Royal Regard (3 page)

Charlotte spoke even more quietly than her
cousin. “Leave off any interest in Lord Malbourne. He’s
French
, as though you need to know any more. You must not
let him flirt so.”

“Keeping a Frenchman from flirting is like
keeping a snake from a mongoose.”
At
Charlotte’s raised eyebrow, Bella explained with
a half-smile,
“The mongoose might win, but most likely, the
snake will slither away to try again.”

“Why is he here?” Bella asked when Charlotte
stopped giggling. “I know the war is over, but I confess I thought
London hostesses would be fighting yet. And why ‘Lord?’ Is he not a
duke?”

“He is a
French
duke,” Charlotte said,
as though it were explanation for any rudeness she cared to
inflict, “though he has been in England most of his life,”
Charlotte started,
clearly enthralled by the
prospect of passing on delicious tittle-tattle.
“You may
have met him when—”

Bella shook her head.

“Well, you were only in London a few weeks.
His late wife inherited land near Dover, and he took possession
just before the Revolution. I heard he left her to die by
guillotine, but Alexander says she was taken in childbed.”

“Does Alexander know everything about
everyone?”

“Yes. Now, hush, or I won’t pass on what he’s
told me.” Bella closed her mouth before Charlotte made good her
threat. “He entertained King Louis at his manor house during the
exile, and it’s said he loaned King George half a million pounds
toward the war debt, but that is probably a lie. Everyone knows he
lost all his money when he ran from the rabble in Paris. Now that
the Little Corporal has been deposed,
Monsieur le Duc
is
making the rounds of London again, pretending to be better than he
is. They say he is looking for a wife, but he won’t pay attention
to any one girl.”

“Why did a pedigreed
émigré
not return
to France when—”

Before Bella could complete her question,
their husbands joined them at last. Alexander Marloughe, Marquess
of Firthley, moderated his lengthy stride to match Bella’s spouse,
who tottered on a cane, supporting a gouty leg and declining state
of frailty, both of which had precipitated their return to
England.

When Alexander held out his arm to provide a
steadying hand, the elderly man stumbled slightly to the side to
avoid it. Myron Clewes, Baron Holsworthy, could be a stubborn man
when he so chose. Stepping to his side, Bella slipped her arm
through her husband’s, in order that he might lean on her
surreptitiously, an inconspicuous position both comfortable and
well established.

After many years of salt winds and tropical
suns, they were both unfashionably tanned. For her part, Bella
welcomed it, for it helped to hide the lines she was starting to
see in her mirror, although one more mark against her in polite
society. On Myron, the lines were years past hiding, as was his
thinning shock of white hair, twice as bright just by proximity to
his darkened face.

“My dear, I am so sorry to have kept you
waiting,” Myron said, grasping Bella’s arm more tightly than usual.
“Was that Malbourne I saw?”

“Yes.” Bella was taken aback. “You know
him?”

Myron’s lips were suddenly thinner, his face
almost ashen. “I know of him, and will not allow his attentions
toward my wife.”

“Of course, husband,” she said, bowing her
head to the chastisement, letting any irritation drift into the
crosscurrents of rumor and innuendo. Myron would entertain her
thoughts, opinions, observations, questions, or arguments on any
topic she chose—at home. In public, she always agreed with him.

“He’s right, Bella,” Alexander said.
“Slippery man, that. Not good
ton
.”

“‘Good
ton
,’” Bella pronounced, “is a
contradiction in terms.”

Alexander didn’t disagree, only turned to his
wife, saying, “I wish you wouldn’t force me to Almack’s, Charlotte.
Knee breeches are as bad as a ball gown.” He shifted in his
clothes, pulling at his cravat until it was drawn askew. With his
hair tied and powdered in the manner of several older, more
influential members of Parliament, and attired in formal black
breeches, clocked cream stockings and a coat of black superfine, he
appeared closer to Myron’s age, a quarter-century beyond his
one-and-forty. He had not yet matured, however, into the same sense
of quiet dignity.

Charlotte smiled and adjusted his collar.
“Don’t be ridiculous, my love. You are most distinguished and would
look frightful in a frock. You haven’t the figure for it,” she
laughed, continuing, “You will be pleased to know if Bella has her
way, we shall be removed from the guest list entirely before the
evening is out.
Naked savages
, indeed. Myron, it is
scandalous you give her license to throw indecent stories around
like brickbats.”

Myron patted his wife’s hand. “She needs no
license from me. She is a grown woman, perfectly capable of
speaking her own mind.” Myron inclined his head toward Charlotte’s
mutinous expression in a half-conciliatory gesture. “Though I’m
sure you understand the way of things in London much better than
I.”

Irritated at being
discussed as though she
weren’t
present,
Bella spoke just as the music stopped: “I don’t
give a tuppenny damn for the way of things in London!” Her voice
carried much further than she had intended, and a collective gasp
rose from everyone in hearing distance, followed by a buzz of
denigration that spread across the room like a wave across
water.

Charlotte snapped her fan much harder on
Bella’s hand, her mouth opening and closing, choking on the words
to express her outrage. Lips twitching, Alexander and Myron covered
their amusement with observations about the orchestra’s rapidly
chosen next selection, a polka.

“You will kindly moderate your language, or I
will take you home at once,” Charlotte hissed, rounding on the
gentlemen. “And you two! Encouraging her!”

“I am not a child to be sent to my room
without supper, Charlotte,” Bella snapped. “I have a voucher, so I
will be staying.” She would rather dine on rotten meat than endure
another hour at Almack’s, but a breakfast of ground glass was
preferable to yielding to Charlotte.

“If anyone is to send her to her room without
supper, my dear Lady Firthley, it will be me.” Myron spoke gently,
in the tone he always used to forestall further argument. Bella’s
coy smirk sent a message to him that shut out everyone else in the
room without being at all inappropriate.

