Royal Regard

by Mariana Gabrielle

  Allison turned up her nose. “My brother has plenty of servants to look after him. He hardly needs me. My husband and I should have returned to the country before now, given the social situation, but with the inquiry and all the rest… Once the government is finished totting up the accounts on the front page of the newspaper, my accursed brother will be able to carouse London to his heart’s content and the rest of us will go hide on our estates. At least it won’t be my money he loses in the stews.”

  Bella grasped Allison’s hand, moving to the loveseat in order to be closer, to make her case more directly.

  “Please, Lady Allison. He cannot stay in London. The gossip will ruin him, or the gambling or the drink or the women. You know this is not who he is at heart. You cannot believe he deserves such a lonesome life. Take him with you to your estate, or home to Bristol if he will go. He should be with family. Please.”

  “There is no chance he will go. He has told me so fifty times. He hates the country and thinks Wellstone is cursed. He finds the gossip a perfect reason to retreat from Polite Society, but no cause to retreat from the rest of London.”

  Allison placed her hand gently over Bella’s, trying to calm her, but Bella only held on tighter, her fingers beginning to shake, eyes welling with tears. For a moment, she even considered going down on her knees. “I have heard stories of his descent into the stews before your brother died, and I daresay you saw it in person. Please, will you try?”

  Allison huffed, turning her knees on the sofa, but squeezing Bella’s hand in sympathy. “I’m not sure why you care, after everything he’s put you through. He is an awful cad, treating you as he has.”

  Pulling her hand back, Bella stared at the floor, wringing her fingers together in her lap. “Nothing that has happened can be laid at his door, Lady Allison. He is the one wronged. Only through circumstance, you understand, never malice, but the blame belongs to me.”

  Bella was so busy condemning herself she missed the significance of Allison’s small, smug smile.

  “Well, if you insist I ensure his wellbeing, Bella, I will—to ease your grief, mind, not his—but he isn’t worth one minute of my time, or yours.”

  “But he is, Lady Allison. He is… he is… everything.” Despite her best efforts, the forced-back tears began to fall. “I can’t bear to think he might…” She covered her face with her hands until Allison pulled them away, wiping the teardrops from her cheeks with a lace handkerchief that appeared out of nowhere.

  “You really must call me Allison. I cannot promise anything, Nicky being the Pigheaded Peer, but I will do my best to convince him to come to Yorkshire with us. Or perhaps he can be convinced to winter on the Continent. Nockham and I had been trying to agree a plan with Henry, now he is finished at Eton. Perhaps a Grand Tour with his uncle. In Italy, Nicky is only the Cold-hearted Conte, not the Dangerous Duke.”

  She patted Bella on the hand. “Please, take heart. With so many troubles to bear, you must not let Nicky be another one. I will take care of my brother. You take care of yourself.”

  Chapter 34

  My Dearest Lord Duke,

  It is with greatest sadness I leave my heart in Grosvenor Square tomorrow morning, in the hands of a man whom I love deeply—now tragically. Should you read this letter rather than consign it to flames, I repeat the same words I shall each day until we are reunited, even to the end of my life: I adore you, Your Grace. You are the greatest love of my life, and I foresee no time when I will not yearn for you and weep for the loss of your affection.

  As you know, my love, I dearly hope my departure from London will be the last, leaving nothing I regret, but you. I have surely ruined any possibility you might return to my side one day, and in the process destroyed my own life irreparably. I shall spend my days in Saltash craving the return of your most tender sentiments.

  Many believe I married my husband for his money and his nouveau title, that we could not possibly have common interests, given his age. Those same gossips say his interest in me was entirely lecherous, since I cost him a bride-price and was of dubious nobility. None of these assumptions are accurate, and if you have chosen to accept any as true, you will naturally misunderstand my deep respect for his memory, even to the detriment of myself.

  As a girl, I spent years wishing for any means to leave behind a father and brothers who cared nothing for me, my aunt and uncle whose primary concern was ensuring I would not starve outright in adulthood. I wanted nothing more than to be liberated from a near-certain life of drudgery.

