Royal Regard (28 page)

With a new pot of hot water and plate of
sandwiches delivered, Charlotte asked, “Are you finished with your
brooding now or shall I leave you? More enjoyable pastimes are
afforded me than listening to you tell me again how ugly you
are.”

Bella flounced to the sofa and thumped
herself down in a seat.

“I suppose it won’t do to continue, as you
have a ridiculous response to everything I say.”

“Indeed I do. Now, with no wish to intrude on
more important concerns, the reason for my call was not your
whining about Wellbridge. “There have been responses to the
advertisements in
Ackermann’s
. Nurse still needs Peggy's
help with the children, and Mrs. Pearson would never say, but the
kitchen staff is sorely missed as well.”

Bella sighed and picked at a pill on the arm
of the couch. She would have to ask Mrs. Jemison to singe it again.
With adequate chambermaids, such botherations might be addressed
before she had to bring them to the housekeeper’s attention. Hannah
might be dismissed if Bella once more pointed out such an
oversight, except there was no one to replace her.

“Very well.”

“Shall we begin with your lady’s maid or the
lower orders?”

“Whatever you like.” Bella was out of
argument.

“Very good. I have seven qualified responses
for your abigail, but only three are French.”

“Why does it matter if she is French?”

As she always had when explaining the
inexplicable, Charlotte looked down from the summit of
‘I-will-always-know-better.’

“Every respectable woman prefers a French
lady’s maid. They are quite the best with one’s wardrobe and hair,
to say nothing of their discretion on the subject of
gentlemen.”

Bella knew she was allowing herself to be
manipulated, desperate to complete her staff and, therefore,
Charlotte’s interference, but argued, “Why would I need discretion
on the subject of gentlemen? It is not as though I am hiding a
lover in the
armoire
.”

Charlotte refused to give up her place on top
of the mountain of self-regard. “Perhaps because you stomp around
screaming like a termagant when you don’t get your own way with
your husband?”

“That’s not fair.”

“No? Have you not been screaming like a
termagant?”

Termagant
was surely an overstatement.
It wasn’t as though Myron and Wellbridge hadn’t given her plenty of
reason.

Charlotte sipped the last of her tea, and set
the dish down nearly hard enough to break the porcelain. “Have a
care, Madam. That china might have cost my husband his life.” Bella
removed the empty cups to the tea tray and placed it carefully on
the marble console table next to the door.

Charlotte began shuffling though papers and
laid three letters out on the table.

“This one—Éléonore Renaud—worked for the
Comtesse de Barrau in Paris. Before the Revolution, so she is too
old to get into any trouble with the footmen. Afterward, she was in
Dublin with Lady Ashe, so you know she speaks good English. The
only drawback is she hasn’t been in service for five years, but I
daresay one doesn’t forget how to draw a bath.”

Bella sighed. “I suppose not. Of course, why
one has to force servants to carry buckets when one can do it
oneself is another question entirely.”

“Because you no longer live in a wigwam.”
Charlotte wrinkled her nose as if the room were carpeted in manure.
“Here, read this,” she said, handing Bella another letter. “Janine
Denis has been in the employ of the Duchesse d’Angoulême since her
exile in Portugal. It would be quite a coup to share a maid with a
future queen of France.” Charlotte tapped her index finger on the
letter. “The girl makes no reference to her position, so she is
probably naught but an ambitious chambermaid, but she is young yet
and still trainable… and Louis-Antoine’s wife is said to be a great
beauty.”

“She is a great beauty and very intelligent
woman, but no abigail will magically erase my ugliness, only keep
it to a minimum. Anyone who worked for royalty, even as a
chambermaid, will find me a great step down.”

“Hush about your ugliness. Not another word.
It says here she heard about you in Paris. Sycophantic nonsense in
part, but I daresay Myron’s cheques are more reliable than anyone
in the French court.”