Charlotte snapped, “I might think you would
encourage her to act like a proper wife, before it gets back to the
king that she is still an incurable hoyden.”

“I daresay you might think so,” Myron
answered, “but I assure you, His Majesty is well aware she is a
hoyden. He has come to see it as a great asset.” Bella flushed at
this encomium and lowered her eyes under Myron’s indulgent smile.
“He has never failed to ask after her, and often remarks on the
outstanding results of her wit and charm.”

“‘Tis true, Charlotte,” Alexander agreed.
“Prinny holds a great fondness for Bella. He has said so several
times in my hearing.” Angling his head away from Charlotte, he
winked at Bella, adding, “No one can credit his partiality for such
a hoyden.”

“I fail to see any wit or charm,” Charlotte
sniffed. “She will be barred from polite society, and Seventh Sea
Shipping will follow suit.”

“Pray, do not act like those stuffy women,
Charlotte. You shall become old and boring long before your time.”
Bella could not resist the jibe. “The look on your face will bring
on even more wrinkles.”

Clearly afraid talk of wrinkles might turn
into a brawl, Myron interceded. “I expect my business can withstand
a bit of scandal. In fact, I know it can.” Myron held Bella’s arm
tightly, running his thumb across the back of her hand. He said,
though not loudly, “This is not the first time she has deservedly
shown an aristo the rough side of her tongue, nor will it be the
last, and I’m certain plain speaking causes no affront to God.”

Nodding her head sharply in agreement, Bella
turned her nose up at Charlotte in a childish pretense. Finally
unable to contain his building mirth, Alexander started laughing
aloud.

“I say, Holsworthy,” he
remarked with a grin
, “you and your wife are just
the fresh air we need at Court. It is so very dull listening to the
same
on-dit
day after day. You’ll ruin yourselves by
morning, but it will liven things up nicely.”

“I take back everything I said about missing
you all this time,” Charlotte declared, looking down her nose at
her wayward cousin. “I had forgotten what a heathen you are.”

“Then I shall endeavor to remind you as often
as I can,” Bella released a melodramatic harrumph. “There are more
ladies headed our way. Shall I tell the story of the Gongulobibi
priests revering me as a goddess?”

Nicholas Northope always took
notice when a lady he had never seen entered the room. However, it
had been months, perhaps years, since the ninth Duke of Wellbridge
had been so intrigued. No spring miss, the newcomer’s face
fascinated him: openly emotive, not the customary painted-on mask
of genuine boredom. Eyes too close-set, a nose with character
rather than charm, and cheeks more rounded than most, taken in
total, he still found her features captivating. She stuck out in
the crowd of jaded aristocrats like a sunflower in a field of
nettles.

She had assuredly spent time in foreign
ports; he might assume Spanish or Italian blood if her hair weren’t
brighter than a fresh-minted copper ha’penny. Her unfashionably
dark face was curious, intelligent, and by the set of her jaw,
probably opinionated. Yet, her shoulders hunched just slightly, as
though she were afraid the entirety of the British aristocracy
would collectively slap her face as soon as she walked through the
door.

He tugged at his tailcoat and straightened
his gloves, feeling a perfect fool in knee breeches and dancing
pumps, when he far preferred buckskins and boots. The conformist
rules at Almack’s were, to his mind, set by rancorous old women
with nothing better to do than make everyone else’s life miserable,
but his sister had insisted this afternoon once more than he had
managed to refuse.

A thick strand of blond hair fell out of his
once-neat—if out of fashion—queue, curling at his temple, but he
refused to be seen adjusting his hair like a woman. Bad enough
Allie had forced lace at his cuff and diamond shoe buckles. He
looked ridiculous—more dandy than duke.

Nick saw the lady across the room take a
deep, fortifying breath as she was joined by the Marchioness of
Firthley. From the way the two women put their heads together
without so much as a salutation, they were well acquainted,
possibly family.
Good
, he thought. Though he had never met
Lady Firthley, he knew the marquess well enough to procure an
introduction.

The woman’s gown was uglier than Satan’s
Sunday suit: poor tailoring and endless rows of floating horizontal
ruffles emphasized all the wrong parts of her body, and petal
sleeves looked like the inadequate wings of a land-bound bird. The
pastel-pink tulle made her dusty-rose skin look dirty and her
bronze hair look brassy. He knew someone—no, everyone—in the room
was calling her
kaffir
or
coolie
or
gypsy
by
now.

When her shoulders periodically twitched,
tensing her muscles under an uncomfortable skin, the awful dress
gave the impression she would fly away from unwelcome obligations.
Every time she so much as trembled, Lady Firthley tapped her on the
arm with her fan, and the face Lady Holsworthy made when she was
cross was fascinating, too, if only because ladies so rarely
appeared peevish in public. Nick wished he were standing nearer, so
he could listen to her witty set-down. He’d bet a year’s income it
was witty.

Turning away, Nick looked around for Allie,
hoping she might not see him presenting himself to a woman she
hadn’t chosen. Daughter of the seventh Duke of Wellbridge and
sister to the eighth and ninth, Lady Allison was the unquestioned
arbiter of appropriate ducal matches. To Nick’s chagrin, this meant
enduring endless lectures when he refused to help her sort through
eligible ladies, no small source of irritation. It was hardly his
fault she had made a deathbed promise to their mother that he
didn’t intend to keep.

The sooner he could accommodate this
evening’s demands, the sooner he could leave. He was rather in the
mood for a card game, and perhaps a visit to King’s Place to spend
his winnings on a willing woman, as he had given his mistress her
congé
two weeks ago, after one too many whiny demands on his
time. Tonight, he would happily pay double for a lascivious woman
who would entertain him without following him home afterward.