Royal Regard

Chapter Sixteen, Part 2

Charlotte set her chin on the top of Bella's head and patted her back the same way she had when Nigel Tarkinton and the rest of the village boys took up Bella's brothers' tease when they were children, chanting wherever she went, "Is'na Bella! Is'na Bella!"

"Well, of course he said something, or you wouldn't be ready to cut out his gizzard with that awful dagger."

Bella sniffed and tried to bring her crying under control, almost whispering, "He never asked, just said he and Myron thought it best he protect me and my money from fortune hunters."

"He and Myron thought it best?" Charlotte squawked. "He used those words?"

"Yes. The beef-witted lobcock."

"Sapscull," Charlotte agreed.

"Hulverhead."

"Shall we continue in this vein?" Charlotte's question sounded sincere, but her face was now rife with amusement. "Or will you tell me the rest?"

"Nick-ninny." Bella giggled weakly at the absurdity, before the laughter was hindered by a new surge of crying. She tried to slow the sobbing, choking and coughing out, "He said I wouldn't have to follow fashion, which means he thinks I'm ugly." She hid her face again in Charlotte's shoulder. Far easier to call herself unattractive than to hear it from someone else, especially a man pretending to flirt with her.

"Don't be absurd. He has never pursued a woman who's in fashion—why he'll never want Lady Rowena—and I won't believe for one minute he thinks you ugly. He said nothing of loving you?"

Bella's tears swelled again. "No. Because he doesn't. Myron's only talked him into this. My husband is paying him to take me in."

"The gossips say he is mad for you."

"The gossips are wrong. He has said his whole life he'll never marry. Why would he suddenly decide to wed the ugliest woman in England? He is in league with my husband, because Myron is afraid a mere woman will lose his fortune buying dresses."

"That doesn't sound at all correct."

"They are unspeakable cads, and I cannot allow them to win." Another wave of tears flowed onto Charlotte's dress, wet blotches on the long-since-ruined silk. Still, she contained this rash of tears more quickly, perhaps even for the last time today.

Charlotte chuckled, rubbing Bella's shoulders the way she did with Jewel on the back end of a temper tantrum. "Of course not. That would be an awful precedent."

Mrs. Jemison slipped in through the servants' door and set down the tea tray as quietly as possible, leaving before either woman could require anything else.

Bella was now sniffling and rubbing a sulky face with her sleeve, so Charlotte took a handkerchief from her pinner pocket and pushed it into her hand, adding, "We shall make the silly men rue the day. And win you Wellbridge into the bargain. Why don't I pour and we can work out a plan?"

Bella sniffed again, her tears still starting and stopping, but with considerably less frequency. Shoulders hunched, face long, she dragged her feet to the sofa and sat, mutely watching Charlotte perform the ritual of preparing and serving them both tea.

Three more bouts of crying, two screeching outbursts, and six cups of Ceylon later, they had a plan. Staring into the fireplace, wondering if she could actually manage to perform the extremely difficult tasks ahead, Bella was still not convinced her time with Wellbridge hadn't been a well-conceived plot.

He must have his pick of any woman in London—no, England—no, the entire world. No matter what Charlotte said, a little bit of conversation wasn't nearly enough to keep the attention of a man like him. And even if Charlotte were right, and he did want her now, it wouldn't be long before he lost interest. If they were married when it happened, it would break her heart daily the rest of her life. With a clean break now, she might eventually recover.