by Abigail Agar
Penelope gripped her hands tighter together. Her knuckles turned white with the strength of her grip. “If you were not there to look for a spouse, then I would think that you were looking for something about your parents.”
His eyes went wide at her words, and Penelope’s defences rose as she prepared for the outrage at her impudence, but the man merely stared at her. He stared at her as if he was caught somewhere between the truth and a lie, his mouth slightly agape as if he wanted to speak but the words abandoned him. Penelope whispered, “More can be done with helping hands, Your Grace, than with closed doors.”
“Are you offering your aid?” the Duke said, amusement taking the place of the surprise on his face. “Saving my life was not good enough for you?”
Penelope looked down at her hands laid against her dress. It was a simple muslin dress that her mother often called a play dress, but which Penelope was fond of even in its simplicity. “I want to help. You may flaunt your whispered title of murderer, but you should not have to wear a burden that is not your own.”
“What makes you so certain that it is not mine to bear?” the Duke asked. The question echoed from earlier, and Penelope’s heart ached for the man.
Penelope shook her head. “Has no one ever believed you? Do they all just smile and nod, while keeping you safely away? You not only do not expect anyone to believe your innocence, but you find it suspicious when they do.”
The Duke took a deep breath. There was a break there in the man. He was cracked, but the cracks were so hard to see. Penelope gasped at having caught sight of one. The Duke’s eyes came up to her with something of concern. “No one but the courts ever took in faith what I said,” the Duke whispered. “Yet here a stranger stands not only willing to believe but offering a hand to help. How can I not view that with suspicion?”
“You can look at me and my face,” Penelope said. “My eyes are open, and you can delve into my very soul, Your Grace. I will not betray you.”
The man looked for all the world like he did not quite know how to respond to such earnestness. The Duke said, “My saviour who has already saved my life once, now deems to still be at my side. I am honoured that you should still offer me aid.”
Penelope felt her heart soften. She had almost let the fear of her father shroud this man as well, but the Duke’s intensity was not the same. She had felt his goodness when she looked upon his face. Here he was a good man in dire circumstances, and what sort of lady would she be if she turned him away?
The Duke said, “Thank you.” He said the words as his eyes met Penelope’s yet again. There was warmth there that Penelope wondered if she just imagined. He looked at her for all the world as if he beheld a treasure.
Penelope smiled at him, wondering what exactly he was thanking her for, and he offered no explanation. His lips quirked up into a smile as well. Penelope wondered what he looked like when he laughed, really laughed. Maybe she would get to see that one day.
***
The door to the guest room came open so swiftly that it startled Penelope into stepping back as if she had been caught doing something vile. Penelope was already standing at the foot of the bed, and there was an ocean of space between her and the man that lay on the bed, yet her cheeks coloured as if she had been caught out in the light during an escapade. Gretchen shut the door back just as quickly and leaned her ear to it.
When the woman was satisfied, she turned towards them. “Begging your apologies, Miss,” Gretchen said with misery. She wrung her hands in worry and whispered, “I heard your father coming. I was not about to let him catch me outside the door.”
“I understand,” Penelope said. She did indeed understand the fear the woman held. Lord Winchester was a firm-handed, unrelenting man. He would probably put Gretchen out in the street for looking at him oddly, let alone going against his wishes.
Gretchen looked at the Duke of Richmond and then back to her mistress. “Should we not leave His Grace to rest? He must not strain himself too much with the amount of blood he lost, Miss,” Gretchen said as the woman’s forehead wrinkled with what Penelope was sure was anxiety.
Penelope drew in a breath and nodded. “I suppose we should,” Penelope said as she looked back at the man on the bed. “I leave you to rest. I do hope that I will see you at dinner tonight, Your Grace.”
The Duke nodded back to Penelope. “And I you, Lady Withersfield.”
Penelope smiled at him before she turned and followed Gretchen. The maid was nearly to the door but stopped and waited for Penelope to catch up to her. Gretchen held the door open for her mistress, and Penelope gave the woman a smile as she slipped out into the hallway ahead of the maid.
Once the door was shut, Gretchen asked, “Do you need any assistance?”
It was something the older woman often asked Penelope. Gretchen believed in being busy. It was one of the things that Penelope had learned about her very quickly. She shook her head. “No. I rather think that I shall go rest as well for a time.”
Gretchen looked almost relieved, and Penelope found that mildly offensive but knew the other woman probably had things she needed to do other than shepherding Penelope. Not that Penelope needed to be herded. There was no danger that she would find her way back to the Duke’s chambers after all.
