Read Online Shipmate: A Royal Regard Prequel Novella by Mariana Gabrielle - Free Book Online

through
eiderdown and solid oak. With a choked-back sob, she carefully
uncurled herself and pushed back the bedclothes, shifting her
black-and-blue body slowly, in tiny increments, rising unsteadily
to her feet. She struggled to the door and pulled the hairbrush
away from the latch. John slipped through the door, then closed it,
leaned against it, and slid to a seat on the floor, effectively
keeping everyone else outside. He had been taking the same position
in secret in the middle of the night since the first time she had
been beaten bloody by their father, when she was nine. By then,
eleven-year-old John and twelve-year-old Jeremy had both been
taking beatings for half their lives, and her middle brother knew a
thing or two about how to dress her wounds. She shuffled to the bed
to lie back down, dropping the hairbrush on to the empty
nightstand.
    “Have you brought cakes pilfered from the
kitchen, as you did when we were children?” She pulled the blanket
back over her head.
    He spoke in an undertone. “You cannot go to
sleep. Sissy,” he insisted. “You have to go, and now, while they
are floored. I’ve got a hack waiting down the street.”
    The edge of the blanket flipped back off her
red-gold head, and her braid dropped off the side of the mattress.
“You have never helped me escape before.”
    “Father has never offered to sell you to a
brothel before, and they won’t tell me where he is sending you in
that carriage in the morning.” His voice broke. “I know I… I should
have done better by you, Sissy.” His hand scrubbed across his face,
and he stood. “Get up and get out.” He took her cloak from a hook
by the door and held it out.
    She dragged herself from the bed again,
sidling to the door. When she took her wrap, he reached a hand out,
keeping it about half an inch above the blackened skin of her
cheekbone, wincing. “I’m sorry for the…” His hand cradled the back
of her head, drawing her into a loose embrace.
    She nodded and allowed herself to be
comforted. He was always sorry, and if the situations were
reversed, Bella would take up a truncheon against anyone to avoid
crossing her father. And like John, she probably wouldn’t learn to
revel in it, as their brother had.
    “I don’t know the first thing about this
Holsworthy fellow, Sissy, but I know this: Father will sell you to
anyone with pound note, but Uncle Howard will never let you go to a
degenerate. I can’t stop Father, nor can you, and Jeremy wouldn’t
if he could. Get to the Royal Crescent and do exactly what
Effingale tells you to do. I’ll distract Father as long as I
can.”
     



Chapter Eight
    May 9,
1805
    The Effingale Town House
    Bath, England
     
    “ The Prince of Wales , Lord
Holsworthy?” Bella would have shrieked if she hadn’t been choking.
“You wish me to meet His Royal Highness ?”
    “More to the point, my dear, he wishes to
meet you.”
    Lord Holsworthy had been delayed in London
for almost a fortnight on business, and returned to Bath with no
knowledge that she had been removed from, then reinstalled in, the
Effingale’s home. He had no idea she had fled in the night from her
father’s house to return to the Royal Crescent, nor why.
    When she bit her lip, the last vestiges of
torn skin broke open, leaving the taste of blood, once more, across
her teeth. The bruises, thankfully, had healed, or no one would
have let Lord Holsworthy into the Effingale house, where Jasper had
yet to turn up to retrieve her. As always, she had no idea when or
if he would, but Uncle Howard had assured her she had been taken
away by her father for the last time, even if he had to hide her
somewhere.
    “ The Prince of Wales wants to meet me .” Her heart broke its tether.
    “Yes. In fact, he demands it. You must
present yourself—with me, of course—and Lords and Ladies Firthley
and Effingale, should they so choose, at a small gathering at
Carlton House in a sennight. He has said he will make a point of a
private