  When I met Myron, he made it possible for me to leave not only my family, but also my tenuous place among the aristocracy, my failure as a debutante, and the surety of social ruin when my father and brothers were caught out in their schemes. And Myron offered me travel, a lifelong fantasy I had never dared voice. My gratitude to him was the basis for our marriage.

  He needed to accomplish two opposing goals to maintain the favor of the Prince of Wales: beget an heir for his fortune and barony, while still travelling wherever the Crown chose. He was socially rough, more sailor than ambassador, so also required my assistance as a gentlewoman to help him become a proper envoy. His gratitude to me was the basis for our affection.

  The great sadness of our marriage was lack of children. We lost no fewer than six, the last Arabella. Each time, and for the many months in between, my husband protected, supported, and cherished me, even to the point of doing harm to his business. Even to the point of giving up his desire for an heir.

  I have told you before a thousand times, he was the kindest of men and the gentlest of husbands. He provided for me in so grand a fashion that I will never want for any material thing again. And he did his utmost, with you, to ensure my heart’s passions would be equally fulfilled. He never made my pulse race as you do, dearest, for he was not the same type of man, but my happiness today would be naught but ash had he not come before you. He is more deserving of my respect—and yes, love—than any other person in my life, excepting you.

  Further, he would want no uncertainty about the inheritance of his title or yours; there must be no question I am not increasing, although I am more aware than any it is no possibility. He would hate to hear gossip about a seven-month child, which will begin as soon as a wedding is announced and follow any such child for a lifetime. He would have given your natural child his name to keep my reputation from being tarnished. I know this, as he knew I would never take you as a lover until after he was gone. I am deeply ashamed to have betrayed him.

  For these reasons and more, though the ton deems it improbable, I genuinely grieve my husband. I feel deeply the loss of his presence from my side: strength that saw me through horrendous circumstance, wit that entertained me in my darkest days, his protective nature that sheltered me in situations with no measure of safety, including the marriage mart in London. Baron Holsworthy, Lord Huntleigh, was a balm to the harshest of lives, and the answer to my lifelong prayers. That ours was not a passionate marriage has no relevance to what we were to each other.

  There are not enough widows’ weeds to honor his memory, to rid myself of the pain of never having said goodbye. Social convention is nothing to the sorrow that weighs on me at the thought he died alone while I was in my lover’s arms, and was interred while I lay sleeping. Wishing nothing more sincerely than your touch, in my heart I know I cannot agree to join my life with yours until this burden is removed between us.

  I do not fool myself that you will come to love me again, now I have broken your heart so many times, with seeming disregard for your acts of tremendous honor, sacrifice, and principle. Not when you believe I cause you pain out of obstinacy or disrespect or even outright malice. I can only hope, pray on my knees in the most abject entreaty, that you may forgive my desire to honor a husband who had first claim to my affections, with the knowledge that my deepest passion, my greatest love, my entire heart belongs to you. Please know, my beloved, as I have said in every missive, your pain is shared.

  Your de
voted servant,

  Isabella, Lady Huntleigh

  ***

  To The Right Honorable Countess of Huntleigh

  Madam:

  Please refrain from contact. Your false sentiments are wasted ink, and I tire of finding your seal in my correspondence. My solicitor will be in contact regarding your contractual obligations.

  Sincerely,

  His Grace, The Most Noble Nicholas Northope, Duke of Wellbridge, Marquess of Abersham, Marquis de Taillebois, Earl of Baxton, Conte di Pietranego, Viscount Yoakefield, Baron Harbury, and Baron Ostelbrooke

  Chapter 35

  1821: Saltash, Cornwall, England

  The megrim that had kept Bella home from Sunday services had blown away on the sweet late summer breeze, drifting on the salt wind over the Tamar River with the musty smell of plumping grapes. Feeling cooped up, she had walked across her few acres of food crops—wheat, oats, vegetables for the table, and a small orchard of fruit trees. She had hiked past the barn, through the fields where they kept a small flock of sheep and herd of beeves. The sounds of sea birds mingled with church bells in the distance and the lowing of contented cows.

