The Duke's Wager (3 page)

“Aye, but I told you, miss. I said and I said that it would be more fitting for you to wait for your uncle to return afore you went to the Opera. I did say that, miss, I did.”

“‘Aye,’” mimicked the infuriated Miss Berryman, looking like a proper witch, Belinda thought uneasily, with her long gleaming hair tousled and wild, her odd emerald green eyes shining like a cat’s. “But, Belinda my dear, you did not, repeat
not
,
tell me that only…courtesans and their protectors would be there, now did you?”

“That’s not true at all, miss,” Belinda gulped, backing toward the door as Regina rounded upon her. “Why there was ever such a sweet old couple there, miss, and anyway,” she said in a rush, “how was I to know who all else would be there? I’m only a poor girl, miss, and never been to the Opera at all, and only heard belowstairs that it wasn’t the best idea for you to go…and I told you so, miss. Indeed I did. And you only said….”

“‘Pooh!’ I said,” Regina admitted regretfully. “Yes, that’s so. I said it wouldn’t do any harm and it was a shame to let the tickets go to waste. But why didn’t you stop me, Belinda, before I made such a fool of myself?”

“Ah, miss,” cried Belinda, seeing and pressing her advantage, “but it isn’t my place to stop you. I’m only your maid, miss, and….”

“Only a poor girl,” interrupted Regina, deflated. “I know, Belinda. Excuse me.”

Regina turned and sank down again upon the bed. She tossed her heavy hair back from her face. Her own fault, she thought miserably, of course. No matter how poor Belinda had influenced her, it was, indeed, still her own fault. She had wanted to go to the Opera. That was undeniable. Only a few weeks in town and she had already made a cake of herself. For when the invitation had come, even though her uncle was away from home and would not return in time for the Opera, she had been determined to attend. She would not sit at home childishly, for lack of an escort. After all, she had reasoned, back at home in the country, when her papa had been alive, they had gone to the local theater as often as possible to see some of the infrequent Shakespearean productions presented by traveling troupes of players. And when Papa could not come with her, there had been no shame in attending with only her governess, Miss Bekins, as her escort.

But, she thought, as usual incurably honest with herself, she
had
wondered if the same manners obtained in the great city of London as did in her little corner of England. She had heard of how glittering and fashionable the theaters were here. Even more, she had thought of all her new dresses, hanging unseen in the closet, and no matter how often she rationalized that she wanted to actually hear a first-rate opera company, that had been the major reason she had so wanted to attend. And who, she thought, furious with herself, would have been mutton-headed enough to take the advice of a little lady’s maid on matters of rules of society? Even if there were no one else she knew whose opinion she could have asked, why hadn’t she waited for Uncle’s return? There would have been other operas, other nights.

Because she belatedly understood, if there had been no harm in her going unaccompanied by a gentleman at home, it had only been because there were few people in the audience who did not know Miss Berryman, the schoolmaster’s daughter. And they would no more have thought her fast for attending the theater without her papa than they would have thought her scandalous for attending a lecture without him.

So even if Belinda’s eyes had narrowed slyly when she asked if going by herself was “done,” and her answer had never been a direct “no” but rather a tangle of “Well, miss, it depends…
”
and “Some ladies do go by themselves, I hear tell…” she had only half listened. She had not really wanted to be persuaded to stay home. Once she had made up her mind, Belinda had been in ecstacies, thrilled with the chance to see the upper classes at play first hand for the first, and probably last, time. And Regina had caught fire from Belinda’s enthusiasms. She had rigged herself out in the first stare of fashion and sailed forth with an eager Belinda in tow, only to discover what she really should have guessed all along: that London was as far in miles as it was in attitudes from her home. And that no one could have guessed that she was only the schoolmaster’s daughter from Dorset, gawking at their splendid world; rather they had taken her for a trollop, bent on advancing herself. Regina sighed to herself. She was, she felt, well served for her self-deception and rashness.

