Royal Regard

Chapter Eight, Part 2

An hour later, against Bella's silent, but somehow still vociferous, objections, Charlotte's wish was granted. Bella, Charlotte, the two children and the nurse were seated across the square from Gunter's in the Firthley's open landau. Standing alone nearby, the Duke held a dish of lemon ice in his hand, condensation dripping onto his glove. He made no attempt at contact, but for the occasional look their way, nodding at others in the crowd, but engaging in no conversations.

It couldn't last long, however. The speculative looks of the ladies nearby presaged an imminent mob of gently-bred females. He was starting to look a bit chary.

"Duke," Charlotte called out just as a very brave young woman and her mother began to cross the square directly toward him. Charlotte made a bit of a scene, rising slightly from her seat and motioning for him to join them, Bella trying unsuccessfully to stay her hand. When he walked over, avoiding the gaze of the disappointed debutante, he removed his hat and bowed, but didn't even suggest joining them in the carriage.

Bella sighed, "I vow you are following me."

He laughed, "Of course not, Lady Huntleigh. It is just my great good luck to come upon you twice in one day. Please, do keep your seat, Lady Firthley." Wellbridge held his free hand out to forestall any deference from anyone, though Bella had already decided she would nail her slippers to the carriage floor before ever curtseying to him again.

Charlotte offered, "Would you care to join us?"

"I would love to sit, Lady Firthley. I'm afraid it has been a trying afternoon of fruitless shopping for my nephew's birthday. I'm sure I've walked at least fifty furlongs."

As the Firthley's tiger pulled down the stairs and opened the door, Charlotte poked Jewel. "Your Grace, my daughter, Lady Julia Marloughe." The six-year-old carefully, reluctantly, set her coconut ice on the seat so she could stand, her knees and the carriage wobbling as she curtsied, lisping, "Pleathed to make your acquaintanthe, Your Grathe."

"Lady Julia, I am honored beyond measure," he said with a deep, formal bow. As he entered, he gave her his hand to help her scramble back onto her seat and removed his top hat. Jewel giggled madly at being called Lady by a stranger, but quickly went back to the important business of the treat in the glass dish on her lap. Wellbridge turned to Nurse and chucked baby Alex under the chin. "And this must be the young Earl of Herrendon."

"Hare-din," Alex agreed, chewing on the melted chocolate all over his fingers.

Wellbridge smiled at Charlotte. "Keep him this age as long as you can, Lady Firthley. Seventeen-year-old boys are miserable beasts. I had promised to buy my nephew a curricle and team for his birthday, but his mother forbade it, which provoked the most appalling fit of temper. He called my sister names for which I might have killed any other man."

Charlotte nodded sagely, as though she had raised hundreds of young men. "Lord Firthley says if our son resembles him in temperament, Baby's adolescent years will be better served away at school, but I can't believe my sweet boy will cause me even a moment of wretchedness."

She pinched Alex's cheek and spoke to him in baby talk: "Mummy's boy doesn't want to go away to school, does he?"

Alex dragged his face away, yelling, "No touch Hare-din! No, Mama! No!" Wellbridge managed to keep from snorting, but Bella did not.

"The point of boarding school, Charlotte," she said, caustically, "is that other people will manage his wretchedness, and you may take credit for manners someone else will enforce with a stick."

Wellbridge pursued a policy of appeasement. "I'm sure Herrendon will grow up a fine chap who adores his mother." Then he took the even wiser course of changing the topic. "Unruly though my nephew may be, it is his birthday, and he has achieved top marks in his examinations, so I must find a gift as excellent as a curricle, but which will not incur my sister's wrath."