Page 19 of What Lies Beneath

“I hope you did not mind me asking you about your family,” he said a moment later, the words spoken so quickly it was as if he had decided not to speak them and changed his mind at the last moment. “I did not mean to pry into a painful memory.”

Regina hesitated. She didn’t mind speaking to him of the past. Foolishly, there was a part of her that longed to do so, to have someone she saw every day know something of who she really was, not just the façade she had adopted to hide from danger. But it was a stupid thing to do, to allow him a peek behind the mask. Yet ultimately, she was so weary of living as a shadow. Sometimes she felt so diminished by the role she played, she wondered if Miss Genevieve Hamilton had simply ceased to exist. Surely telling him a little of her past situation, with no names and no specific locations mentioned, could not be so perilous.

“It was not painful, precisely,” she replied, meeting his gaze and seeing compassion in those usually cool silver-blue eyes. “It’s just I do not think of it often. I have much to be grateful for. My aunt and uncle are lovely people whom I miss and think of fondly, but I cannot say the same of anyone else in my family. Escaping them was the best thing I ever did.”

“Escaping?” he repeated with concern.

Regina cursed herself for her foolish choice of words. She had not considered carefully enough before speaking. This had never been a problem for her before, but there was something about the earl recently that invited her to let her guard down and she had been lured into doing so. She must not let it happen again.

“Do you mean by marrying Captain Harris?” he asked curiously.

Captain Harris? For a moment Regina wondered who he meant but then remembered her supposedly dead husband. She winced inwardly, realising she must lie to him to keep up her fiction. Though she knew she had no option, it made her feel wretched, as if she were gaining sympathy for the death of a beloved husband through false pretences. Which was exactly what she was doing. That she was not doing it for malevolent reasons was a minor point, as the earl would no doubt say himself if ever he discovered the truth. That the day might well come because she had given into the desire for petty revenge upon her grandfather, and the Earl of Wendover, might be her own stupid fault, but did not make her any more sanguine about the possibility.

She nodded, too uncomfortable with the falsehood to say it out loud. As if that made it any less of a lie, she thought in disgust, as the lovely dinner she had eaten suddenly felt like a lump of lead, heavy in her stomach.

“A marriage of convenience?” he suggested, his expression so intent she had to look away from him. It was as though he wished to see inside her mind, to lay out all the pieces of her past and figure her out, and that she could not allow.

“I suppose so,” she said stiffly, avoiding his gaze. Oh, please, please change the subject, she begged inwardly, desperately searching for a safer topic of conversation. Yet her mind yielded no suggestions, too overwrought by the earl’s interest.

“I—” he began, and then seemed to think better of it. Yet a moment later, he changed his mind again. “I hope it—I hope he was a kind husband, no matter if it was not a love match.” Startled by the sincerity of his words, Regina glanced back at him, finding his expression troubled on her behalf and full of something that looked horribly like pity.

Now utterly discomposed, both by her own lies, the reminders of her past and a family she could not claim, and the earl’s unprecedented kindness, Regina looked hurriedly away. It was too much. Blindly, she stared out at the view as it passed, blurring like a watercolour landscape as her eyes filled with tears for the second time that day. She was safe, she told herself, safe and happy. There was much to be grateful for, and she would not regret the past, not regret the loss of her place in society. She had Tilly’s regard, and the earl’s respect, and a position that gave her a good deal of satisfaction. That was enough.

It had to be.

Chapter 4

Georgette closed the front door behind her, holding her breath for a moment in fear that she had somehow woken the sleeping household. Yet there was nothing stirring in the frigid darkness. There was another hour until dawn, and as she turned and looked around at the empty, moonlit street, which she had never walked down alone before, her heart trembled. Was she truly courageous enough to go out into the world by herself, with no one to protect her?

There was no choice, was the only answer she could find. For she was certainly not brave enough to face marriage to such a vile man. If she must face an ignominious end, then she would seek it out herself, not be forced into it by shackling herself to a monster on her grandfather’s say so.

―Excerpt of His Grace and Disfavour, by an anonymous author.

22nd November 1850, Goshen Court, Monmouthshire.

Pip looked up as his butler, Kerridge, came into his study, bearing a tray of coffee and a plate of biscuits. He set down the ledger he had been studying and gave a sigh of relief.

“Sustenance, at last,” he said with a smile as Kerridge set the tray carefully down on the desk.

“Ah, a bit of rest is what you are needing, it is,” the fellow said with a satisfied nod. “Mrs Morgan said as much, what with you being shut up in here all morning. Lovely out, it is too. Not that you’d know it,” the butler said with a hint of reproach.

Pip hid a smile. He’d never known such a loquacious butler before, but rather appreciated Kerridge’s sunny outlook and his lilting Welsh accent. That he and Mrs Morgan fussed over him just as much as they did Tilly was at once touching and a little frustrating. They seemed to view him and his daughter as in some way belonging to them, which gave them certain rights over their wellbeing. Like being allowed to comment upon the amount of time he spent in his study. He could, of course, depress such encroaching behaviour with little more than a stern word, but when it produced coffee and biscuits at regular intervals, he was disinclined to do so.

Pip set the ledger aside as Kerridge poured his coffee and then reached for the stack of newspapers that had arrived that morning. He sifted through them, looking for the latest instalment of His Grace and Disfavour.

Setting the papers down with a sigh, he gave his butler a baleful stare. “Where is it?” he demanded.

Kerridge set the cup down in front of him and looked surprised. “Where’s what, my lord?”

“The pamphlet, you devil. Have you and Mrs Morgan been reading it before I could get my hands on it?” he asked, knowing full well the pamphlet did the rounds of the staff once he’d finished with it.

“Sir?” Kerridge said, looking affronted.

Pip rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t look so wounded. I don’t really care, I just want to read it myself.”

“Read what, my lord?” the butler said, clearly baffled.

“His Grace and Disfavour, of course!” Pip said, irritated now.