Royal Regard

by Mariana Gabrielle

  Bella swallowed hard, staring into the mirror with shaking lips but determined eyes, heart pounding in anticipation. She drummed her fingers against the seat of her chair. “Yes. Yes. It can only be an improvement.” With narrowed eyes, she asked, “I suppose you have done this all in celebration of the occasion?”

  Only the slightest commiserating smile crossed the maid’s lips when she said, “There is an occasion, Madame? I know of nothing special about this day.”

  Before Bella could either confirm or deny the statement, Michelle started applying Milk of Roses to make the skin appear supple and fresh, followed by cherry-laurel oil around the eyes, where the lines were deepening since the Huntleighs had returned to England. Bella screwed up her nose at the bitter smell of almond, but Michelle just said, “With the fragrances I have brought from the perfumery, you will not mind so much the scent of the paints.”

  “You must be very careful with the cherry laurel, Michelle. It is quite poisonous, even in small doses.” She looked askance at the bottle, but added, “I suppose if one doesn’t ingest it…”

  “Of course that is so, Madame, for many women find it of use in the toilette.” She carefully set the bottle into a drawer.

  A small amount of chalk, mixed in the palm of her hand with rose oil and a dab of Pear’s Bloom, created a beige tone, just a bit darker than Bella’s face. She traced Bella’s nose from brow to tip with the blend. Adding more chalk to the mixture, she smudged the lighter shade onto the sides, rubbing it in to blur the two colors.

  Bella’s nose was suddenly straight and thin, just like Charlotte’s.

  “That is extraordinary, Michelle. Quite extraordinary.”

  “Non, Madame,” she said with a wink, “only a secret French women learn at birth.”

  Michelle used the white again on the inside corners of her eyelids and just below, adding a touch of pearl powder for shine, visually adding an inch between Bella’s close-set eyes. A bit of lampblack mixed into the paint in her palm, applied to the outer eyelid, and the effect was magnified by another half-inch. A fine brush traced pure lampblack across the edges of the upper and lower lids, then Michelle mixed ash from a burnt cork with rose oil for Bella to flutter onto her lashes. Bella’s eyes looked wider and somehow a clearer blue-green.

  “Not impasto applied with a palette knife, you see,” Michelle observed. “We prefer watercolor with delicate brushes to heavy oils, non?” Michelle chuckled.

  “I… I suppose so. It is all so… so…”

  “Oui, is it not?”

  Michelle removed the paint from her hand with a huckaback towel, then took up the Liquid Blooms of Roses, rubbing it into Bella’s cheekbones. She once more used her hand as a palette, adding another dab of lampblack to darken the rouge. “You must draw up the lips like you wish to be kissed, Madame.” As soon as Bella did, Michelle applied the darker rouge just below the cheekbone, and Bella’s face lost five pounds.

  “Perhaps Madame does hope to be kissed?” Michelle smiled slyly. “Hopes to attract a certain gentleman?”

  Bella swallowed. “My husband?” She couldn’t quite keep the question from her voice.

  “Ah, yes, the earl is a very fine man who will have his head turned by the magnificence of his comtesse.”

  Bella snorted, “Magnificence. What fustian.”

  “Not at all, Madame.” Michelle again removed the cosmetics from her hand with the towel and reached for a cloisonné box inlaid in yellows and browns.

  “For powder, la farine de riz is best. Just a dusting to leave the skin pale and smooth.” She applied the powder with a large brush, leaving Bella with the prized white skin she hadn’t had for fifteen years.

  Rigge’s Liquid Bloom softened her lips and gave them a rosy glow. An old-fashioned crescent-moon beauty patch on her chin drew attention to her plump lips, the one feature of her face she thought rather pretty. Finally, Michelle produced belladonna drops, which dilated Bella’s pupils, making her eyes look deep and mysterious. Before Bella could admonish her, Michelle said, “I will be cautious, Madame; I swear it,” placing the tiny bottle and dropper in the same drawer as the cherry laurel.

