by Abby Ayles
“Women are bound to take any man’s passing fancy as a reason to suspect he wishes to marry her,” Regina added. “I think that is part of why Elizabeth is so harsh to them. She fears even being friendly will encourage them.”
“I certainly don’t blame any woman for thinking such,” Harrison said. “Isn’t marriage your most honorable and only profession? But I never intended to break hearts quite in the way that I did.”
“You never made a promise that you then broke, and you never bedded them, so I see no reason to feel guilty,” Cora replied to him. She then turned to look at Regina again.
“My point, Miss Regina, is that these women would go and fawn all over him. There was no subtlety to them. Far be it from any of them to dispute him.
“Yet here you are sparring with him. I find it most refereshing and something he is in dire need of, to boot. I should think his ego far too large if it carried on for much longer without someone to prick it.”
“I shall do my best to continue this honorable task,” Regina said, speaking with great solemnity.
Harrison groaned. “All of the women in my life are turning against me. A sorry state indeed. How about we play cards now, as was the original intention?”
“You see, when the talk turns sour against him, then he’s happy to play,” Cora pointed out with a smile. “Very well then, let us see what we can do to spur along your little protégé.”
They set themselves up. Regina and Cora each took a hand. Then they began to play while Harrison helped Regina along.
It was domestic, almost. Regina felt hopelessly nervous about the cards and was determined to do well. But aside from that, she found that she was enjoying this.
Cora was a fun person to play. She and Harrison would banter with one another almost constantly. At first Regina found it distracting until she realized that the card players when she faced Lord Pettifer would probably be doing the same thing. Cards were a social thing, after all.
Harrison was a patient teacher. He let her figure things out on her own most of the time. If he felt he could or should, he would gently nudge her in a certain direction. For the most part, however, he waited until she was feeling helpless and would turn to him, actively asking for his help.
“You mustn’t get used to having me at your elbow,” he told her at one point. “If I always assist you the second I see that you might need it, you’ll never learn how to stand on your own two feet.”
“Teach a man to fish and all that,” Cora added, idly checking through her cards.
“I understand,” Regina replied, and she did. She appreciated it. The one habit she knew she had to break herself off from was turning to Harrison when she needed help.
It was all right for now, of course. She was still a beginner. But when the time came she couldn’t be instinctively looking around for her instructor. Nobody could help her.
“And what about hiding my emotions?” She asked, about halfway through the evening.
“We’ll get to that,” Harrison said. His tone was, as always, a patient one. Regina had a feeling that she could scream at him and he wouldn’t lose his cool.
In fact, the only time he seemed to lose any of his temper was when it came to protecting Regina. Or when Regina was getting down about her own sense of self-worth.
Well. Anyhow. She liked that she knew she could rail at him and he would never give her any reason to fear for herself. She appreciated that feeling of safety.
“You’re waiting until I know the cards better?” She guessed.
“Very good,” Harrison replied. “Yes. No sense in you trying to do too many things at once. Once you have the card playing down to a point where you’re not spending all of your energy thinking about it, we can incorporate other things.”
“Like how to carry yourself,” Cora said. “Oh, Harrison, don’t give me that look.”
Regina turned and caught the tail end of Harrison shooting Cora a very sharp look indeed.
“It’s not as though I’m attacking her. Good Lord, one would think you were her guard dog rather than her lover.”
Regina instinctively blushed at the use of the word ‘lover’ to apply to her relationship with Harrison. Even though that was technically what they were now. Wasn’t it?
Oh dear. This was all very complicated and embarrassing in her head.
“I apologize,” Harrison said, although he spoke a bit stiffly. “I must admit that I am rather overprotective, yes.”
“I can see why,” Cora replied, winking at Regina. “She’s clearly incapable of taking care of herself.”
“Oh yes, I’m simply helpless all the time,” Regina replied, joining in on the joke even though she did feel rather helpless for most of the time.
“I do think though—and do not jump down my throat about this Harrison or I shall have you drawn and quartered—that you could benefit from some lessons, my dear. Just simple ones in how to carry yourself.”
“Bridget tried that. I inevitably forgot everything when I went to a ball.”
“Well, if you’re going to be mingling with the type of people that Harrison likes to mingle with, that simply won’t do. And you’re older now, aren’t you? You can surely handle remembering how to carry yourself.”
Cora then leaned in. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Nobody is as powerful as they portray themselves to be. But people will do as they say and treat them like a king if they carry themselves with the proper manner.
“If you make it seem as though you believe it, they will believe it as well. They’ll have to. You’ll convince them of it. Even if it isn’t true.”
“If you tell yourself something enough times and if you start to behave as though it were true, in time it will become true,” Harrison added. “Or true enough.”
Regina laughed. “So I can pretend to be a sophisticated woman. And eventually I will actually be sophisticated?”
