Shipmate: A Royal Regard Prequel Novella (9 page)

Seemingly tired of waiting for her disquiet
to abate, the prince finally said, tapping two fingers on a console
table, "No need to tell me why you’ve made no appearance at Court.
I’ve heard it from the Duke of Lanceley three times now at dinner
parties."

Bella stared at her lap.

“I can well see boarding a ship for the
hinterlands might be preferable to listening to him continue to
tell the tale, but I cannot think he will stop, even then, I fear.
He makes much of it in his pretentiously self-deprecating way.”
When Bella glanced up, he was smiling, as though lemonade in the
face of a duke was a silly joke. She dropped her eyes,
stricken.

He laughed aloud, drawing her gaze back up.
“I wish I had seen it. I’d have paid a monkey to see Lanceley
dripping lemonade! You mustn’t make as much of it as he does, Miss
Smithson. He is a fool, and once you sail away, it will be
forgotten. You will marry Holsworthy in a sennight?”

She gulped the remainder of the smoothest
sherry she had ever tasted.

“Nine days, Sir. At his parents’ home in
Saltash.” Realizing she was whispering, possibly even mumbling, she
consciously collected her voice and spoke more clearly. “We will
set sail as soon thereafter as is practical. I know he is hoping to
be at sea before the sun sets.”

“I have misgivings,” the princess said.
“Please do not take me amiss, but from all I have heard, Miss
Smithson, you are… rather an unlikely adventurer.” She nodded to
her brother in acknowledgement of his rank, “Though of course, I
will defer to the prince, as he is your future husband’s backer. I
merely wish to ensure your interests are considered.”

“‘Tis true,” the prince said, looking her up
and down, appraising her with a practiced, but not licentious, eye.
“You are not the model of a seafaring merchant’s wife, nor of an
ambassador. You are young yet, and unaccustomed to Court life. Can
you make yourself an asset to him?”

She looked to the side of the room, but her
voice steadied further, far smoother and more even than she felt.
“I hope my husband will find me young and strong, willing to work
to advance him… and advance you… your father… England, I mean.” She
blushed, and neither made any effort to address her confusion. She
knew better than to ask impertinent questions, however, so ended
with, “With respect to your misgivings, Your Royal Highnesses, you
may be assured I have lost mine.” This was as long as she could
keep up a pretense, and her voice began to shake again. “If I can
speak to the royal family of England, I suppose I can learn to
speak to anyone.”

“Brava, Miss Smithson!” The prince clapped
his hands. “I think you are an excellent choice!”

Princess Amelia rolled her eyes, but did not
otherwise reply to her eldest brother’s self-serving assertion.

“Holsworthy assured me he would be entirely
forthright about the privations you can expect on your journey,” he
said, “But have you any questions for me, Miss Smithson?”

Very tentatively, slowly, with the hope she
was not pushing too far, Bella queried, “Might… may I ask,
Sir…”

“Yes?”

“Why do you take such an interest in the
marriage of a merchant and minor gentry?”

The princess explained, “It was I, Miss
Smithson. I heard of your situation during the… normal course of
things. There are relatively few women who might undertake such a
journey, and surely none from the nobility. When I enquired
further, I was given cause for concern. Are you certain you wish to
take this course?”

“I do, Ma’am. I admit I did not dare dream
of travel, nor conceive of such a breadth of destinations. But Lord
Holsworthy has explained everything, and you may be certain this
is, in the main, my choice,” she whispered. Gaining volume and
vigor, she continued, “I was raised among the nobility, Sir, and I
can pretend to aspire to be a courtier, should it be required.”

The prince looked over at his sister
triumphantly, “Very prettily said, my sweet. You are a brave
girl.”

So as not to forget, she brought up the only
point Lord Holsworthy had specifically requested. “I do hope you
accept my thanks—our thanks—on the gift you have made Lord
Holsworthy of the land in India. I am quite looking forward to
being of use to you on the subcontinent. And the ship… it is the
most beautiful I’ve ever seen, even half-finished, and Lord
Holsworthy says you ordered it designed with my needs in mind.”

The prince nodded, saying, “With the
participation of my brother, William, who is much more a sea-going
fellow than I.” Bella hoped the Duke of Clarence had been sober
when he contributed to the plans, but even sotted, an admiral was
more qualified than she to offer up suggestions.

“In that case, please do pass on
my—our—thanks to His Highness as well.” She turned to the princess,
at last beginning to warm to the conversation. “I wish you to know,
Ma’am, my uncle has been quite thorough in representing my
interests. Of course, there will be dangers, but I will never be
stranded, and will always be under guard. Lord Holsworthy has been
quite clear. Should he have his way, I will never be left
alone.”

The princess nodded, her furrowed brow and
the tense lines at the corners of her mouth beginning to relax.

“Your uncle?” Prinny asked. “I know you are
Effingale’s niece, but I admit to some confusion. Do you not have a
father to advise you? I thought I had heard…”

Bella’s breathing sped up.

“Yes, I recall now. Sir Jasper Smithson, 2nd
Baronet. Does he not have a tin mine? I had thought to invest on
the advice of several gentlemen.”

“No!” she yelped. At the shock on their
faces, she stopped and cleared her throat, modulating her tone. “I
mean, Your Royal Highness, Sir, with all due respect to your own
acumen, my father and brothers are… not very… propitious… at
business. I do not wish to defame my family, but I should not like
to see you drawn into their… ill luck.”

Her face heated, but she charged forward,
unwilling to continue any further conversation about her father and
brothers if it could possibly be avoided, but equally unwilling to
see the consequence to the Smithson men if they were caught trying
to fleece the prince.