Bella found another pill on the arm of the
sofa. Tugging the loose thread began an unraveling.
Much like my
silly fantasies about Wellbridge
.

Before the new sofa ended with yet another
tear, she crossed to the mantelpiece to take up a candle from the
inlaid brass holder. With great care for dripping beeswax, and
caution against burn marks, she singed off the string, though it
was too big a job to be accomplished with Charlotte pushing
missives at her. She set the candle aside and took her seat,
feigning interest in the next letter.

“This last was with the Baronesse de Montoire
since just after Napoleon reinstated the nobility, would still be
there if the baroness hadn’t gone to God. They stayed in the
country in Alsace—Épinal—so the maid never served at the Emperor’s
court, but she does have experience listed from before the
Revolution—la Viscomtesse de Châtillon.”

“But with her last mistress deceased, no
reference?”

“Of course she has a reference. Do you think
I am entertaining applications from women without a character?”

“I think you would hire a Haymarket whore if
she can arrange my hair.”

“That is an awful thing to say!” Charlotte
looked more closely at the letter. “Lady Montoire’s daughter… let’s
see, la Viscomtesse de Gourgue… has enclosed a note. Here, it’s in
French. You read it.”

“You still don’t know French after all this
time? Alexander is a learned man. Why did he not beat you until you
memorized the irregular verbs?”

“Alexander has better uses for me than
speaking French.” Bella snorted and Charlotte smacked her across
the arm. “That isn’t what I meant. Here, the woman’s name is
Michelle Delacroix. I love the name Michelle. It is so
romantic.”

“Fine. Hire her. I have no preference, except
I would rather no lady’s maid at all. It’s ridiculous. Some woman
to sit in my bedroom and poke into my affairs? I wouldn’t do this
at all but for you making my life unbearable.”

Charlotte looked like a fox planning its
route before a hunt. “
Affairs
?”

Bella returned the clout to the arm. “You
take my meaning.”

“Delacroix is the only one near London, so
I’ll have her here sorting your awful hair in no time. If a French
lady’s maid cannot move an affair with Wellbridge forward, no one
can.”

“Good afternoon, Sir,” Charlotte
said as she curtsied to Nick in his library. While he stepped down
the ladder he had been climbing to return a book near the ceiling
of the second floor, she moved to a side table to relieve herself
of the drawstring reticule that matched her dress, snow-white silk
trimmed with black lace and red ribbon. She shrugged off the
contrasting crimson silk spencer and draped it over her bag.

“Lady Firthley, a pleasant surprise.” He
reached the balcony, and then took the spiral staircase to the
lower floor. When he crossed the room to make his leg, he bowed
over her hand and offered, “Please, do be seated.” He indicated a
clutch of brocaded armchairs and a red horsehair loveseat in a
loose semi-circle near the fireplace.

“You are very kind, Sir.” She gracefully took
a seat on the loveseat before the fire, spreading the fall of her
gown and crossing her legs at the ankle, the tips of her crimson
satin shoes poking out from underneath, almost precisely matching
the rubies in the hilt of his great-great grandfather’s saber,
hanging above the hearth.

When last they spoke, Lady Firthley had been
adamant Nick take back every offensive word in his ill-fated
proposal, and had vowed to give him the cut direct until he knew
exactly which they were. Huntleigh had helped untangle the mess,
though Lord Firthley, when approached, only took the occasion to
laugh, clap him on the shoulder, and ask whether Nick was certain
he wanted to be leg-shackled.

Nick tried a compliment, the best technique
he knew for relieving female pique, knowing this visit would
certainly be rife with that.

“The ribbon is most fetching, especially with
the black lace.” He winked at her. “Whoever suggested it must have
very good taste.”

“Why yes, he does,” she smiled. Nick released
his tortured breath when the gambit worked. “Thank you so very much
for noticing. I had the outfit made especially for a certain
gentleman.” He coughed as she fluttered her fan.

