting another moment, Harriet cut out from the crowd, walking with purpose—but not too much—towards the staircase. Just as she had the previous time, at the home of the Marquess, she snuck up the stairs, knowing she was just another youthful, beautiful face in a sea of hundreds of others. Anyone who glanced her way would immediately forget.