“Something terrible has happened,” she said, her eyes wide, her attention torn between the hall and him.
“Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll find out what’s the matter.”
She agreed and he took the hall in huge strides toward the sound of people in the main salon.
He rounded the doorway and there stood none other than his father. The Duke of Harlow.
What in hell was he doing here? Tall as Theo, his shoulders as broad, but with silver and black hair, his sire was a giant. Theo blinked at the sight of the man before him, then inclined his head to acknowledge the third most powerful duke in the kingdom. “Father.”
Harlow dipped his head in courtesy but narrowed his eyes in question at his son’s appearance.
“What’s wrong?” Tain asked, his face drawn in alarm at the sound of shouts upstairs. “Why the commotion?”
“My niece is missing. Maybe abducted.” The Countess was pale with fright.
His father noted Theo’s attire. The whole damn house must know that he had bedded Penn. They’d know soon that he would wed her, that he loved her.
“Marsden,” said Harlow of Griff, the Countess’s step-son, “is rousing the men to help.”
“I’ll join them!” Tain picked up the hem of his vermilion banyan, and raced down the hall to enter the library.
“What’s wrong?” Penn asked.
“One of the young ladies is missing. Abducted.”
“That’s awful! What can we do?”
“I need clothes. I’ll go to my room and change. Stay here.”
“I can’t!”
“Well, I bloody well can’t talk to you in the daylight in your room!”
A gun shot pierced the air.
“What in hell is that?” she yelled and ran to the window. “Dear god. They’re all outside! Running toward the stables. You must hurry.”
“Stay here.”
“Bugger that,” she told him and tugged him toward the stairs.
He ran with her. “Terrible language, my girl.”
“Bugger, bugger, bugger.”
More yelling stopped them short. Then a trilling giggle.
“What now?” Penn said, horror in her eyes.
Lady Bridgewater rushed into the library. “Oh, hallo-o-o, my darlings?” She wore a thin morning robe, a huge mobcap and muslin trousers! “What the Christ is all the shouting about?”
Penn pointed toward the yard. “A lady is abducted.”
“You don’t say? One of the fellows did that?” She tore off her mobcap, her white hair springing out wild as strewn hay. “By damn, that’s jolly awful.”
Penn rolled her eyes at Theo. “We’re leaving.”
“But why? Look!” Lady Bridgewater climbed on one of the chairs to get a better look at the commotion. “Oh! No need to go. They’re all coming back to the house!”
“They are?” Theo craned his neck.
“Indeed. One has a pistol trained on another man. A few men and women are hugging each other. Order of the day for this party, wouldn’t you say?” Lady Bridgewater cooed in delight as she got down from her perch. “Excitement’s all over and done! Fie and fiddlesticks. I would’ve liked to see all that.”
“Oh, my,” said Penn.
Theo was quite undone. Confused. Angry. Relieved. He’d never been to a party like this one!
“Oh! Tickles!” Lady Bridgewater clicked her fingers, then in a few strokes jammed her hair up into her mobcap. “What a treat! No straight laces here, eh? I shall have such fun sharing all the juicy bits that’ve distinguished this party!” She gave them both a big open-mouthed wink.
“Please don’t, my lady,” Penn pleaded.
“Not you two. No, no. Tain is my favorite. Aren’t you, darling?” She gave a little flutter of her fingers and sailed toward the door.
“Christ in His grave,” Penn moaned, staring at the empty portal.
“I must go anyway,” Theo said and stepped toward the stairs.
The door to the hall opened and voices floated in.
“No!” Penn whispered. “More people!”
Theo led her to the far set of shelves, behind the huge wooden library ladder. In the shadows, they might not be seen.
"Adept at poems and Shakespeare?" asked a man.
Theo whispered, “Bromley.”
"Perhaps Molière, as well?" asked a woman.
“Del,” she mouthed to Theo.
"Plus a fine appreciation for discretion." Bromley led her just inside the door.
Del laughed, then raised her face to inhale something in the air.
"Shall I speak with the vicar this morning about marrying us soon?" Bromley asked her, clearly amused.
"Say…tomorrow?" Del offered with eagerness.
Bromley cleared his throat. "I say there. Is that you, Tain?"
Theo did not turn to face him, but stiffened. "You do indeed have me to rights, Bromley."
"You may come out, sir," Bromley entreated. “It appears we've all broken convention here.”
"No!" Penn squeaked. "Not dressed like this!"
"Tain, you'll never hear a word from Del or me about discovering you here."
"Nonetheless, I think we will remain, thank you. Will you both be long?"
"No, sir. We've only to set a date to wed."
"Superb," said Tain as he attempted to nestle Penn into the secluded hollow of his arms. "And congratulations. I hope you won't think us rude."
"Never," sputtered Neville. "I hope you won't think us impertinent to invite you out."
"Absolutely not," Penn shot back.
"We are off, Tain. We've the vicar to consult." Neville led them to the hall. "Come, my love. Let’s leave them to their…um…reading?"
Penn nestled in his arms. “We are well and truly discovered everywhere.”
“Even by my father.”
“What?” She pushed away. “What do you mean?”