Penelope watched Gretchen bob her head and take her leave. Penelope turned to go down the hallway to her own room. She was almost to her door when Gina came around the corner.
“I heard you went visiting,” Gina said with a grin as she approached Penelope.
Penelope ushered the young maid into her room. “Shh,” Penelope chided.
Gina giggled. “Don’t fret so. Your father is safely downstairs raining terror upon the kitchen staff for not having the food on hand that he wanted to impress the Duke of Richmond by serving.”
“Sounds like Father,” Penelope said with a sigh. She went over to her bed and dropped down most ungracefully onto the mattress which sank under her weight.
Gina sat down next to her and pressed, “So, did you go to talk to the man?”
“I went to bring our guest breakfast. I had no idea that he would be awake,” Penelope said trying not to sound as defensive as she felt.
Gina nodded with a smile. “I know all of that. I spied Gretchen in the hallway earlier and asked her what was going on.”
“I am surprised she even said anything. She is so afraid that Father will find her in contempt somehow that she darts around the manor as if besieged by devils,” Penelope said.
Gina giggled. “Maybe she is,” she said. “Did you really say that you would help her mother be seen by a doctor?”
“Yes,” Penelope said with a shrug. “Truth be told that I probably would have done so anyway, but that does not harm the woman.”
Gina folded her hands in her lap, the plain black dress and white apron making her look very much her profession. Gina’s bonnet was always a bit forward due to her long hair that she bundled up and tied tightly underneath the white material. Penelope had rarely seen Gina outside of her hours at the house, and when she had, Penelope had been astounded at how beautiful the young maid was when freed of the confines of her role.
“So, you did talk to the man then,” Gina pressed with a smile.
Penelope laughed and nodded. She put her hands back on the bed and leaned back much like she had done as a child. Penelope said, “I talked to him, yes.”
Gina nudged Penelope with her shoulder. “Miss, you must tell me some detail.”
“There is not that much to tell,” Penelope said with a shrug.
Gina sighed. “You think that I will run and confess everything to your father? I thought you had come to know me better than that.”
“It is not that,” Penelope assured the young woman. Indeed, Gina had kept several secrets very well, but then these secrets were a bit heavier than keeping childish blunders swept under the rug.
Gina eyed her curiously. “Did something happen?”
“No,” Penelo
pe said emphatically as she waved her hands at Gina to dismiss the idea. “He almost bled to death, Gina. The man could barely walk or sit upright.”
Gina grinned. “Men can do wonders when they think they can get away with something.”
“Perhaps, but that does not change the fact that nothing happened. We merely talked. I told him the truth of why I had to lie to my father. Father would be infuriated if he thought he had been made a fool of,” Penelope said. “Gina, you must not tell anyone.”
Gina frowned. “You haven’t told me anything, other than you lied. So, there is nothing much I could tell, Miss.”
Penelope sighed and covered her face with her hands. “I told Father that the Duke saved Mother and myself from this rogue, when in fact, there was no one. I heard a noise and ran off to investigate—”
“Miss, you didn’t!” Gina was scandalised. For all the gumption and spitfire that Gina could muster, Penelope saw that the woman was legitimately afraid of what could have happened to her.
Penelope put her palm over the young maid’s clasped hands. “I realise now how reckless it was, but at that moment, all I could think was that someone needed me.”
“So, there was no other man?” Gina asked.
Penelope shook her head. “I heard something, but I never saw anyone other than the Duke. He staggered and fell on me. He was out of his head, and Mother thought he was some drunken lush I think.”
“But you got him here safe and sound. Surely that should be what counts,” Gina said.
Penelope gave Gina a helpless shrug. “One would think, but Father was not pleased to find that the Duke of Richmond had somehow ended up at his home without his permission.”
“What were you to do? Leave him to die?” Gina asked.
It was the first sensible thing that Penelope had heard anyone say since the Duke staggered out of that alley, and Penelope gave Gina a smile. “Thank you,” Penelope said. “I told Father the lie about the rogue because I feared he would toss the man out in the streets.”
“Surely, Lord Winchester would not have done so,” Gina said as if she very much wanted to believe that Lord Winchester had a bit of common decency.
“I could not afford to take that chance,” Penelope said. “Besides, the lie harms no one.”
Gina nodded her head slowly. “So,” the maid said with a grin. “Is he as dashing as I have heard him described?”