  As she made her solitary trek to the vineyards, she turned over the day’s concerns. The cook at Antony House wanted to buy more cheeses than usual for a house party, and Bella wasn’t sure she could accommodate. The farm manager needed more workers for the midsummer planting, and she wasn’t sure where she could find the money or the men, the mines a more regular source of income than her fifty acres. Her stableboy was talking about moving to Plymouth, and the housemaid thought Bella didn’t know she had snuck out last night, to meet God-only-knew-who under the moonlight. One of the horses had colic, she had lost three lambs to a well-concealed den of foxes since last week, and her plan to start raising pigs had been scuttled by the need to re-thatch the cottage.

  She had built a life for herself here, as Mrs. Isabella Clewes, though not the one of ease her husband had intended. Her identity was not unknown—nowhere the length or breadth of England could she reside completely anonymously—but by living quietly, modestly, and frugally, as well as refusing absolutely to acknowledge she was a countess, she had finally worked her way into the good graces of most of her neighbors. It had helped that the vicar was of an age with Myron and had heard her husband’s opinion before the stories from London had travelled this far south. Here in Saltash, at least, she wasn’t the pariah she might have been anywhere else.

  No longer, by any measure, the wealthiest widow in England, Wellbridge’s Statement of Claim had cost nearly every shilling she’d had, and with no funds to keep them operating, left most of her properties dormant. Only the shipping line remained viable and that only because the king, in his own interest, had made it so. But he had also ensured Myron’s other investors decamped in droves, keeping her in much reduced circumstances.

  Worse still, when she refused to marry Wellbridge, her claim to feme sole was nullified, leaving all of her assets in the hands of a trustee who had no interest in her opinions—or for that matter, her wellbeing—as long she was in opposition to the king. Saddest of all, the situation had tarnished her fond reminiscences of Myron, since he was the one who had agreed to the unjust contract, determined to over-protect her even into the afterlife.

  Alexander and Charlotte would have taken food from their own mouths to ensure her care, but Bella had no wish to rely on anyone for her support if it could be helped. Rather, she increased her hidden cache by five times in the lies she told Charlotte. Since the Firthleys rarely had reason to travel so far south, and Bella would never again find reason to be in London, they couldn’t know the precarious nature of her life as minor gentry.

  A circumstance which, without the approval of His Majesty, seemed unlikely to ever be resolved. The peace offering she had sent, a barrel of her vineyard’s first blend, had resulted in a kind note of thanks, in Prinny’s own hand, requesting a few barrels more. At her expense, of course, leaving her with a decided lack of available coin and less than half the small vintage to sell.

  The vines were at the heart of today’s worries. The malbec grapes were showing signs of gall, a grave concern, as they were needed in every blend, particularly the red the king enjoyed so much. If she lost them, she might not produce a decent vintage for two or three more years, which meant another winter lived lean by everyone who worked her small acreage. Her farm manager was importing new cuttings from one of Bella’s recent acquaintances in France, but until the new vines were producing, several seasons from now, she had to find a solution to the parasite slowly killing her grapes.

  With any luck, this would also prove a distraction from the parasite of her mind: Wellbridge.

  Almost a year since she had seen him, and she hadn’t yet decided how to feel. She loved him still, wanted to be joined with him, mind, body, and spirit. She could imagine no context in which that would change. Thoughts of him were imbued with a tenderness, a sweetness, a poignancy that did nothing so much as…enrage her.

  Only a weak-willed woman would allow a man to destroy her life, and still wish to feel his lips on hers. Only a pathetic woman would pine for a man who ran for the Continent like a coward without even reading her letters. Only a senseless woman would cuckold a good man with a libertine, then believe the rake would make her happy. Only a stupid woman would allow remembrances of one hour with a man to invade her dreams and her bedchamber night after night, months later. Scowling, she ran through the familiar refrains, searching the horizon for her vineyard manager, who would surely have some opinion on the malbecs that might, for a few minutes, take her mind off the miserable cur.

