Shipmate: A Royal Regard Prequel Novella - Plot & Excerpts
Bella’s shoulders tightened, increasing the ache in her back and arms. She had lost the habit of cooking and cleaning in the months she had spent with her aunt and uncle at Brittlestep Manor and the Royal Crescent. But here, in the Smithson town house, such as it was, there were no servants. Only Bella. Bella and the dust and filth of months of disuse, the chipped dishes and rusting pots in the scullery, the laundry and worn linens, and the nearly bare pantry from which she was expected to produce exemplary meals for the three men in her family, then join them at table and never speak. After only one week, she had already fallen into despair. Her fingers, rubbed raw from the sand she was using to scrub grease from the iron pots, twisted in the skirts of the dilapidated grey day dress she wore when she did housework, now begrimed from the exertion of heavy work. “Isabella,” her father called again, his voice accompanied by the sound of the hasp being removed from the lock. Her father had taken to padlocking her into whichever room required her housewifely attentions, coming back to fetch her whenever he decided the chores should be finished, and not before, which was an entirely new level of both control and neglect.
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