“You’re waiting until I know the cards better?” She guessed.
“Very good,” Harrison replied. “Yes. No sense in you trying to do too many things at once. Once you have the card playing down to a point where you’re not spending all of your energy thinking about it, we can incorporate other things.”
“Like how to carry yourself,” Cora said. “Oh, Harrison, don’t give me that look.”
Regina turned and caught the tail end of Harrison shooting Cora a very sharp look indeed.
“It’s not as though I’m attacking her. Good Lord, one would think you were her guard dog rather than her lover.”
Regina instinctively blushed at the use of the word ‘lover’ to apply to her relationship with Harrison. Even though that was technically what they were now. Wasn’t it?
Oh dear. This was all very complicated and embarrassing in her head.
“I apologize,” Harrison said, although he spoke a bit stiffly. “I must admit that I am rather overprotective, yes.”
“I can see why,” Cora replied, winking at Regina. “She’s clearly incapable of taking care of herself.”
“Oh yes, I’m simply helpless all the time,” Regina replied, joining in on the joke even though she did feel rather helpless for most of the time.
“I do think though—and do not jump down my throat about this Harrison or I shall have you drawn and quartered—that you could benefit from some lessons, my dear. Just simple ones in how to carry yourself.”
“Bridget tried that. I inevitably forgot everything when I went to a ball.”
“Well, if you’re going to be mingling with the type of people that Harrison likes to mingle with, that simply won’t do. And you’re older now, aren’t you? You can surely handle remembering how to carry yourself.”
Cora then leaned in. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Nobody is as powerful as they portray themselves to be. But people will do as they say and treat them like a king if they carry themselves with the proper manner.
“If you make it seem as though you believe it, they will believe it as well. They’ll have to. You’ll convince them of it. Even if it isn’t true.”
“If you tell yourself something enough times and if you start to behave as though it were true, in time it will become true,” Harrison added. “Or true enough.”
Regina laughed. “So I can pretend to be a sophisticated woman. And eventually I will actually be sophisticated?”
“That’s the theory,” Cora said lightly. “In any case, Harrison, would you let me have her for an hour or so? Can you bear to be parted from her for that long each day?”
“I do have a life I have to attend to, you know,” Harrison replied dryly. “I can take care of business. I won’t be languishing if I’m not in her presence constantly, unlike certain lovebirds we know.”
“I thought it best to check,” Cora replied. “What with you being her guard dog and all.”
So now she was to be taking elocution lessons, so to speak, from Cora.
It occurred to Regina that she was getting a great deal more out of this agreement with Harrison than she had originally thought possible.
Chapter 25
The days fell into a kind of pattern. Regina tried to stay cautious about it all. It wouldn’t do for her to become complacent and then slip up and have the entire thing revealed to scandal.
But she couldn’t help but notice that she had a routine now.
Every morning she would dine with Aunt Jane, who would ask her how things were going. She had never revealed to Aunt Jane anything that she was doing, although it made her feel terrible to lie in such a way to a woman who was so kind to her.
Aunt Jane would give her advice anyway.
Goodness only knew if the servants were listening in at the crack of the door or the keyhole and could overhear her. Regina merely never confirmed anything.
She told Regina how to handle a snide remark at a ball, or regaled her with stories from when she was a young girl. Regina almost couldn’t believe those stories. Aunt Jane still seemed so young, despite the fact that her daughter Lady Morrison was a woman grown and had been for some time.
After breakfast, she would go over to Harrison’s house. Regina always wanted to get right to the work of gambling but Harrison would insist upon taking her to the park, or having Cora call upon friends with Regina in tow.
There were museums to go to as well, and showings, and the theatre. Regina felt as though she was getting a proper coming out rather than simply learning cards. She didn’t see much point in it. After all, what good would any of this do when it came to playing her hand right?
Yet, Harrison insisted. He said that if she was going to be in London then she was going to take advantage of the London scene. The ‘London scene’ could apparently mean the art scene, the theatre scene, or the social scene. It depended upon the day and upon how Harrison was feeling.
She couldn’t bring herself to mind these outings, not really. Cora was an excellent replacement for Bridget. No one could truly replace her sister, of course, but Cora was a close second.
They would go out together, the three of them, and Cora handled all situations with aplomb. Most people were intrigued by Lord Harrison, the mysterious Duke of Whitefern who had been all but missing from the social scene the last few years.
Between Harrison’s reputation and Cora’s social skills, people looked favorably upon Regina as well. She found that people spoke to her with respect and kindness. It was quite a new experience.
Of course, there was the guilty pleasure aspect of it all. She liked doing these activities and she gave into Harrison’s insistence because she liked that he was doing things with her.
She liked his presence. She liked how he pointed things out to her in paintings or in plays that she wouldn’t have otherwise noticed. She liked that he seemed to care for all of her. Not just the parts that were important for her to cultivate for learning how to play cards. All of her, all of her education and all of her confidence and all of her social life.
It felt a little like a fairy tale, only one of the nice ones with the more gruesome bits taken out for the small children. She got to explore and enter a world far different from the one she knew back home in her country house.
For once, she actually liked society. She liked the art and going for walks in the park. It was as if she hadn’t truly known the world. The balls and people that she had grown up with were suddenly and truly just one aspect of a wide, wide world. And that wide world was now hers to explore.
Of course, the traitorous part of her wondered if she should like it half so well if she was doing all of this with someone other than Harrison. But that was the part of her that she ruthlessly ignored as best she could.
Afterwards they would return to the house and then they would focus on cards. Cora would come in at some point and steal Regina away.