“They are clever things, I like them,” Cora replied.
“I do think that you would do well to think before you speak,” Harrison added, “But I also think that you tend to underestimate your wit.”
“I’ve been told it comes from reading too many books,” Regina said.
“Well that will never do,” Harrison proclaimed. “If you start reading then you will start to think for yourself and we can’t have that. There will be a full-scale rebellion on our hands.”
Regina laughed. “Oh, didn’t you know? It has already begun. We meet on Tuesdays.”
“Laugh all you want, but I have heard of the unrest in France,” Cora pointed out.
“I have not,” Regina said. “That is, I have not heard much. It’s not talked about in polite society.”
“You might want to be kept abreast of current events,” Harrison said. He paused, smiling self-deprecatingly. “Here I am, sounding like your father or something.”
“I do not mind if you have suggestions for me,” Regina protested. “I know that I have been rather sheltered and that a part of it is my own fault. Indeed, this whole thing would be much easier for me if I possessed the talent of conversing easily with others.”
She knew that Harrison would understand that by ‘this whole thing’ she referred to the planned card game. Cora, Regina hoped, would merely think that Regina was referring to life and society in general.
“Not necessarily,” Harrison pointed out. “People that have things that come easily to them do not always appreciate them as they should. Playing cards always came easily to me but I did not appreciate my talent at it until I had to use it to earn my fortune back.”
“If I could gain some confidence…” Regina let that sentence trail off. To gain some confidence in herself she would have to be a completely different person. Who she was now was not the kind of person who deserved confidence in herself.
“I see we are here,” Cora said, pointing at the entrance to the park.
Regina had never been to a park before. They were novelties in her world. Country houses had their grounds and gardens that you could walk through. Otherwise there was just the English countryside itself.
The English countryside was beautiful. Regina could admit that. But it was beautiful when gazed at from inside a house window or a carriage rather than when one was riding or walking through it.
As for the gardens of a house, she liked those. They were pleasant and carefully cultivated. But their own house did not have grounds that were so pleasant. It was all hills surrounding them. And she did not get invitations to other houses often enough to be able to take advantage of their lovely grounds.
But this—this park, apparently, anyone could use it. Anyone could go in and walk about and then leave. So long as it was from sunrise until sunset, that is.
“It’s like the gardens of a country house,” Regina said, although that wasn’t quite accurate. There was a different style to this.
“Yes, but it is for the masses,” Harrison said. “I think that is nice. Everyone deserves a little green in their lives. In the city one does not often get it. It was the one downside to my city home. But now I can come here and relax and feel as though a part of the countryside has come back to me.”
Regina let Cora take her arm and guide her around. Cora was adventurous. She wanted to smell every flower and gaze up at every tree.
Harrison seemed amused by it all. “I see that you now have a puppet to drag around with you,” he told Cora.
“Hush. Miss Regina here is far better company than you are,” was Cora’s reply.
She got to walk with Harrison as well. He asked her about what books she had been reading and actually listened when she talked about them. He never interrupted. He asked her questions with the intent to undersand more of her thought process.
“You cannot honestly be intrigued by all of this,” she said at one point as they strolled up a lane. Cora was avidly talking to a groundskeeper about something regarding birds.
“I am,” Harrison replied. “Part of it, I admit, is so that I can understand you and your thought process. That will help me in training you. But it is also because I genuinely like hearing you talk.”
Regina gaped at him. Nobody had ever said that before. Nobody had ever seemed content to simply listen while she prattled on.
“Are you in jest, Oberon?” She said at last.
Harrison shook his head. “I am serious. I would never jest about something like that. To joke about something like that would mean I was insulting you and calling you boring. I would never do that.”
“But I am boring,” Regina protested. “I do needlework and read all day. I do not go riding and I hate balls.”
“I know plenty of people who love to ride and go to balls and they are incredibly boring,” Harrison replied. “It is not what activities you engage in that makes you interesting. It is how you think. It is how you engage with the world around you.
“You have worthwhile thoughts and so therefore you are interesting. If your head was filled with nothing, or if you thought only of what ribbon to put in your hair, then I would find you boring.”
“You must never meet my sister Natalie,” Regina said, infusing her voice with a great deal of solemnity.
Harrison laughed. “You see? Things like that. Those are the things that keep you from being boring.”
Regina wanted to believe him but she was not sure that she could. But the walk through the park was far more pleasant than she had expected.
She kept making Harrison laugh, for one thing. Each time it seemed startled out of him as though he couldn’t believe that she was actually the one who was speaking.
He teased her, as well, but in such a gentle and loving way that she could not find it in herself to feel angry or put out. He would point out plants and such to her and explain what they were.
“Everyone knows that roses are for love,” he explained, “But different colors signify different sorts. Pink is for young love, while yellow is for the love between friends.”
“I would give you a black rose if such existed,” Cora muttered.
“Sometimes I do not think your parents spanked you enough as a child,” Harrison replied mildly.
“Then it would be possible to send someone a secret message using flowers, would it not?” Regina asked. “If certain kinds mean danger, or all hope is lost, or freedom?”
“They certainly could,” Harrison agreed. “I rather like that idea, Puck, that’s quite clever.”
“Do not tell it to Eliza, or she will start doing it,” Cora warned. “We’ll all be getting bouquets as dinner invitations instead of cards.”
Regina laughed. She was bent over a flower when it happened, a red rose that had been particularly gorgeous. She’d just had to take a sniff. The petals were soft and velvety against the pads of her fingers.