  As she closed the drawer, she announced, “Voilà, Madame. All of the things you say you do not like about your face have disappeared like magic. You look so very beautiful, the gentleman callers for whom you take so much trouble will not be able to resist your charms.”

  Michelle set out the curling papers and took up a hairbrush to remove any tangles from Bella’s slightly damp hair.

  “This isn’t for anyone,” Bella admonished.

  “Non? Not even for your two lord dukes?” Michelle asked, as she began to massage pomade through the fine strands.

  “Oh, Heavens,” Bella said, her face pinking under the powder. “No, of course not. They are not my dukes.”

  Michelle’s eyes reflected in the mirror were momentarily sly, with distasteful shades of servility, but her air of French decadence reasserted itself in moments, leaving Bella to wonder whether the change had even occurred.

  “If I may make so bold, Madame, Monsieur le Duc de Malbourne once was known throughout Alsace for his skill in the boudoir.”

  Bella looked away, beads of perspiration popping out along her hairline. “Oh… yes… I had forgotten… you lived in the same… region.”

  “Oui, and all of the girls—even those like me who would never have reason to cross his path—had silly dreams of catching his attention. He is oh, so romantique, non?” Michelle used a handkerchief to blot Bella’s face.

  “He is… quite… nice. Very nice.”

  For a time, they were both quiet, Bella considering the duke’s myriad charms while Michelle curled her hair into dozens of ringlets, then caught them into a topknot trailing curls down her back and across her right shoulder. Of the different hairstyles Michelle had tried, this was surely Bella’s favorite. For once in her life, a coiffure showed her to advantage. A properly trained lady’s maid was a revelation.

  “The English duke, though, is not without his charms. His trousers fit so very well, do they not?”

  “Oh!” Bella’s mouth dropped open, the back of her hand pressed to her reddened lips.

  “But me, I prefer Frenchmen for my lovers.”

  Bella half-turned in her chair, setting askew the green ribbon Michelle was tying across the crown of her head.

  “Neither of them is my… I mean to say… I don’t have a lover… That would be… my word, Michelle!” She thought for a moment about what Charlotte would say in this situation. “You mustn’t take a lover while you are in my employ, Michelle. It would not be at all the thing.”

  Michelle made no response, only gently turned Bella back toward the glass, and leaned in closer once the ribbon was tied. “When a woman reaches a certain age, Madame, such men do not appear so often, no matter the care she takes with her toilette.”

  Michelle secured Bella’s hair with a pair of tortoiseshell combs, reviewed the effect one last time, and then patted the curls to indicate she was finished.

  “A lady must consider carefully what attentions she will encourage, especially when she might soon find herself in need of a husband.” Michelle carefully removed the combing-out cape. “Perchance your husband might not be so disinclined to such an arrangement? He is a man of the world, non? Perhaps he will understand you are young and need more of a man’s attention than he can give?”

  “That would be… of course I would never…”

  “Understand, Madame, I will keep your confidence. You may call on me to deliver notes, arrange a clandestine meeting, ease Lord Huntleigh’s doubts. The job of a lady’s maid is to serve the lady’s interests.”

  Bella strengthened her voice and added volume as she stood. “I love my husband, Michelle, and I insist you never speak of this again.”

  “As you wish, Madame.”

  “Never speak of it again,” Bella repeated, her face dark, “or I will dismiss you without a character.”

  “
Oui, Madame. I understand.” Without further conversation, Michelle helped Bella into the green dress, then added a Chantilly lace overskirt and silk slippers with a short heel to match.

  “Thank you, Michelle. That will be all. If you could send Mrs. Jemison up, please, I need to review next week’s menus.”

  “As you please, Madame.”

  Chapter 20

  “Ma chèrie, you look so lovely it may stop my heart.”

  Bella giggled, “That would be a shame, Monsieur, for who, then, would escort me to the museum?” She touched Malbourne’s sleeve lightly. “And you are not meant to know who I am.”

