“Women go starry-eyed over him?” Regina couldn’t quite believe it.
Well, that is, she could. She could easily believe it. Harrison was handsome. That otherworldliness that made her compare him to a fairy king could easily be a daring, adventurous lure for young women.
It had drawn her in, after all. Regina was many things but she wouldn’t go so far as to label herself a hypocrite.
Yet from the way Miss Charlotte had spoken about him, Regina had thought that most women would want to stay away. Bridget had turned him down, after all.
A man with a mysterious past who took pains to keep it mysterious didn’t seem like the sort of man that women would want to marry. Or should want to marry, she should say.
Women should be looking for husbands who were dependable. Husbands who had families that were well known and respected. Families that you could look back on and trace the geneaology. You wanted to be able to say, oh, Mr. Lane of the Hertfordshire Lanes? Yes, I knew his cousin, lovely young woman, she married a man of five thousand a year if you can believe it…
You wanted safety and security in a marriage. That was what marriage was for, at least for a woman. Bridget had always taught her that. Society had always taught her that.
What good was a husband if you didn’t know how much he made a year? Or his family history? Or where his money came from? Or who his friends were?
But perhaps Harrison’s charms had been enough to win women over despite all of that. They’d won her over, after all.
Although those were for entirely different reasons. She wasn’t in love with him or anything. He was merely someone that she could… use, so to speak.
If she wanted to use the cruel language that she had used earlier, out loud to him.
But in any case, she wasn’t in love with him. This was simply an arrangement through which she could learn how to properly play cards. He was getting something out of this too. She couldn’t allow his strange confidence in her to blind her to the truth. He may have regard for her, but his love was for Bridget.
“Spoken with such a tone of surprise,” Harrison said. He put his hand over hers. That was the moment that Regina realized that her hand was still on his chest. She hadn’t even realized.
“Miss Regina sounds rather too smart to go starry-eyed over anyone,” Cora noted wrily. “But yes, my dear, you would be surprised how many people he’s capable of charming if he wants to.”
“Prostitutes don’t count, they’re paid to be charmed,” Regina blurted out.
She never would have dared say such a thing normally and she was a bit appalled at herself. But how could she resist when everyone else last night had been making jokes in a similar vein?
She would have to school her tongue with extra rigor when she went back to her normal life. At this rate she’d be making remarks that offended everyone in the entire upper society.
Harrison laughed. “That wounds me deeply,” he said.
“No, although I’m sure he’s had his brush with those. Most men do. It’s a part of their ‘education’,” Cora replied. “I mean the women he would run into while he was playing cards and rebuilding himself.”
“I was never serious in my intentions,” Harrison protested. “They had to have known that. A harmless flirt, that’s all I intended to be.”
“I think our dear lord here forgot that he was a man with a title, even if the land that title was attached to meant nothing for a while,” Cora replied, addressing Regina.
“Women are bound to take any man’s passing fancy as a reason to suspect he wishes to marry her,” Regina added. “I think that is part of why Elizabeth is so harsh to them. She fears even being friendly will encourage them.”
“I certainly don’t blame any woman for thinking such,” Harrison said. “Isn’t marriage your most honorable and only profession? But I never intended to break hearts quite in the way that I did.”
“You never made a promise that you then broke, and you never bedded them, so I see no reason to feel guilty,” Cora replied to him. She then turned to look at Regina again.
“My point, Miss Regina, is that these women would go and fawn all over him. There was no subtlety to them. Far be it from any of them to dispute him.
“Yet here you are sparring with him. I find it most refereshing and something he is in dire need of, to boot. I should think his ego far too large if it carried on for much longer without someone to prick it.”
“I shall do my best to continue this honorable task,” Regina said, speaking with great solemnity.
Harrison groaned. “All of the women in my life are turning against me. A sorry state indeed. How about we play cards now, as was the original intention?”
“You see, when the talk turns sour against him, then he’s happy to play,” Cora pointed out with a smile. “Very well then, let us see what we can do to spur along your little protégé.”
They set themselves up. Regina and Cora each took a hand. Then they began to play while Harrison helped Regina along.
It was domestic, almost. Regina felt hopelessly nervous about the cards and was determined to do well. But aside from that, she found that she was enjoying this.
Cora was a fun person to play. She and Harrison would banter with one another almost constantly. At first Regina found it distracting until she realized that the card players when she faced Lord Pettifer would probably be doing the same thing. Cards were a social thing, after all.
Harrison was a patient teacher. He let her figure things out on her own most of the time. If he felt he could or should, he would gently nudge her in a certain direction. For the most part, however, he waited until she was feeling helpless and would turn to him, actively asking for his help.
“You mustn’t get used to having me at your elbow,” he told her at one point. “If I always assist you the second I see that you might need it, you’ll never learn how to stand on your own two feet.”
“Teach a man to fish and all that,” Cora added, idly checking through her cards.
“I understand,” Regina replied, and she did. She appreciated it. The one habit she knew she had to break herself off from was turning to Harrison when she needed help.
It was all right for now, of course. She was still a beginner. But when the time came she couldn’t be instinctively looking around for her instructor. Nobody could help her.
“And what about hiding my emotions?” She asked, about halfway through the evening.
“We’ll get to that,” Harrison said. His tone was, as always, a patient one. Regina had a feeling that she could scream at him and he wouldn’t lose his cool.
In fact, the only time he seemed to lose any of his temper was when it came to protecting Regina. Or when Regina was getting down about her own sense of self-worth.
Well. Anyhow. She liked that she knew she could rail at him and he would never give her any reason to fear for herself. She appreciated that feeling of safety.