Page 71 of The Notorious Lord Knightly
“Do you hold with the notion that man is Lord Knightly?” Chidding asked.
“A very close resemblance, to be sure. But then this is all fiction, I’m rather certain. However, if I were to write a book, I’d use him for inspiration. Handsome with a bit of devilishness to him. However any of the Chessmen would suffice, would they not? Charming, the lot of them, and yet each demonstrates a hint of wickedness. I’ve written to the publisher, insisting he tell the author to write more books. And that he work up the courage to publish them.”
Regina couldn’t help but smile at the woman’s passion. She liked Lady Finsbury and wished with everything within her that she’d feel the same about the earl’s sisters. Surely blood created a commonality, a recognition of similarities in traits, like calling to like.
The carriage slowed as it turned into the drive and entered the queue. Regina was sitting on the side that offered the best view of the massive manor house, and she peered out the window as the building came into view.
“Have you been here before?” Chidding asked.
“No.” Feeling somewhat guilty at spying in her youth, she looked at him and admitted, “Mother and I walked by a few times, but I’ve never been this close to it and certainly not inside. I assume you have.”
“Several times. It’s quite grand.”
Suddenly she realized she’d never been tohisLondon residence. “Is yours similar?”
“Not nearly as posh. A bit run-down to be honest.”
“That will no doubt change once you marry.”
“No doubt.” Now he was the one to gaze out the window, and she suspected it didn’t sit well with him to be dependent on his bride’s dowry, but it was the way for most of the aristocracy. Some were even turning to American heiresses to fill their coffers.
“Needs must,” she said quietly, and was rather certain within his eyes she saw gratitude at her understanding of the reality of the situation. Just as he was using her, so she would be using him. Needs must, indeed. If only life were like a work of fiction, in which one could take chances, do as one wished, and consequences suffered were not nearly as dire as those that permeated real life. Even death was not permanent in a story. The reader need only turn back to the first page, and all was once again well before trouble and strife visited.
After a series of starts and stops, during which she’d begun to feel somewhat nauseous, no doubt a result of her nervousness beginning to sharpen with the realization of the approaching nearness of the evening upon which she was about to embark, the carriage arrived at a spot where footmen waited. One opened the door, lowered the steps, and helped her out, followed by Lady Finsbury, and then Chidding.
The viscount offered his arm, and she placed her hand in the crook of his elbow, praying he couldn’t detect her slight quivering. He lowered his head slightly. “Chin up. It won’t be as bad as all that.”
She offered him a reassuring smile while wondering how he might react if she confessed she would be following her mother’s advice and imagining everyone naked. Even as the image took shape, she inwardly shook it off. That had been her mother’s method, not hers, and she most certainly didn’t want to envision Bremsford sans clothing. Her mother’s suggestion might work for strangers but not for those one knew. Best to simply storm into the breach, determined to secure victory.
Quite a number of people—chatting, laughing, smiling, completely at ease—were making their way inside. When she crossed the threshold, she felt like she’d stepped into another world. Certainly, Knightly’s residence was as grand, if not grander, than this one, but her father had grown up within these walls, had raised his family here, at least during a few months each year.
Chidding escorted her into the parlor where he relinquished his hat and walking stick. The weather was warm, and she’d not bothered with a wrap, not that she’d have retained the wherewithal to hand it off because her attention had been captured by a portrait hanging over the mantel. In oils, her father stood behind a woman—his countess, no doubt—sitting on a settee, his hand resting on her shoulder, a young girl on either side of her. Next to her father stood a lad she’d wager had seen at least a dozen years. It was the whole of his legitimate family.
He’d never had a portrait painted of himself with Regina and her mother.
Unexpectedly, she feared he’d been ashamed ofthem, hadn’t wanted to reveal them to an artist. His secret family, the one not to be shared with others. A ludicrous notion when he’d given her a ball and sought to find her a husband. Yet now that the doubts had taken root, they haunted her. Had she and her mother been undeserving of the coins required to create such a lasting treasure? Had he worried that perhaps they were only a temporary fixture in his life? Had he expected to grow bored with the actress?
The room had faded away, leaving only her, this portrait, and her thoughts. But her surroundings began to return to her, and she became aware of Chidding near at hand.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly.
She nodded. “I knew—hoped—there would be portraits of him here. I just... I suppose I didn’t expect to see him with his family.” Appearing content, happy even, and proud. “Nor do I recall with such clarity him looking so young. I remember him more as white-haired, even though I was born somewhere between the birth of his son and his eldest daughter.”Shewas the eldest daughter. The other was the next daughter. Following her was another.
“I always saw my father as somewhat larger than life,” Chidding said kindly. “When I look at his portraits now, he seems unremarkable.”
She couldn’t be certain she knew the man in this portrait at all. “I can’t imagine your father appearing unremarkable if he favored you.”
There was his blush again, making her feel somewhat protective of him. “That’s kind of you to say. Shall we make our way to the ballroom?”
She glanced around. “We seem to have lost your cousin.”
“I’m certain Lady Finsbury has gone on in order to secure a chair advantageous to the lighting so she may continue with her reading.”
He tucked her hand back into the crook of his elbow, and she wondered if a time would come when he considered her too brash for his tastes. She could envision him more easily with someone quieter, shyer, who didn’t set about attempting to pen a description of how glorious it was to be kissed by a man who was lost to an animalistic frenzy because he was so mad to have the taste of her.
Gracefully, he skirted them around those entering the drawing room and led her down a hallway that spilled into a grand room with stairs branching out in a circular triumph on either side. The ceiling was painted with cherubs flying among clouds and goddesses in long white shifts lounging about beneath trees. A huge chandelier had already been lit in preparation of the arriving darkness that would soon be upon them. She imagined her father strutting through this room toward another hallway entrance beneath the alcove formed where the stairs came together. The walls were littered with huge portraits. Some so large they had to be the precise proportions of their subjects.
She’d seen such in other residences, but these were her relations. She carried the blood of some of these men and some of these women. For the first time, she had an inkling of understanding why the Duke of Wyndstone was appalled at the thought of handing his title over to someone not of his blood. The travesty of it.
