Royal Regard

Chapter Fifteen

"It is absolutely outrageous! Ridiculous!" Bella's shrill voice echoed in the small hothouse in her Russell Square garden. Her speech was rapid, face red, not blushing prettily. "I will not stand for it!"

Situations of this type were the primary reason Nick discouraged intimacy with women. He had never heard an animal howl in as much rage as this, nor had he ever been so afraid of one's bite. The sweat breaking out on his forehead had little to do with the sun beating down through the glass walls.

He had thought he was doing a masterful job expressing Myron's proposition, enumerating every benefit, explaining why it should please her, and making her eager for the alliance.

"You must understand, my sweet, there are many dastardly men who may attempt subterfuge in pursuit of the fortune Huntleigh will leave. Under my protection, your money can be managed entirely to your benefit."

So," she said slowly, "you believe no gentleman might choose to pursue me out of interest in my person?"

He sidestepped that cannon blast: "No, darling, that's not it at all. You are well worth the effort a man might put into knowing you. I only mean... well... your husband and I think it best to have your interests firmly in hand before such an occasion should present itself. Merely as a precaution against anyone with less-than-honorable intentions." He nodded his head firmly, sure he had now explained to everyone's satisfaction, and certain there was no way she could argue.

Her sweet smile seemed almost grateful. "The two of you think it best?"

His deep sigh echoed with profound relief at her instant understanding. "Yes, we do. And you needn't be concerned for your place in society. You will be a duchess, my dear, and may do anything you like, short of murder. You can entertain any way you like—or not at all—wear anything you like. You will set fashions every time you hire a dressmaker. I shall open Wellstone if you prefer it, so you may abandon London. Anything you'd like, sweeting. Anything you choose."

Her head tilted. "As long as I first choose to marry you."

"Well... yes. That is the plan we are proposing."

"We, meaning you and my husband, who think it best?"

His shoulders tensed. Something was very wrong. "Yes?"

Then, the awful tirade began.

Bella threw a trowel onto a worktable so hard the recoil broke a clay pot. "I am not a commodity, Wellbridge, and this is not an Arabian bazaar where one can sell a woman for sixpence!"

"We both know a woman costs more than sixpence at an Arabian bazaar," Nick said, trying to tease her. He reached out to gently touch her face, but she literally snapped her teeth before he snatched his finger away. Then, like a simpleton, he compounded his mistake. "One with hair and eyes like yours must be worth at least ten riyals. Plus a camel and a herd of goats."

Her hand shot like a musket ball into his shoulder. Arms flailing for a handhold, his feet went right out from under him, dumping him gracelessly and painfully on his behind, legs sprawled on the tiled floor. Next to him, on top of a pile of broken pottery and loam, sat a crumpled and pungent rosemary shrub he had dragged off the table on his way down. Examining the punctures and scrapes on one hand, rubbing his hip with the other, he stretched to ease the bruise he would have by nightfall, finally kneeling to right himself.

She looked down her nose at his indignity, then swept past to the greenhouse entrance. By the time he regained his feet to follow, he found his nose flattened against the glass in the slammed door. Once steady on the gravel path around the rose bushes, she was only a few steps from the morning room door. When he tried the latch, the lock turned and the curtain dropped across the diamond-paned windows.