Cora never seemed to have a set lesson in mind. Instead she would talk to Regina, filling her in on all the gossip. As she talked she would come up with something:
“I know it looks silly but I’m going to balance a book on your head.”
“Now, notice how I’m sitting. See how I do this with my legs? It shows men you’re interested. Even if they don’t realize that is what they’re seeing and they only notice it subconsciously.”
“Now, dear, you need to master the art of saying something cutting that people cannot call you out on. It’s called passive aggressiveness and you ought to learn it now.”
Regina wasn’t entirely sure how all of this would come in handy. Why did she need to know how to insult someone without making it sound insulting?
She knew that Cora’s answer was, “So they can’t call you out on it and you get to be smug,” but seriously. Why did she have to know these things?
More specifically, how were any of these things going to help her when she was playing a card game with several men?
She didn’t protest, however. Partially because she knew that arguing with Cora was a fruitless task. Partially because she didn’t know and it might actually come in handy.
After Cora was finished with her, they would play more cards. Cora would join them for a bit of it and play against her.
Regina had quickly found that Harrison was right when he said that Cora had been going easy on her the first night when they’d all played with his friends.
Cora was ruthless. Absolutely ruthless. She knew the game backwards and forwards. She was also fairly good at reading tells—and Regina was well aware that she was still hopeless at hiding her tells.
It took everything that Regina had in her to keep up with Cora in the game. Often times, it wasn’t enough. Or at least that was how it was at first.
But as time went on, she found herself winning more and more. She had to look at Harrison less and less.
It started slowly, of course. She burst into tears of joy when she won her first game against Cora. Harrison had looked completely alarmed and had quickly pulled out a handkerchief for her to use, patting her shoulder awkwardly.
Cora had said something like, “For God’s sake,” and had found a servant to bring them all another round of tea and biscuits.
Of course, in order to find the servant, Cora had to leave the room. That must have been her design, Regina had realized later.
In the silence, she had continued to sit, feeling uncomfortable at her own outburst of emotion but safe in knowing that Harrison was not judging her for it.
“I haven’t won anything before,” she had admitted. Her voice had sounded soft and fragile. It had sounded like her voice when she was a small child.
It was more than that, of course. It was that she had never felt proud of herself for something before. It was that she had never been better than someone else at something. It was that she had never truly worked hard at something and earned it.
She had worked hard to learn how to read and to read well, and to do her needlepoint, yes. But those things were quiet, personal triumphs. No one had praised her needlework besides Bridget. And, well, Bridget praised nearly everything Regina did.
Nobody had been able to point at her and say, “Yes, you conquered this, and we have all seen it and cannot argue it.”
Now it had finally happened, some kind of validation that she hadn’t even known she was looking for, and she had been overwhelmed.
So she had found herself crying.
“I’m sorry,” she had sniffled afterwards.
Whatever dignity she’d previously had was now in tatters. She had just cried into Harrison’s handkerchief until it was soiled and wet. Like she was a child.
“What on earth are you apologizing for?” Harrison had asked. He had seemed bewildered.
At that moment, Cora had returned, leading a servant carrying a tea tray.
“You don’t have to apologize to us,” Harrison had said. He had indicated Cora as well. “We understand.”
She had wanted to ask how they could understand. How could they possibly understand when she hadn’t even said anything? Partially because she couldn’t even have explained it if she’d tried. She hadn’t had the words.
And yet—perhaps they had understood. Perhaps they had gone through something similar, whether it was with cards or something else. And so perhaps they had recognized it and understood, even though she hadn’t explained her feelings to them.
Since that night, she had started to win more often. It had happened by degrees. One win per night. Then two per night. And so on.
It was slow going. Most of the time she was terribly frustrated by it. Oftentimes Harrison or Cora had to be the one to remind her what time it was and that she should be getting home before Aunt Jane started to worry.
“I had no idea you were such a competitive one,” Harrison commented one night.
Cora snorted. It was highly inelegant and unladylike. Regina was starting to realize that Cora was an odd mix of acting like the height of sophistication and acting like an uncouth man, often at the same time.
“She was raised by Bridget Hartfield,” Cora said. “She has Elizabeth and Natalie for sisters. There was always a steel backbone somewhere in there.”
Regina didn’t know what to say to that. She was finding that she enjoyed the card playing more than she had originally thought she would. Perhaps it was because she was finally starting to get good at it.
Once she could be persuaded to stop and to go to bed and get some rest, she would return home. Aunt Jane would be up with some small snack of some kind and they would chat.
Aunt Jane would tell Regina about her day and the people that she saw and what they said. Regina would then write Bridget a letter, telling Bridget about these things as though she had experienced them with Aunt Jane.
She occasionally added in a small anecdote at the end.
I would like a man who makes me feel safe.
I would like a man with whom I can tease and banter.
I would like a man with large hands.
I would like a man with blue eyes.
She felt a little odd, writing those things in. It partially felt as though she was confessing to Bridget, telling her, in a way, of what she was getting up to.
But it wasn’t all that bad, was it? Bridget had asked her to figure out what she wanted in a husband. With Harrison’s help, Regina was slowly figuring it out.
That could only be a good thing, couldn’t it?
If only it didn’t remind her of all the things that she was trying not to notice about Harrison. The very fact that she was only calling him ‘Harrison’ in her head—even if not out loud—told her how intimately she felt towards him.
Every time she thought of what she wanted in a husband because of something Harrison did or said, it only solidified that what she really wanted… was him.