“That’s the theory,” Cora said lightly. “In any case, Harrison, would you let me have her for an hour or so? Can you bear to be parted from her for that long each day?”
“I do have a life I have to attend to, you know,” Harrison replied dryly. “I can take care of business. I won’t be languishing if I’m not in her presence constantly, unlike certain lovebirds we know.”
“I thought it best to check,” Cora replied. “What with you being her guard dog and all.”
So now she was to be taking elocution lessons, so to speak, from Cora.
It occurred to Regina that she was getting a great deal more out of this agreement with Harrison than she had originally thought possible.
Chapter 25
The days fell into a kind of pattern. Regina tried to stay cautious about it all. It wouldn’t do for her to become complacent and then slip up and have the entire thing revealed to scandal.
But she couldn’t help but notice that she had a routine now.
Every morning she would dine with Aunt Jane, who would ask her how things were going. She had never revealed to Aunt Jane anything that she was doing, although it made her feel terrible to lie in such a way to a woman who was so kind to her.
Aunt Jane would give her advice anyway.
Goodness only knew if the servants were listening in at the crack of the door or the keyhole and could overhear her. Regina merely never confirmed anything.
She told Regina how to handle a snide remark at a ball, or regaled her with stories from when she was a young girl. Regina almost couldn’t believe those stories. Aunt Jane still seemed so young, despite the fact that her daughter Lady Morrison was a woman grown and had been for some time.
After breakfast, she would go over to Harrison’s house. Regina always wanted to get right to the work of gambling but Harrison would insist upon taking her to the park, or having Cora call upon friends with Regina in tow.
There were museums to go to as well, and showings, and the theatre. Regina felt as though she was getting a proper coming out rather than simply learning cards. She did
n’t see much point in it. After all, what good would any of this do when it came to playing her hand right?
Yet, Harrison insisted. He said that if she was going to be in London then she was going to take advantage of the London scene. The ‘London scene’ could apparently mean the art scene, the theatre scene, or the social scene. It depended upon the day and upon how Harrison was feeling.
She couldn’t bring herself to mind these outings, not really. Cora was an excellent replacement for Bridget. No one could truly replace her sister, of course, but Cora was a close second.
They would go out together, the three of them, and Cora handled all situations with aplomb. Most people were intrigued by Lord Harrison, the mysterious Duke of Whitefern who had been all but missing from the social scene the last few years.
Between Harrison’s reputation and Cora’s social skills, people looked favorably upon Regina as well. She found that people spoke to her with respect and kindness. It was quite a new experience.
Of course, there was the guilty pleasure aspect of it all. She liked doing these activities and she gave into Harrison’s insistence because she liked that he was doing things with her.
She liked his presence. She liked how he pointed things out to her in paintings or in plays that she wouldn’t have otherwise noticed. She liked that he seemed to care for all of her. Not just the parts that were important for her to cultivate for learning how to play cards. All of her, all of her education and all of her confidence and all of her social life.
It felt a little like a fairy tale, only one of the nice ones with the more gruesome bits taken out for the small children. She got to explore and enter a world far different from the one she knew back home in her country house.
For once, she actually liked society. She liked the art and going for walks in the park. It was as if she hadn’t truly known the world. The balls and people that she had grown up with were suddenly and truly just one aspect of a wide, wide world. And that wide world was now hers to explore.
Of course, the traitorous part of her wondered if she should like it half so well if she was doing all of this with someone other than Harrison. But that was the part of her that she ruthlessly ignored as best she could.
Afterwards they would return to the house and then they would focus on cards. Cora would come in at some point and steal Regina away.
Cora never seemed to have a set lesson in mind. Instead she would talk to Regina, filling her in on all the gossip. As she talked she would come up with something:
“I know it looks silly but I’m going to balance a book on your head.”
“Now, notice how I’m sitting. See how I do this with my legs? It shows men you’re interested. Even if they don’t realize that is what they’re seeing and they only notice it subconsciously.”
“Now, dear, you need to master the art of saying something cutting that people cannot call you out on. It’s called passive aggressiveness and you ought to learn it now.”
Regina wasn’t entirely sure how all of this would come in handy. Why did she need to know how to insult someone without making it sound insulting?
She knew that Cora’s answer was, “So they can’t call you out on it and you get to be smug,” but seriously. Why did she have to know these things?
More specifically, how were any of these things going to help her when she was playing a card game with several men?
She didn’t protest, however. Partially because she knew that arguing with Cora was a fruitless task. Partially because she didn’t know and it might actually come in handy.
After Cora was finished with her, they would play more cards. Cora would join them for a bit of it and play against her.
Regina had quickly found that Harrison was right when he said that Cora had been going easy on her the first night when they’d all played with his friends.