Penelope blubbered. It was not a dignified thing to do, but the words all came out jumbled together and left her spluttering for something to say. Gina giggled. Penelope finally got over her initial shock enough to say, “That is a scandalous thing to talk about.”
“What is so scandalous about talking of something that can be seen with your own eyes?” Gina asked as she raised her eyebrows.
Penelope said, “I can think of things aplenty that I can see with my own eyes and would never speak about.”
Gina dissolved into giggles. Penelope followed the young maid into laughter. They laughed for so long that Penelope felt tears rolling down her face from it. She wiped the tears away as her laughter died.
“Oh,” Penelope said as she remembered something. “With all the excitement of the Duke’s arrival, I forgot to say that I managed to talk Mother into taking me by Gunter’s Tea Shop. We got some of that caramel that you like so well.”
Gina clapped her hands together with excitement as Penelope got off the bed. Penelope went to the vanity and pulled open the top right drawer. It was the drawer where she stashed all of her favourite secret things, such as the sweet candy that she and Gina liked to share occasionally. Penelope gave her friend a smile.
“Here,” Penelope said as she tossed a little bag of the candies to Gina who quickly took out one of the candies and popped it into her mouth. “They always make my jaw tired,” Penelope said in amusement as she came over and took a candy that Gina held out to her.
Gina said around the candy, “That’s what they do.”
“Yet we still eat them,” Penelope said with a grin before she put the candy in her mouth. The sweet, almost buttery, flavour spread over her tongue as she chewed the sweet.
Gina eyed Penelope and asked, “He is handsome, isn’t he? I saw it in your face when you were walking down the hall. You looked liked you were far away.”
“He is far more handsome than he should be,” Penelope admitted. “When you met your Michael, did you know right away that you loved him?”
Gina’s smile took on sadness. “Heaven no,” she whispered. “He was a braggart. I rather disliked him at first meeting.”
Penelope eyed her friend with interest. “You never talk of him,” Penelope noted. “You talk of the twins and your mother, but never Michael.”
“It hurts to talk of him,” Gina admitted in a quiet voice. Penelope ached for the pain she heard in the woman’s voice.
Penelope whispered, “I am sorry that I brought him up.”
“Don’t be,” Gina said with a shake of her head as she sat the candy bag down on the bed. “No one speaks of him. I tell the twins about him sometimes, but they are so little that they won’t even remember him.”
Penelope frowned. “It is good to talk about people, even when they are gone. I am grateful Mother told me of my grandmother. I was young when she died, but the stories that I heard from my mother made her alive for me. I might have gone my whole life and never known that I have her eyes.”
“The twins favour Michael in the face. I swear that I can see him in Jonas some days,” Gina said as she worried with the stitches in the bed sheet.
They sat there in silence for a long time. Penelope lost herself somewhat in thoughts of her grandmother. Gina sat staring at the bed sheet for a long while. Penelope wondered if Gina was perhaps with Michael in those minutes, and Penelope dared not intrude.
After some time Gina said, “He helped me with a basket I was carrying. It was heavily laden with the washing for the house that I worked at then. That’s the day that I began to see the real Michael.”
Penelope smiled. “I do not know what love even feels like. I lived knowing that love was not the most important thing in the world. Duty came first, and I had made my peace with that.”
“You sound as if you have changed your way of thinking,” Gina said with a knowing smile.
Penelope pondered for a second the intuition of women and how she could feel so confused and yet so open to everyone’s eyes. “I told my mother last night that I do not wish to marry. She had a predictable response,” Penelope said with a smile. With a shrug, Penelope continued, “What if love is important? What if I deny it, and I miss that destiny that I wanted to fight so fiercely for?”
“Marriage is not the end of the world,” Gina said. “Yet, here I am widowed. I do not know if I am qualified to speak on this matter.”
Penelope looked at Gina. “But you would have been married still if Michael had not died. I know that by the way you speak of him. I consider you as knowledgeable as any married woman I know. Perhaps you are more so because you also know grief.”
Gina smiled at Penelope and took Penelope’s hand in her own. “Most of the upper crust that I know would not deem to look at me, much less bestow candy upon me. Miss Penelope, you are a kind sort, and I don’t believe for an instant that the Lord would be so cruel as to make you live a life without love. You shall find your peace in this life, I’m sure of it.”
“Speaking of candy,” Penelope said as she felt the pressure of tears building up behind her eyes. She blinked them away and turned her thoughts towards other things than the kind words that sought to make her forget herself and look a fool. “I would like you to take the remainder of this bag of sweets to your children.”