“He’s here.”
“Nooo. He refused Gertrude’s invitation.”
“Well, it seems he accepted it. Late.”
“When did he arrive?”
“Last night? I’ve not seen him until just now in the salon.”
She exhaled. “I’m going to my room.”
“We will talk again. Now.”
“No. There is nothing to say, Theo.”
“You love me. There is that to say. I love you. There is that too to say over and over.”
“I cannot give you what you need in a wife, Theo. I never have been qualified. Now we know after three husbands, that the most important requirement is none I can provide.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.” She went wearily toward the stairs.
“We are not done,” he called after her.
She paused and spun to gaze at him with sorrow swimming in her eyes. “Of a certainty, this time we are.”
Chapter 7
Penn ordered a quick bath for herself. She hated to be such a nuisance to servants on Christmas morning, but she wished to soak her aching body. Would that she could drown the ache within her heart.
She had been so selfish to accept Theo as her lover. She’d led him on, deluded him and she was ashamed of herself.
As she submerged herself in the copper tub, she admitted another truth. Affection was addictive. Once enjoyed, once given, tenderness blossomed in a person’s soul like a daring rose. The euphoria was bliss. The need for more, for the promise of more tomorrow and tomorrow, could consume one’s willpower. And destroy logic and all else in its path. Like opium.
She rose from the tub, the waters cascading in her haste. She had to leave here.
* * *
Theo knocked lightly on Penn’s bedroom door. Again, she did not open for him. She’d not gone to church this morning with the other guests. Nor had she appeared at breakfast. He worried about her.
He exhaled. She must talk to him soon. Theo had learned long ago from dealings with so many that an argument required an immediate bout of qu
iet discussion lest the views of opponents harden and crack. He did not want to fight with Penn. He wanted resolution, acton!
Hell. If she didn’t open the next time he came here, he’d ask Simms for a key to the lock. Well, Christ. That was a rude plan.
He shook his head and headed for the downstairs salon. His father had sent a note via Simms that he wished to talk, and there was no time like the present to confront their disagreement over Penn.
Truth was, he and his father had argued only twice in their lives. Once was when he’d been offered his first opportunity to go to Russia to negotiate with Czar Alexander. Adept at the Russian language, Theo was welcomed by the British delegation. He’d gone twice more in the past two years, once to meet with Alexander in Paris after Napoleon’s first abdication in April eighteen-fourteen and then most recently after the Allies’ victory at Waterloo. The other time that Theo and his father had argued was the first. When he was nineteen, he went home to Yorkshire and his father’s main seat to ask for permission to marry a young lady he’d met at a house party. That lady was Penn. That argument had not gone in Theo’s favor. To his everlasting sorrow.
This meeting, Theo vowed, would be different. He stiffened his spine, pulled taut the points of his coat, rapped twice and entered.
“Sir,” Theo nodded and closed the door behind him. He strode forward. His father, George Frederick Maitland Henley, was a devilishly handsome fellow. His eyes were a brilliant shade of turquoise and could freeze one in one’s tracks. That was not his sire’s only devastating quality. He was tall, broad shouldered, with ink black hair that only in the past decade had taken on the silver that denoted him as the elder of the two of them. But his father had one other quality that signified his importance to Theo: He was usually prudent in his decisions. That prudence rarely differed from social convention. It had made his father wealthy, revered and imperious. Few fought with Harlow. They had not the logic or the stamina.
Today, Theo brought both to this argument. And his father would not like it.
“I have little time, Father.” He trained a hot gaze on Harlow. “Upbraid me if you wish, but make it short. I wish to simply say the obvious.”
“Will you sit, Theo?”
“No.” He was abrupt. Few were with the Duke of Harlow. “I will tell you what you need to know. I came here of my own accord. In fact, I was so bold as to invite myself to the Countess of Marsden’s Christmas party. She did not invite me. You must not upbraid her for something she did not do.”
“So I have learned. I’ve held my tongue on that rebuke.”
Theo nodded. “I invited myself and hoped the Countess would accept me. I learned from friends that Penelope would be here. This year, alone as I was at home and free of my mourning obligations, I decided to come if the Countess would have me.”
“She would not refuse you.”
“So I hoped.” Theo glanced toward the windows, the snow falling fast in large lacy flakes. “I had the governess pack Violet and Suzanna’s belongings and I sent all three to Annabelle’s for Christmas.”
“And now?” Harlow asked with a tone of resignation. “What are you about?”
“I have renewed my acquaintance with Lady Goddard. I’ve conversed, dined and laughed with her. She has endured many of the same challenges I have. She had to marry one she was told to wed. He was kind, though she did not love him. I have not asked about her next two husbands, though I sense those matches were practical. Not passionate.”
Harlow inhaled. “You had good wives.”
“I did. I will say nothing against their good names. If I married each for less than love, I would not admit it to other than you and Penn. Nor would I sully my children’s births with any word less than praise for their mothers. But now, I am in a different position than ever I was before. I am a widower, twice over, with an understanding of women and marriage and death. I will be thirty-two on my next birthday and with two daughters to raise, I will not continue to do it with only a governess to teach them the joys of life.”