Cora was ruthless. Absolutely ruthless. She knew the game backwards and forwards. She was also fairly good at reading tells—and Regina was well aware that she was still hopeless at hiding her tells.
It took everything that Regina had in her to keep up with Cora in the game. Often times, it wasn’t enough. Or at least that was how it was at first.
But as time went on, she found herself winning more and more. She had to look at Harrison less and less.
It started slowly, of course. She burst into tears of joy when she won her first game against Cora. Harrison had looked completely alarmed and had quickly pulled out a handkerchief for her to use, patting her shoulder awkwardly.
Cora had said something like, “For God’s sake,” and had found a servant to bring them all another round of tea and biscuits.
Of course, in order to find the servant, Cora had to leave the room. That must have been her design, Regina had realized later.
In the silence, she had continued to sit, feeling uncomfortable at her own outburst of emotion but safe in knowing that Harrison was not judging her for it.
“I haven’t won anything before,” she had admitted. Her voice had sounded soft and fragile. It had sounded like her voice when she was a small child.
It was more than that, of course. It was that she had never felt proud of herself for something before. It was that she had never been better than someone else at something. It was that she had never truly worked hard at something and earned it.
She had worked hard to learn how to read and to read well, and to do her needlepoint, yes. But those things were quiet, personal triumphs. No one had praised her needlework besides Bridget. And, well, Bridget praised nearly everything Regina did.
Nobody had been able to point at her and say, “Yes, you conquered this, and we have all seen it and cannot argue it.”
Now it had finally happened, some kind of validation that she hadn’t even known she was looking for, and she had been overwhelmed.
So she had found herself crying.
“I’m sorry,” she had sniffled afterwards.
Whatever dignity she’d previously had was now in tatters. She had just cried into Harrison’s handkerchief until it was soiled and wet. Like she was a child.
“What on earth are you apologizing for?” Harrison had asked. He had seemed bewildered.
At that moment, Cora had returned, leading a servant carrying a tea tray.
“You don’t have to apologize to us,” Harrison had said. He had indicated Cora as well. “We understand.”
She had wanted to ask how they could understand. How could they possibly understand when she hadn’t even said anything? Partially because she couldn’t even have explained it if she’d tried. She hadn’t had the words.
And yet—perhaps they had understood. Perhaps they had gone through something similar, whether it was with cards or something else. And so perhaps they had recognized it and understood, even though she hadn’t explained her feelings to them.
Since that night, she had started to win more often. It had happened by degrees. One win per night. Then two per night. And so on.
It was slow going. Most of the time she was terribly frustrated by it. Oftentimes Harrison or Cora had to be the one to remind her what time it was and that she should be getting home before Aunt Jane started to worry.
“I had no idea you were such a competitive one,” Harrison commented one night.
Cora snorted. It was highly inelegant and unladylike. Regina was starting to realize that Cora was an odd mix of acting like the height of sophistication and acting like an uncouth man, often at the same time.
“She was raised by Bridget Hartfield,” Cora said. “She has Elizabeth and Natalie for sisters. There was always a steel backbone somewhere in there.”
Regina didn’t know what to say to that. She was finding that she enjoyed the card playing more than she had originally thought she would. Perhaps it was because she was finally starting to get good at it.
Once she could be persuaded to stop and to go to bed and get some rest, she would return home. Aunt Jane would be up with some small snack of some kind and t
hey would chat.
Aunt Jane would tell Regina about her day and the people that she saw and what they said. Regina would then write Bridget a letter, telling Bridget about these things as though she had experienced them with Aunt Jane.
She occasionally added in a small anecdote at the end.
I would like a man who makes me feel safe.
I would like a man with whom I can tease and banter.
I would like a man with large hands.
I would like a man with blue eyes.
She felt a little odd, writing those things in. It partially felt as though she was confessing to Bridget, telling her, in a way, of what she was getting up to.
But it wasn’t all that bad, was it? Bridget had asked her to figure out what she wanted in a husband. With Harrison’s help, Regina was slowly figuring it out.
That could only be a good thing, couldn’t it?
If only it didn’t remind her of all the things that she was trying not to notice about Harrison. The very fact that she was only calling him ‘Harrison’ in her head—even if not out loud—told her how intimately she felt towards him.
Every time she thought of what she wanted in a husband because of something Harrison did or said, it only solidified that what she really wanted… was him.
But she couldn’t have that. How could she? Despite her growing confidence, she was well aware that she was still second fiddle to her sister. The bargain that she had struck hung over her head like an axe waiting to fall.
It didn’t help that Cora thought that Regina and Harrison were already together. Her little comments, aimed to tease, only served to make the ache in Regina’s chest.
Regina refused to name that ache. She refused to speak even to herself of what it meant. Only a short time ago, she had not understood why people were so willing to suffer for others.
Now that she was starting to understand, denying that she felt that way at all felt like the only thing that could save her.