  Bella was swathed in varicolored silks below a tight bodice with an unfashionably low waist, showing far more of her bosom than she ever did. Her hair was hidden underneath a fall of fake black tresses and a hairpiece of fine gold chains and semi-precious stones. A silk scarf of scandalous scarlet covered her face, hiding all but her eyes, outlined in heavy black paint.

  The king’s masquerade ball at Vauxhall was a not-to-be-missed event, though she had objected she couldn’t attend with Myron sick in bed. Prinny had simply required her attendance, encouraged by Myron’s frequent insistence she enjoy herself, even as he shivered under blankets in a room as warm as the Sahara.

  With the problem of a costume presented to Charlotte and Michelle, they had settled on an English version of an Ottoman concubine’s attire, although Bella had argued a hareem girl would never wear anything that looked so much like a gypsy.

  Char had snapped, “If you tell anyone you know what a hareem girl wears, you will be finished in London, and the same goes for telling anyone you are dressed as a fortune teller.”

  “I am long since finished in London, and with a mask on, I can wear anything I like.”

  Charlotte’s modiste had managed to design a dress that appeased both women: it didn’t include the Turkish pants Bella wanted, that really might finish her, nor the sheer fabrics Charlotte initially chose.

  Earlier in the evening, once Charlotte donned her Cleopatra costume to complement Alexander’s stiff-necked Antony, she and Michelle had descended on Bella, who could not keep from fretting about leaving Myron alone while he was still recovering from his last bout of this new illness.

  Char had unsuccessfully argued against Bella’s old-fashioned corset, saying, “I doubt sultanas wear stays. Now, hold still or your hair will be crooked.”

  “I would have no waist or bosom at all without my corset, and this dress is nothing but waist and bosom.”

  Michelle had wisely stayed out of the argument, until chancing to remind Charlotte as she laced the garment, “A heathen woman might appear without undergarments, but Madame is no heathen. She wishes to display herself to advantage, and how can she do so if she is uneasy in her clothes?”

  Now, Bella found it to be true: she was more comfortable masked and in erstwhile armor, fielding fewer judgmental stares. The unlikely release from her duties at Myron’s bedside made her reckless and a little bit wild. This rash mood was only heightened by her restlessness near Lord Malbourne, now much nearer than he had ever been.

  Certainly, she had been using him to bring Wellbridge to heel, but that didn’t make him any less attractive. In no danger of falling in love, she might be falling into something less… enduring. Shy she might be, and overprotected, but she wasn’t entirely unaware of the possibilities between women and men. The thoughts haunted her during those moments she wasn’t in the vicinity of one of her—no, the—dukes.

  Without the sound of Malbourne’s voice, there would be no placing him in the crowd. For the first time since they’d met, he wasn’t in unrelieved black from head to toe, but rather in crimson: his knee breeches, waistcoat, jacket, dancing pumps, and domino mask were in matching red satin, covered in a short velvet cloak of the same shade, and he was sporting red papier-mache horns.

  “How could I not know your beautiful eyes, my sweet?”

  “And how could I miss you, Monsieur le Diable, when you are finally wearing your true colors?”

  Malbourne stepped closer and ran the back of his index finger along her temple and down her cheek. Bella looked around, but they were suddenly well hidden in a dark garden alcove, an ancient tree surrounded and shadowed by box hedges.

  He laughed, “How good of you to notice. I only hope I may tempt you to sin this night.”

  When he leaned down to unfasten the scarf across her face and steal their first kiss, her gasp was caught between his lips before she could speak, and in only a few moments, her right hand involuntarily moved to the back of his neck, if only to keep herself from falling when her knees melted. The other hand tangled with the lapel of his jacket, feeling the hard muscle of his chest underneath.

  He wrapped his left arm around her and pulled her close, and she didn’t know how to object, or if she wanted to. The nape of her neck tingled beneath his hand, under the shifting hairpiece. His mouth moved along her jaw line, and she felt the tip of his tongue reach her earlobe, then drag slowly down her throat. She moaned quietly as his fingertip traced the edge of the bodice, dipping underneath to tease her nipple, pebbling under his touch.

  She choked and finally stepped back, forcefully pushing his hands away.

