“It’s not me,” Regina protested. “It’s Bridget. Everyone wants Bridget. I would simply make it seem like I’m her.”
“But it would still be you,” Harrison countered. “You would be the one that he was looking at in that way, and he doesn’t deserve it. Not a man like him.
“He doesn’t deserve to look at Bridget or any other of your sisters that way either, of course. But I won’t have you putting yourself in a position of vulnerability, even for a moment. If he thinks he has an invitation and then—in his rage after he loses…”
Harrison shook his head and Regina felt a sudden chill at what he was suggesting. What Lord Pettifer might try to demand from her as a way to humiliate and hurt her and sustain his own pride after she beat him.
“I would never want that to happen to you,” Harrison said, his voice low and strained. “Part of my duty here is to keep you safe.”
“What if he tries to do something like that, whether I seemingly encourage it or not?” Regina had never heard of anyone close to her experiencing such an act. But she had heard stories of others outside of her circle.
It wasn’t something that people liked to talk about. The options were generally limited for the woman. Sometimes she was forced to marry her attacker.
Regina couldn’t even begin to imagine being touched by a man in such a way. But she knew how much she generally disliked talking to people or having them touch her. She thought about how safe she felt with Harrison—and how easily it could go the opposite way with another man.
If she considered her discomfort in conversing or dancing at a ball and then multiplied it times ten… that began to give her a rough estimate.
She shuddered.
Harrison reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently. He had been doing that lately and Regina knew that it was wrong of her to allow it but she could not stop herself. It made her feel grounded and safe to have him touching her like that.
So often during all of this she felt as though she would float away. Or, even, that she was in some kind of awful dream and she was going to wake up if only she could remember how. When Harrison took one of her small hands in his it reminded her that this was real.
“I’ll be there,” he reminded her. “Pettifer’s an ass, if you’ll pardon the rough language. But he’s also a coward. Why else would he strip men of their fortune through cards? Why else would he go out of his way to do people harm?
“He feels small. He’s a small man of little family and consequence. His lineage has been disgraced time and again.”
“Your family was disgraced,” Regina pointed out.
“Yes, and yet you don’t see me taking other men down for it. He has felt deeply the blows from his peers. People will always find the wrong things to say about you.
“Instead of rising above it, he has decided to amass as much wealth and land as he can until they can’t ignore him any longer. They will have to speak highly of him, because he will be so powerful they won’t be able to afford not to.”
“And he is doing it by hurting others that he feels look down on him because of his family’s past scandals and his own reckless behavior,” Regina added, showing that she understood. “But that will only make them hate him more.”
“I do not think that he wants to be loved,” Harrison mused. “I think that he merely wishes to be feared.”
“Then I shall have to knock him down a peg or two, shall I not?” Regina replied. “Show him that even a small mousy girl isn’t afraid to take him on.”
“My darling, when will you believe me when I say nobody will think you mousy once this is all over?” Harrison asked.
A strange feeling formed in Regina’s chest, weighing her down. It was hard not to believe Harrison when he said such encouraging things to her. He called her ‘darling’ while she was tucked against his side and it was so easy to believe that he truly meant it. That she was darling to him.
Regina shoved such thoughts aside. She’d been doing a lot of that lately.
Harrison seemed to like her and she appreciated that. He even saw fit to touch her, to show her pleasure so that she could find it for herself with a husband later on. She was grateful to him for it. But she must never let herself become confused.
This was all so that Harrison could be happy with Bridget. That was why he was doing this for her. Anything else must be a bonus to him, a diversion, something to entertain him.
It wasn’t self-pity to say such things. It was merely the truth. She had to remember that.
“Now, enough about that odious man,” Harrison said. His tone was light but he kept his arm around her. It was as if Lord Pettifer himself was somewhere about the room and Harrison felt he had to keep her close. “Let us turn to the cards.”
Yes. The cards. That was what this was about.
If only she could concentrate on them.
Chapter 23
The rest of the afternoon was spent in dealing with the matter of cards. By the end of it, Regina felt that she better understood how the game worked. She still wasn’t nearly as good at it as Harrison was.
“It will come through practice, never fear,” Harrison said.
How he could tell that she was dangerously close to crying in frustration, Regina didn’t know. He seemed to read her better than anyone. In some ways he read her even better than Bridget did, and Bridget had raised her.
“We have less time than we think we do,” Regina replied. She did her best to keep her frustration in check and not let it bleed into her voice or face. “How am I supposed to become all of the things I must in order to defeat him?”
“All of the things you are supposed to become?” Harrison asked. He sounded genuinely confused.
Regina nodded. “Confident, and a good liar, and engaging, and witty, and an excellent card player, and an excellent judge of character, and sophisticated, and mysterious, and—and all of these things that I’m not. I’ll have to become a chameleon at this rate.”
Harrison looked at her for a moment, lips slightly parted as if he were about to speak. He blinked slowly, taking her in. Then he said, “Regina, you don’t have to become anything.”
“Of course I do,” she scoffed. “I have to become a good card player, for one thing.” She picked up a card and waved it in the air before letting it fall back onto the table. She partially wanted to set this entire deck of cards on fire.
“All right, I do admit, you will have to continue to gain confidence in that particular field,” Harrison allowed. “But Regina, you don’t have to be anything that you’re not.
“You’re already witty. And you’re already sophisticated. Even if you don’t see it in yourself. It’s all in there. I promise that, and I’m many things including possibly a horrible person but I’m not a liar.”
“You’re not a horrible person, either,” Regina said automatically. She wondered what would make him think such a thing about himself.