Harlow opened his mouth to praise him for this.
But Theo put up a hand. “Let me finish, please. I love Lady Goddard. She is now again a widow. For the third time. As I am now a widower for the second time. I vow I will not miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make her my wife. Mine. As I wished so long ago. She has little money. Whatever she has, she can keep. I have no need of more. She has a title, but I care not for her status. I can raise her from a baronet’s wife to my marchioness. She is thirty-one and I want her in my homes, in my arms and in my bed.”
His father looked worn, defeated. “Does she agree?”
“I’ve not yet asked her. But I will. And I hope she graces me with her consent.”
“Why would she not, Theo?” His father sounded sorrowful. “If she loves you as you do her, then she’ll agree.”
A dark despair engulfed Theo. “Oh, Father, you know why she may refuse me.”
Harlow caught his breath. “Because of my objection?”
“Never.” Theo doubted that. “Not after all she and I have suffered living apart.”
“What then? Would she refuse you because she has little as a dowry?”
Theo laughed, a bitter note. “Nor would it be her insignificance, as you called it years ago, as a viscount’s youngest daughter. Now she is steps lower.”
Harlow fumbled to reach the nearest chair.
“Now she’ll refuse me because she believes that she is barren.”
His father grimaced.
“My darling Penn has been so well trained by society that because she has never been with child from three husbands, she thinks she brings me nothing worth having.”
Theo stilled, swallowing his own sorrows, then he pulled himself up to higher stature. “I must…I will convince her otherwise. I do not ask for your consent. Frankly, I care not if you never give it. I will not be bought or bribed or shamed or ridiculed. Nor will I reconsider. If after I am gone, my lands and yours and all our titles go to my cousin or his son, so be it. Our duchy will not be the first to fall to a cadet branch. My concern, instead, is with here and now. With the happiness and well-being of my tenants, with the two children I do have and with my own happiness. Today, Father, is a precious commodity. I will waste no more of them wanting what others have told me I should not want or may not have. I can and will live as I wish. With a woman I love. May God grant that she’ll take me. Even after all these years.”
Harlow stood up.
“Excuse me, Father. I must leave you and find Penn. I will propose marriage. I would not have her spend another hour without my declaration.”
* * *
He took the stairs two at a time. Strode down the hall, a man possessed.
Her door stood open and her lady’s maid tidied this and that in the sitting room. “My lord,” she said and curtsied. “What may I do for you?”
“Where is your mistress?”
“She’s left, sir.”
His heart stopped. “Where? Where did she go?”
“Home, sir. Or I think so. She did not tell me precisely where, sir.”
“Why not?” He couldn’t understand this. It was not like Penn to be irrational.
“I truly dunno, sir.”
“And why are you still here? Did you not travel here with her?”
“I did, sir. But she told me to stay and help with the work. She knows my sister is the downstairs maid for Lady Marsden. We could have our Christmas together, she said.”
He ran a hand across his mouth. “How would she travel on Christmas day?” he asked himself more than the maid.
“She asked Simms to get her a hired coach from the town.”
“When did it arrive?”
“Minutes ago.”
“So. If you were to wager, would you say she went home to London?”
“That I would, sir. London is the only home she has, sir.”
“Bugger!”
“Sir?”
Oh, hell. “
My apologies.”
He was getting as loose-tongued as the lady he loved!
Chapter 8
The most likely road to London from Brighton was the Lewes road. Theo took it through the windy snowstorm, his hat pulled tight, his great coat drawn close about him in the blasted weather. The horse he’d bribed the Countess’s groomsman to lend him was a sound bit of horseflesh. He pushed the animal to continue, though the creature must have cursed his rider’s persistence and his foul language, too. Theo loved horses and he should have been ashamed to expose the stalwart stallion to the vagaries of the storm—and his own wild urgency, but he had no choices. Penn had fled him and their argument. He would find a way to apologize and move their relationship forward.
If she accepted him, wonderful.
If not, he had other objectives.
But he rode onward, smiling that the one element that conspired with him was the horrendous snowstorm.
Not far up the road, he detected the next town. Village it was. He’d ridden through it in his coach to the Countess’s party. Preston Barracks was home to a cavalry regiment. That he had known somehow, most likely from newspapers. The village boasted a fine confectionary, a stables and blacksmith, and an inn. The wooden sign above the inn’s doorway swung to and fro in the wind. The Royal Swan, with its sturdy stone walls and voluminous smoke billowing from the chimney, promised warmth at the least. Theo handed over the reins to the boy outside. With a handful of coins and instructions to take him to the stables, he asked that the horse be brushed down and well fed. For the courtesy of the coins, the boy also shared the news that the hired traveling coach from Brighton was stopped at the stables.
“He wants to return home for his Christmas supper,” the boy said.
“Does he?” Theo dug in his saddlebag for more coin. “Give him this, with the Marquess of Tain’s compliments. And tell him he should go home now before night falls.”
“But the lady who hired him will be in need of him.”
“The lady will be safely carried home to London by me. When the storm clears.”
The boy nodded.
The Marquess's Final Fling: Christmas Belles, Book #4 Page 6