She glanced at Belinda, whose hands were twisting under her little white apron, and felt she ought to let the matter drop. As well chastise a cat for stalking a pigeon as to condemn Belinda for seizing her chance for a little excitement, even if it were at her new mistress’s expense. My fashionable career, Regina thought glumly, shall go right back where it belongs—between the pages of a book, and in my mind. What a rustic she must take me for, she thought. And, she thought ruefully with a little sad smile that made Belinda’s hands steady themselves, what a rustic I am, indeed.

“Never mind, Belinda,” Regina said. “It’s over, and you shall not bear the blame. We’ll forget it. We’ll avoid the haunts of the fashionable and we’ll rub on together well enough in the future. But,” she said, eyeing the laden tray Belinda had set up on a little table near the window and embarrassed that the whole staff likely thought of her as a milkmaid fresh from the country, “could you please tell Cook that although I do come from the country, I do not eat like a yeoman and do not require a breakfast that could easily feed five strong men?”

“Oh yes, miss,” Belinda said eagerly. “I do hear that all the young ladies just drink a cup of hot chocolate and have a bit of bread for breakfast.”

“I’m not that fashionable,” Regina laughed. “An egg or two might be pleasant as well.”

“Oh yes indeed, miss.” Belinda curtsied, grateful to make an escape. “I’ll tell Cook at once.”

The Master might have my skin, Belinda worried, as she went down the stairs. But it wasn’t my fault, not really. She did want to go. And when would I ever get such a grand chance again to go to the bloody Opera, I’d like to know? So if my fine lady from the country wanted to go, why shouldn’t I go with her? I’d never get such a chance again, once he came home, no I wouldn’t. Didn’t she cause a stir, though? Only think, the Black Duke himself making a proposal to her! Wouldn’t I like to have heard what he said to her? Just wouldn’t I. So handsome he was, too…it’s a thing to tell my grandchildren, that is. I know what my answer would have been to him, if he’d asked me, she thought. Did you ever see such eyes on a gentleman, though? Took her clothes right off with them, he did. Now if it had been me…. And she entertained herself with thoughts of operas, and dukes, and magnificent offers of finery and jewels, as she took herself off below stairs to regale the others with a highly colored account of the night’s events.

But Miss Berryman was not entertaining herself with similar imaginings. She was, instead, sulking in a very unladylike fashion as she sat at the table and sipped her coffee. “What a fool thing to do,” she sighed in disgust, “flying off like a true clothhead, decked out like what I thought was a London lady, only to find myself taken for the Queen of the Cyprians.”

“Ah well,” she sighed, putting down the delicate cup and rising to stare out the window, “I do have a lot to learn in this new life, and I must teach myself not to be so impetuous…but…it did seem like such an…unexceptionable idea. But then, after all, what do I know about the customs that prevail here?”

*

Regina Analise Berryman had only been a resident of the city which so perplexed her for a scant three weeks. Before that, she had spent the whole of her two decades (except for one brief whirlwind tour of Bournemouth, where an acquaintance of her father lived) in a small house in a small village on the southern edge of the kingdom. Her father had been a schoolmaster at a boys’ school of little fame, and less distinction. But he, a large, gentle, and quietly unambitious soul, had been well pleased with his lot in life. True, he might have regretted the fact that few of his students would go on to a life of erudition—most were resident at his school only long enough to receive the rudiments of education. But since they were the sons of merchants, they expected no other fate and indeed chaffed at their lot while they were under his tutelage.

He himself was a younger son in a family of the merchant class. And his perplexed family soon realized his scholarly bent and, more importantly, understood that his nonaggressive ways, his lack of interest in financial dealings, and his incurable honesty (“The day John Berryman tells a lie,” his family grieved, “will be the day the King kisses a pig.”) made him eminently unsuitable for the freewheeling family business of business. The day he took an unsuitable wife, a girl of no surviving parents and French descent, the two beleaguered families put their heads together and soon were able to ship the changeling son and his portionless wife out to the school where a position had been found for him.

