Page 112 of To Pleasure a Prince
“This is too difficult,” Cicely exclaimed.
“No, it isn’t.” Regina rubbed her fingers over the block with the raised letter that most looked like the next letter. “Oh, ‘n.’ That’s right—it looks like an ‘u’ sometimes, but it’s not.”
For some reason,feelingthe letters made it easier for her to identify them. She didn’t know why, but after discovering it that day at Castlemaine, she’d known it was the only way she’d ever learn. It helped that both Katherine and Cicely were infinitely patient with her.
She took a breath. “I wan-…wan-dered…l-l-lonely—Lonely?”
Katherine nodded.
Regina’s head throbbed, but she soldiered on. Katherine’s cook had offered a posset that helped when the headache got too bad. But it seemed less painful as the days passed. She was getting used to it, just as Marcus had predicted.
She winced. Shewouldn’tthink of Marcus, not now, not when she’d come so far. Otherwise, she’d start crying, and her head would throb even more. She’d been trying to save her tears for her bed at night.
She didn’t get much sleep.
“ ‘I wandered lonely…as…a…clou-…clou—” Oh, no, more of those pesky d’s. Or b’s. But “cloub” didn’t make sense, so…“ ‘Cloud.’ ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’?”
Katherine beamed at her. “That’s it. You’ve got it!”
Regina blinked. “I read a sentence from a real poem? Not a primer?”
“Not a primer,” Katherine echoed.
“And I read it by myself.” Hardly able to contain her excitement, Regina leaped from the chair and did a pirouette. “I read a sentence by myself! From a real poem!”
Laughing, Katherine leaped up, too, and they danced around like two schoolgirls. Until Regina glanced over to see Cicely crying quietly, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
Regina stopped dancing to rush to Cicely’s side. “Dearest, what is wrong? Is it your lungs?”
“No…N-No…” Cicely stammered through her sobs. “A-All these years…you could…have learned.” She dabbed futilely at the flow with the voluminous handkerchief she always had at the ready. “I should…I should have taught you.” She grabbed Regina’s hand and squeezed it painfully. “I failed you. I should never have listened to that doctor. Perhaps then—”
Her heartfelt wail started Regina’s own tears flowing. “Oh, dearest, no. Don’t blame yourself.” She enfolded the older woman in her arms. “I listened to the doctor, too. We both listened. It’s not your fault.”
“It is! You were a child. I was supposed to take care of you!”
“And youdid.You have always been the perfect teacher and companion.”
“But I should have done better.” Cicely wiped her nose, then started to cry again. “It’s just that…I was so afraid of your being hurt. I never got to have children, and you were such a sweet, fragile mite…I couldn’t have borne it…if anything had happened to you. And the doctor did say—”
“Shh,” Regina murmured, clutching Cicely tight. “I know you always had my best interests at heart.”
Cicely drew back to fix her with a rheumy-eyed gaze. “It’s my fault you had to marry that ogre. If not for me—”
“It’s not your fault in the least, and he’s not an ogre.” Regina patted her cousin’s hand. “Truly, dearest, once you get to know him, you will see that he’s a very good man. Just a little pigheaded sometimes.”
“Aren’t they all?” Katherine said, taking a seat beside them.
Regina glanced at her sister-in-law. “Do they grow less pigheaded in time?”
“Not really. You just learn to get around it.” Katherine smiled. “And they do make up for it in other ways.”
Regina’s answering smile was forced. Although she dearly missed having Marcus in her bed, more than that, she missed his cleverness, his dogged persistence…his outrageousness. She never knew what to expect from him. Every rout, every ball, every party she attended now seemed dull. These days she’d much rather sit here with Cicely and Katherine, struggling through one sentence, than spend an afternoon listening to a lot of idiots converse about the weather.
Oh, Lord, now she even sounded like Marcus. But four days had passed, and she began to worry that he might never come round. Had her defiance been too much for him to accept? Was her marriage to become one of those awful arrangements where her husband lived in the country and she lived in town and they had separate lives?
She couldn’t bear the thought.
A knock came outside the open door to the schoolroom, then a footman thrust his head inside. “My lady? There’s a letter here for Lady Draker. I thought she might want it right away, seeing as how it’s from his lordship.”
