No, she told herself. She wasn’t a child. She wasn’t going to cry and make a fuss over this.
She would handle these feelings with dignity and in silence. The way that Bridget handled the loss of her childhood sweetheart. Regina would be just like that—make it so that no one would suspect how she truly felt.
Perhaps she had been a child about things before but she wasn’t going to be a child now. She was going to carry herself forth with dignity, as an adult would.
To the world, she would appear only as she always had. And to Lord Harrison, to Cora, to the others who knew what time she had been spending with him—she would seem only as a dear friend. A devoted sister.
Nobody needed to know the truth.
Nobody could know the truth. Not even Regina, not really. She couldn’t speak it even to herself.
That way lay ruin.
Chapter 29
The day of the masquerade dawned like any other. Regina almost wondered if she didn’t have the date wrong. A part of her had expected the day to dawn with thunderclouds and rain, some sort of signal of the danger and last chance she was throwing herself into.
Instead, however, the day began as usual, with sunlight streaming in through the windows. Regina rose and took breakfast with Aunt Jane.
She didn’t go over to Lord Harrison’s, however. There was no time for a last card game, so much as she might want there to be. She and Aunt Jane had to ride all the way to Lord and Lady Morrison’s, and there she must meet up with her sisters and prepare for the ball.
Cora would take her own carriage to the Morrison lands. She would take with her Regina’s second dress and accessories and have them in her own chambers until the time was right.
The night before, Lord Harrison had stopped her just before she went out the door to return home.
“A few last words,” he had said. The moonlight from the door and the firelight from the grate had warred on his face. The duality had reminded her of their first meeting and how he had taken her outside.
Would she always be partially entranced by him, she had wondered. Would she ever truly know him, know his heart, or would there always be a part of him that was bathed in shadow and unknowable to her?
Not that she had a right to think such things. Regina reminded herself that she was not his bride.
“Tomorrow you will be afraid,” Lord Harrison had told her. “Ah, do not protest. I would be more worried if you were not afraid. It would mean that you are overestimating yourself. It would mean that you were forgetting the importance of what you are doing.
“But I want to remind you that even though you are afraid, you do not have to let it own you. You are capable of doing this. You have the ability to defeat Lord Pettifier. I know that, from the bottom of my soul.
“I do not praise lightly. I’ve tried to avoid praising you, because I have not wanted you to slack off in your work or to fill your head with overconfidence. But I believe in you. And I will be there, even if I cannot help you directly. I will not leave the room, and if things should turn ugly, I will be at your side in an instant. You will be safe.”
Of course she would be safe, she had wanted to say. So long as Lord Harrison was there with her she felt as though she could take on a dragon, because if it looked like the dragon might eat her he’d jump in to help her—even if he wouldn’t interfere until that point.
She appreciated that. She could slay this dragon on her own. Or at least, she hoped that she could.
With Lord Harrison’s encouragement ringing in her ears, she started the day with Aunt Jane. She wouldn’t see him until after she had changed into her second dress with Cora and prepared to enter the card room. She missed him already, like a limb.
She did so hate these ridiculous feelings.
Aunt Jane did not know the full story but she was not an ignorant woman. She knew that something was afoot.
“Are you quite all right, my dear?” She asked. “You seem rather quiet this morning.”
Regina wanted to laugh. She had not realized that she had become talkative. Her sisters would think nothing of her being silent at the breakfast table. In fact, with all of their chatter, they would not even notice. They might not even know if she came down at all.
“This will be my first ball in some time,” Regina answered. “I am nervous for it. Especially since I have promised myself and Lady Cora to try out being more social and seeing where that shall lead.”
“I think that you will find yourself surprised at your own abilities,” Aunt Jane replied.
They ate, retired to change and to pack, and then were loaded up into their carriage to begin the journey.
Regina had to admit that her thoughts were somewhere other than the rolling hills and green woods that they passed through. It was all rather lovely and at any other time she would have enjoyed it. The peace and quiet and the view were all together quite something. She could see why poets waxed poetic about the English countryside.
And yet, she almost couldn’t see any of it. She kept picturing in her mind’s eye all the times she had seen Lord Harrison. It was as if, after this, she would not be allowed to daydream on him, and so she must get it all done at once.
“You seem rather distracted,” Aunt Jane noted.
Regina could not offer up an explanation. Fortunately she did not need to, for Aunt Jane continued to speak.
“You know, my poor husband—may he rest in peace—had quite a time of it in wooing me.”
“Oh?” Regina asked. She was not sure where this direction of conversation was going, but she did owe Aunt Jane much. The woman had let her into her home and had allowed Regina to spend time with a man with an escort that Aunt Jane hardly knew. It was skirting propriety, and yet Aunt Jane had never complained.
“Yes. Harold—for that was his name—Harold had to practically fling himself at my feet to show me that he cared for me. When he proposed, most ladies would see that as a sign of affection. Men generally care for their wives when they choose them, even if they are not passionately in love with them.
“But that was not enough for me. I was convinced that he had proposed because of my good breeding and my looks. It honestly did not occur to me that he should choose me because he had fallen in love with me. What was I? I thought.
“In my mind, you see, I was a poor imitation of a proper woman. I had never been good at needlepoint or the piano. I could not draw. I loved to dance but I fear I was not very good at it.
“And I did not have the habit of conversing easily with those I did not know. I learned, in time, but that was later. At the time of his proposal I was quite inadequate at the dinner table for talk.