There they lived in undemanding bliss, until the birth of Regina Analise had put an end to her mother’s existence. There John Berryman, with the aid of a governess that the family sent down posthaste, had raised his daughter in tranquillity and peace. Hearing no terrible thing from the provinces, the family assumed that no further evil would befall their strange kinsman and allowed themselves to forget him. Only George Berryman, the schoolmaster’s brother, remembered their existence with any regularity. Indeed, it was his frequent gifts, discreetly made on special occasions, that supported the odd trio that now resided in the little house.

And it was an odd trio. John Berryman, having had very little to do with females until his besotted eye fell upon his future wife, had no idea of how to raise a young girl. Thus, the feeding, clothing, and moral training of his young daughter he gladly left to Miss Bekins, the angular lady of indeterminate years that his family had engaged for him.

Regina’s formal education, he took care of. And this he found a great pleasure. It could be said that over the years, she was his only consistently interested student. And so he filled her head with all the knowledge that the squirming young future captains of industry rejected. It would have been useless to ask him why he drilled a young female in the intricacies of Latin, German, and French. Or to inquire as to why she required such a wide knowledge of mathematics, history, and literature. And it would have been impossible to try to explain to him that a young woman really only needed skill with a needle, a pleasant singing voice, a dab hand with watercolors, and a little talent on the pianoforte.

Miss Bekins certainly would not have told him so. The present situation had suited her right down to the ground. For the family, unknowingly, had hired a serpent to lie in its bosom. The plain-faced, sensible-looking woman had been a bluestocking, and a woman of radical opinion. If they had lived with her for a week, they would have seen it. But they had only interviewed her for an hour before sending her out on her mission. And John Berryman, in his vague, myopic fashion, had not perceived anything amiss with Miss Bekins in all the years she lived with them.

And so, Regina Analise Berryman had grown to adulthood with very little real idea of what life in her world was actually about. Oh, she could recite history chapter and verse; she could discourse at length on the deterioration of Ancient Rome, she could argue politics with force and intelligence—but she couldn’t say why a lady should never sit with her legs crossed, or why a female should blush demurely, or why any woman should consider her husband her lord and master. Or why she required a husband at all. Which would have been suitable if she had grown up to feel as her father did, or look as her governess did. But she had inherited her mother’s graceful good looks, along with her father’s vivid coloring, as well as some forgotten ancestor’s spirit and thirst for adventure.

How she would have fared if fate had decreed that she stay in the gentle countryside of her birth, there is no saying. She had few acquaintances of her same age, none of her class. For in truth, she had no class to which she belonged. She had the manner and grace of a lady, the education of a young gentleman, and the family background of sober, strict bourgeois merchants.

On Regina’s eighteenth birthday, Miss Bekins had announced her retirement. With a brief good-bye embrace, Miss Bekins had taken her savings and herself off to Canterbury, there to help a distant cousin set up a school to enlighten the minds of other young females. Two years later, John Berryman paused in the middle of a lecture on the Trojan Wars to cough apologetically and collapse suddenly in easeful death. For several months after her world had collapsed as surely as her father had done, Regina had lived by herself in a torment of indecision. She could volunteer to teach in Miss Bekins’ school, but she had no idea of whether the venture had been successful, and whether her arrival in Canterbury would be a genuine help or a further strain on her former governess’s finances. She could apply for a position as governess, but she had been given to understand that she had neither the references nor the background to suit the genteel families who required such services. Perhaps, it was gently implied by the local vicar…if she set her sights lower, to consider working with a lower class of family.

Her letter requesting the direction of a London family of merchants who would require her services resulted in a sudden, unprecedented visit from her Uncle George, whom she had not seen in the whole of her life. In one brief flurry, overriding all her protestations, he had packed her belongings, such as they were, paid a visit to his brother’s grave, and trundled her into a coach back to London. En route to the city, he had firmly informed her that he had never taken the time to marry, but had he done so, she would have been just the daughter he would have chosen, and so that was the only position she had to bother her head about filling.