Regina felt incredibly underdressed given the circumstances. Not that she knew what she ought to wear for card playing. But if she’d known that she would be meeting strangers for the first time while understaking this venture, she’d have packed some nicer things. As it was she was merely in an old gown from last year.
She supposed that she would have to get used to wearing old gowns. Her family wouldn’t have much in the way of money to spend on her if she failed in this endeavor.
Call it what it is, she thought to herself. This is a gamble, not an endeavor. It certainly wasn’t a proper business move.
But what was business, she thought, if not gambling? A man sent his trading ships out and gambled that they would not be lost to storms or pirates or war.
This was the same thing, she told herself. She was simply going about it a different way.
She checked herself in the mirror that hung on the wall of the larger drawing room, the one done up in cream and green.
The mirror was set just above a beautiful polished wooden table. She ran her hands idly over the smooth surface as she looked in the mirror. She looked small and pale and a bit tired from reading those books all day.
A mouse, she thought to herself. She looked like a freckle-faced mouse.
There was no doubt in her mind that Lord Harrison’s friends would be rich and dashing. Lady Cora looked like something out of a painting, and she felt certain that Lord Harrison’s other friends would be of the same manner. People tended to draw to them others of a similar nature and appearance. She was sure that she would feel hopelessly drab and stupid compared to the guests.
Unfortunately, there was nothing for it. She didn’t have enough time to change and she didn’t want to risk being seen going back and forth between her house and Lord Harrison’s. And even if she did want to take the risk, she didn’t have any time.
She squared her shoulders. If she couldn’t handle Lord Harrison’s friends in a friendly game in his private room, then how could she possibly handle a game for high stakes with strangers?
Regina heard footsteps approaching from the front door and hurried back into the library. She heard the front door open and there was the sound of people talking in low but cheerful voices. Regina thought she could make out the voices of two women.
Were women playing at this game? She hadn’t expected that but she was glad for it. It would help her to feel a little less overwhelmed.
The front door closed and then there was the quiet rhythmic thump of shoes crossing the foyer and through the dining room, into the smaller sitting room for playing cards. She took a deep breath. It was time. No point in hiding in the library.
As if summoned by her thoughts, Lord Harrison stepped in. He was wearing a proper coat now and he looked less disheveled. Yet, there was still something relaxed about him.
His posture was easy and sloped with no tension. His mouth seemed ready to slip into a smile at any moment. If she were but to close her eyes and focus on the feeling she got from him, she would have pictured him in naught but a shirt and trousers.
It must have been because he was in his own home and trusted the people he had invited. She still could not figure Lord Harrison out but they had made promises to one another. She saw no reason for him to betray her. Therefore, if he trusted his guests, then she could trust them.
“Come now, Puck,” he told her. “The time for hiding in the library is over.”
“Are you certain you should be using such nicknames where guests can hear?” Regina asked.
She crossed the room to him anyway, strangely drawn to him as if she was the moon and he was the earth, his gravity inexorably tugging at her.
“I can assure you, these guests won’t mind. They’re all reprobates of the worst sort.” Lord Harrison winked at her.
“Oi!” Someone shouted from the sitting room. “We can hear you, Harrison!”
“Yet I don’t hear you denying it!” Lord Harrison shot back.
He smiled at Regina and held out his arm for her. “Come along. They’re all dying to meet you. Partially because they don’t believe I have a cousin.”
“That’s because you don’t have a cousin,” Regina replied.
“But they don’t know that,” Lord Harrison said, and then he was leading her into the smaller sitting room—the parlor, he had called it—and she couldn’t say anything more about it.
She’d noticed earlier that the sitting room behind the dining room was small, or at least smaller than the other rooms. Now it seemed even smaller but in a cozy, comfortable sort of way.
One of the tables had been moved into the center of the room, and there was a fireplace going. The warm light from the fire highlighted the gold accents in the room and made the gray seem warmer and more inviting.
At the table were seated four people: two women, one of them Lady Cora, and two men. Regina paused as they all looked up at her upon her entrance.
Her hand instinctively tightened on Lord Harrison’s arm. To her surprise he laid his hand over hers, a reassuring gesture.
“Everyone, may I introduce my cousin, Miss Regina.”
Regina curtsied politely. The two men stood and bowed to her while the two women inclined their heads.
Lord Harrison gestured to them. “These are the most disreputable companions, I can assure you. Scoundrels, every last one of them.”
Regina had never heard anyone call somebody a scoundrel in such a casual, friendly manner. It was obviously an inside joke.
“It takes one to know one,” said the first gentleman, the one on the far left. Regina recognized his voice. He was the one who’d yelled just a moment ago.
He was tall, though not as tall as Lord Harrison, with light blond hair and a sharp, thin face. Regina could easily have found herself afraid of him given the severity of his features, but he relaxed it all with an easy smile. His eyes were so pale they looked gray. When she looked at his hands, she could see the pale blue veins beneath the skin.
All in all, he looked almost more like a ghost than a person. Regina saw a large handkerchief resting by his hand on the table. She wondered if he was quite well.
“The one who won’t stop running his mouth is Lord Edmund Mannis, eldest son of the Duke of Whitechester,” Lord Harrison explained.
“Not for long,” Lord Mannis replied.
Regina was confused. Not for long? Did that mean his father stood to lose his title? Such things had been commonplace back when lords were actively warring for land and for the throne. But nowadays to have a Duke stripped of his title was next to unheard of.