“I am hopeful my situation will soon require
a return to England for the purpose of providing an heir for
Myr—for Lord Holsworthy. I know I shall never again be welcomed in
the
ton
, once joined in wedlock with a merchant, but
Myr—Lord Holsworthy’s barony and his parents’ home are open to me
should I be… should I find myself…”

“Yes, dear, we understand,” Princess Amelia
said, turning her face away.

Prinny, on the other hand, inclined his head
and smiled in a way Bella found almost friendly, saying, “Should
you show the type of courage such an endeavor will require, you
shall be welcome in my drawing room to the end of your life, my
dear, and I will make certain Holsworthy’s manor house is entirely
up to the mark, should you require respite from your travels.”

Bella’s eyes widened, and her ability to
speak fell away at the thought the Prince of Wales would see to her
new household in her absence. “But—Sir—you needn’t—”

He held up one finger. “You must never
naysay royalty, my dear, though in years to come, I expect you will
wish to many, many times.”

She swallowed her intended objections and
took only a moment to consider before she said, “I am sure Lord
Holsworthy will be as grateful as I for your attention to our
concerns.”

“Well done. You will make an excellent
diplomat’s wife. Now, I must return to my party, and I daresay
Holsworthy is close to apoplexy wondering if I have made off with
his bride.” He winked at Bella as they all rose, and he offered an
arm to each girl. “There is only one other thing I believe you
should know.”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Holsworthy himself tells me you have grit
you’ve yet to use, and he never buys bad merchandise.”

May 26, 1805

The Egret Feather Inn

Saltash, England

The night before her wedding, Bella paced
before the fire in her room at the Saltash village inn. Charlotte
slept soundly, snoring in the big bed, but there had been no gentle
slumber for Bella.

This had been the fastest six weeks of her
life and, by any measure, a success. Betrothed to a peer not a few
days after her first assembly, she would be married before the last
party of the Season. In the meantime, she had traveled from Bath to
London, back to Brittlestep Manor for her belongings, and was now
in Saltash, about to leave for parts unknown; Bella hardly knew
where she had packed her head. She was not a person accustomed to
restless energy, and pacing back and forth across the carpet was
not making it any easier to compose herself. There was nothing for
it. There was no chance she could clear her mind sitting here in
the midst of the same wretched thoughts.

She pulled a front-lacing house dress over
her nightrail, tugged on a pair of walking shoes and her traveling
cloak, which always, now, seemed close at hand, wrapped her bedtime
braid into a coil and pinned it at the nape of her neck. She locked
the door on the way out and pocketed the key.

Stepping into the stable yard, Bella saw no
one about, though it wasn’t nearly late enough to be so quiet, even
in the country. She took the walking track behind the row of shops
toward the wood that bordered the town limit. She breathed deep of
the cool, night air and felt some of the tension leave her
shoulders.

Bella’s relations filled the inn she had
just left: Lord and Lady Effingale, Hugh and Guy Amberly, Charlotte
and Lord Firthley. Her father and brothers had not been invited,
and were not at all welcome, but no one expected they would stay
away. Charlotte had been rehearsing her set-down of Jeremy Smithson
in her looking glass for days, and the gentlemen roaming about the
inn were rather better-armed than one might expect for a happy
occasion. Only by sheer force of will had Bella secured general
agreement that no Smithsons would be killed on her wedding day,
provided they kept to themselves.

Bella hoped they would keep to themselves.
She didn’t fool herself that her father would attend out of
sentiment, but he surely would to ensure his promised payment was
made before the Holsworthys left England. If he could find a way to
torture and threaten Bella one last time, too, she expected he
would find that a worthy endeavor, though Uncle Howard promised she
would never again have to be alone with Jasper.

Lord Holsworthy was spending this night in
his childhood home, which was so like Bella’s father’s cottage as
to be a mirror image—three rooms above, three below, and twenty
acres to farm—in the Clewes’ case, a vineyard. His aging parents
could not have been kinder to her, and assured an open-hearted
welcome to their family, whether on land or at sea. His mother,
particularly, took a liking to Bella, and her teasing tales of his
boyhood went a long way in making the somewhat stiff Lord
Holsworthy seem like someone with whom Bella could be friends. He
laughed more, here in Saltash, than he ever had in her presence
before.

Stopping in the streaming moonlight, Bella
looked to see where the path had brought her. On the edge of the
wood, adjacent to a clearing, she could just see the harbor and the
Seventh Sea ships docked there, on the horizon. Several important
guests from London were housed on one of Lord Holsworthy’s
merchantman, including the Prince of Wales and Princess Amelia and
their retinues, Lord and Lady Pinnester, and several of Lord
Holsworthy’s other investors. The royals had traveled to the
wedding on the Amelia’s maiden voyage, but would return to London
on the fleet ship, for the new flagship would leave with the bride
and groom on the morrow, directly after the wedding breakfast. In
less than a day, Bella would leave England, probably for good.

As she took up her skirt to begin her walk
again, Jasper stepped out from behind a tree. She stopped short and
stepped back.

“I was hopin’ I might come across you,
lassie, before you take to the high seas with your new lord and
master.”

She flinched when Jeremy stepped out from
the other direction.

She turned as though she would run, and John
was behind her. Her hands rose to guard her face, and she tried to
turn away from all of them.

“Please let me be. Uncle Howard said you
wouldn’t be—”

“Skip me own daughter’s wedding? Not on your
life, Miss.”

She tried to sound like Charlotte when she
said, “Lord Holsworthy will be sorely displeased if you harm
me.”

“Still belong to me until the vows are said,
and I would have you remember to put your family’s interests first
in years to come.” His hand shot out, snake-like, to slam into her
chest, throwing her backward into Jeremy, who grabbed her arms.