  “Monsieur le Duc,” she said, with far less force than she had hoped, “you must not...”

  He whispered in her ear, pulling her to his chest again, “We will not be found, ma petite. Your good name will not suffer for taking this small pleasure with me.”

  She pulled away, then took another step back, but her shoulder brushed against a tree trunk and could retreat no further. Nor could she scream or the whole of London would know she was alone in the dark with a devilish Frenchman.

  Her voice squeaked, “No, Monsieur, I cannot. I have a husband at home and my cousin is waiting. I only wished for a few minutes away from the crowd. I never meant—I really must—”

  He placed his hands against the tree, one on either side of her head, leaving her no escape, overwhelming her with his large frame and the enticing scent of bergamot from his hair. “Bella, ma chère, you lie.”

  “No—I—”

  “You want my touch, my darling. You have all but begged me with your sweet glances, hoping for my hands on your body, telling lies about your love for your husband.”

  “I didn’t mean—I never—I didn’t even see—”

  Her explanations were cut short when his body drove hers backward. She pushed feebly at his chest, struggling under his weight holding her against the tree trunk. One hand covered her mouth and the other held her hands above her head. His knee drove between her thighs as he bit her rounded breast just above the nipple, below the neckline, hard enough to leave a bruise that could easily be hidden. He scraped at the back of her skirt, pulled the hair at the nape of her neck. It was as though he had ten hands, and she had none.

  Breathing seemed impossible. Screaming equally so. Her mind was so muddled she could barely see and the sounds of the crowds receded until all she could hear was his heavy breath increasing in weight and volume.

  Finally, he stepped back, sucking in air just as fast as she, but wearing a smile she had no way to emulate. “I shall let you go for now, mon trésor, for this is not the place for you to demonstrate your passion for me, but I will not forget the taste of your sweet lips. I have secured tickets to tour the museum at one in the afternoon the day after tomorrow. Perhaps afterward, we may continue our… tête-à-tête.

  “Uh,” she responded ineffectually, not a question of poor manners, but rather a sense of unreality that left her speechless. She couldn’t call out for help, in part because she wasn’t at all sure she hadn’t caused Lord Malbourne’s reaction, out of an inability to effectively converse with the male of the species. She kept trying to think what she had done to give Lord Malbourne the idea she would follow through on her innocent flirtations. She wasn’t sure when she had crossed the line.

  “I don’t know if I can… I mean… perhaps it would be�
��”

  “I trust you will keep our rendez-vous, and I will keep secret your desire for me, for it will surely kill your husband to hear you have been unfaithful, and in such a public way. I think you will not want your husband to know I have had my mouth on your body, though were I asked, I would have to admit it is true—I simply lost my head when presented with your succulent flesh. Not the act of a loving wife to give yourself to me, ma petite.”

  She gave up trying to form a coherent thought and ducked under his arm, dashing away, face mask trailing behind her in the breeze, hardly hearing his triumphant laughter behind her. But neither could she hear anything else.

  When she emerged from the trees, panting from trying to run in unforgiving whalebone—she refused to consider it might be from the duke’s kisses—she ran right into another broad, hard chest, and another pair of arms grasped her shoulders. Before she could think of the words to excuse herself, the entire sky lit up with bright light and colors, and she let loose the scream that had been building since Lord Malbourne had kissed her.

  The hands, however, only held her up and set her apart from the attached body, dressed all in black from a leather half-mask to polished Hessians. For a moment, she thought it was Lord Malbourne, somehow changed back into his usual black.

  “Bella, sweeting, it is only the fireworks.” Wellbridge’s voice emerged from behind his disguise.

  When she stared, uncomprehending, he snapped his fingers in front of her eyes and pulled his mask up, settling it atop his head. “Lady Huntleigh, it is I, Nick. Wellbridge. Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

  She moaned, “Oh, God. Oh, dear God,” and yanked herself away, her head turning left to right, trying to figure out where she was and the direction to Charlotte and Alexander’s supper box. Before she could evade him, Nick took hold of her hand and firmly brought it to his arm.