“I hope you will call me Charlotte, and I
will call you Wellbridge, if you have no objection. Rude to assume,
but we have met more than a few times and are about to have a much
closer association.” She dipped her head, peeking at him from the
corners of her eyes.

Nick stood abruptly and backed away toward
the door to make sure it was open. She sent tiny glances his way,
batting her lashes behind her fan. She bit her bottom lip as her
hand lifted to her throat, breasts heaving as her breath grew
faster and shallower. He sputtered and nearly ran to the open
doorway, bellowing down the hall, “Blakeley? Is there tea?”

Once he was entirely unmanned, but not a
moment before, she laughed aloud. “Not that type of association,
though I am flattered you have now considered it.” She couldn’t
help giggles falling out of her mouth at his horror, like minor-key
musical notes tripping off their staff. “I do hope you end up my
brother. You are ever so much fun to tease.”

“Oh, good Heavens. I thought you meant—”

“It is clear what you thought, and it is
quite droll. I shall now be able to say, ‘I spoke of an affair with
Wellbridge, but in the end, Lord Firthley won out.’ It is
enormously comical, considering.”

“Considering?”

Her laughter stopped as fast as a rolling
penny under an urchin’s foot.

“Considering Bella.”

The name was a gauntlet thrown into the
center of the room. He startled, nearly backing into the doorjamb
as Charlotte expanded, “She’s told me everything now. Well, nearly
everything. Whatever she hasn’t, I expect to learn from you.”

“My lady—” There was no way he would be
pulled into a conversation with a female on the basis of,
I know
everything. Tell me more
. He wasn’t quite sure he could talk
his way out of it, but wouldn’t go willingly. His hip brushed
against the door latch and he stumbled on the threshold.

“Please, Wellbridge, do sit down before you
walk into a wall.”

“I thought you sorely displeased with me,” he
squeaked like a boy in short pants.

She tossed her head and waved her hand. “Oh,
that. Of course I wasn’t as upset as I made out. I had to make a
scene; Bella would never forgive me if I were to take your
side.”

Following her direction, Nick twisted himself
into the armchair across the small tea table.

Her amusement took a dark turn when she
added, “You should not mistake me, though. She is still very angry,
and rightly so.” She shook her finger at him like she were a nurse
and he was in dresses. “You and Myron acted abominably. You will be
lucky to pull the chestnuts from the fire.”

“Chestnuts?” His head was swimming.

“I’ve always found you intelligent,
Wellbridge. Now you are acting downright doltish. You’ve dropped
the cat among the pigeons, which you must know. You never, ever
should have told her what you were planning. As long as she didn’t
know, she might have complied, with the right motivation. Now she’s
talked herself into—”

Blakeley came in then and left a pot of tea,
staying only long enough to pour and indicate his intention to
return with more complete service once Cook had arranged a repast.
Finally served, Nick nearly burned his mouth taking a long sip.

Biting his lip and sucking in a breath, he
said, “I must admit to considerable confusion. Begin what,
exactly?”

She sighed, then spoke very slowly, as though
he were the village idiot. “I. Am. Here. To. Help. You.”

He set down his cup, squawking voice finally
mastered by the application of hot water, his ducal mien firmly
back in place. “You needn’t speak to me like a child. Does Bella
know you are here? Does Huntleigh?”

“Of course not,” Charlotte said breezily.
“Either would be unproductive. But should you wish to bring about
your stated aim, my information will be of far more use than
Myron’s.”

The well-meaning discussion of Bella’s future
with her husband had been complicated enough. Nick would bet every
acre he owned that a well-meaning conversation with a female about
Bella’s past would be incomprehensible.

He went to the decanter of brandy and poured
a glass. “I find when Bella’s loved ones try to ‘help,’ it ends
with me cup-shot before teatime.” To avoid the state, he only
half-filled the tumbler before setting the stopper back into the
carafe with a clink. He could always come back for more.