  Before she could find the stocky Spaniard who had taken on the challenge of taming and expanding Myron’s parents’ small private vineyard, wild for a decade, she was distracted by the sound of muddy footsteps coming nearer. Against her will, she shivered and took a step backward, then whipped her head around to see if anyone was within shouting distance, but she saw no one. She found herself grasping a pergola as though it were a spear she could throw.

  Stomping her foot to clear her irrational fright, excess emotion splashing like the mud on her boots, she slowly placed one trembling hand back at her side. She held a grey bonnet over her eyes, trying to peer through rays of muted sunshine. She hadn’t heard horses or a carriage, but the vineyards were a fair walk from the house. A visitor would have gone to the front door, an unknown tradesman, the back, and neither would have followed her into the fields. A neighboring farmer would have announced himself by now, as would anyone in her employ. If someone important were waiting, the housekeeper would have sent a groom to find her, and he would have called out to determine her direction.

  “Who is it? Who is there?” she cried out, as the footsteps reached the end of the row where she was standing, the shadow crowding the sun, chilling her. She wished she had brought her shawl, if not a cloak.

  “I know am a bit scruffy, Bella, but it’s not even been a twelvemonth.”

  Her hand and her bonnet flew to her mouth. Before she could choke on a mouthful of grey flannel and mauve lace, she set it firmly atop her messy hair, tied the ribbon, shook the dirt and dust from her pewter-grey day dress.

  “Wellbridge.” She spoke deliberately without inflection and made no move to curtsey. “Why are you here?”

  Shading her eyes with a tanned, ungloved hand, she still couldn’t see but the faintest outline of him. He finally entirely blocked out the sun, making her shiver. Through the bright spots in front of her eyes, he looked the same but for a three-day traveling beard, his hair just a bit longer, falling in waves without being tied in the usual queue, and his face darker than she remembered. She leaned into the aroma of oranges, lemons, leather, and witch hazel, dizzy with this ethereal proof he wasn’t somehow a dream. She reached up to touch his cheek, but pulled back.

  “Why are you here?” she asked again, stepping away with a studied scowl. “I’ve fulfilled my contractual obligations. I’ve no more money to
give you unless you would have me starve.” She waved her hand around to indicate the small size of her farm.

  He ran his hand over her hair, down her cheek. “Oh, Bella, how I’ve missed your tempers.” He leaned in and kissed her. Trying to draw away, she found herself held tightly against him. The evidence of how much he’d missed her was incontrovertible, so she twisted and pushed and pulled herself away with all her strength. Very little, as it happened, since he still made her knees weak. If he hadn’t acted the gentleman and let her go, she might have kissed him back instead of maintaining the appropriate frozen glare.

  This was the man who had reduced her to worrying every day about grapes. He was the reason she had to choose between pigs and a roof. No matter the memories of his hand on her thigh, kisses on the back of her knee, the whispers under the moonlight, she had to keep in mind he had meant not a bit of it.

  She was willing to take much of the blame for her circumstance, from breaking Wellbridge’s heart down to her impudent discussion with the king. To some degree, she could not help but feel every hardship was nothing but her due. But while she may have ill-treated the duke by insisting so severely on her mourning, his transgression had been far greater, demanding the entire contracted payment, leaving her all but destitute.

  No matter how much she had wanted to honor Myron, whose memory had faded to fondness within weeks, then resentment in the months that followed; no matter how many letters she had written to Wellbridge, some posted, some not, before and after the breach of contract was adjudicated; she knew from the day she left London she should have returned immediately to beg Nick’s forgiveness and implore him to marry her without delay. Not for the money, or the safety of his title, and certainly not to appease his male vanities, but to circumvent the overwhelming loneliness she now experienced every minute of every day living without him. She wanted, more than anything—even more than she wanted to be irate—to tell him about the problem with the malbecs.