“Penny and her sisters had countless governesses whom they took great delight in running off.” I’ll not be lectured to. My mother had no success with it. Nor did my brother. Nor my seven governesses . . . “When Penny was a girl, she kept a diary.” Did her mother know the lady still recorded her every thought on those pages? “She called it Mr. Fezzimore,” his mother-in-law spoke in far-off, wistful tones. “One day, one of her many governesses brought me the book, worrying over the contents of those pages.”
Stroking the pad of his thumb between the soft flesh of her palm, he forced his eyes over to Penelope’s mother. She stared at the top of her daughter’s head with distant eyes. A smile pulled at her lips, such a rendition of Penelope’s smile another wave of pain jolted through him. “Penelope had written of all the outrageous things she’d do, the places she’d travel, and the wicked parts of London she’d visit.” And in the ultimate mark of irony, Penelope had found herself thrust forever into those dangerous streets she’d once dreamed of. “Her governess called Penelope a dreamer,” the woman went on, needing no response from Ryker. “And she was right,” his mother-in-law’s voice emerged so faint that it barely reached his ears. “Do you know what I did, Ryker?”
He forced his head to move in a semblance of a shake.
“I sacked her.” Tears welled in her blue eyes, and she gave a small laugh. “Oh, I allowed Penny and her sisters to believe they’d run off another. I wanted my girls to be proper. I wanted them to have respectability and stability.” Each wish she’d held that he’d ultimately stolen slashed across his mind, leaving a blaze of guilt in its wake. Soft, slightly wrinkled fingers covered his, and he looked blankly down at the dowager countess’s hand. Ryker met her gaze. “Penelope is a dreamer, and I never would have allowed any person, governess or the Queen herself, to steal that from my daughter.”
Did she see Ryker as the person who’d stolen that light? He sucked in a slow, ragged breath. I did . . . I cost Penelope everything . . .
“But do you know what I wished most for my children?” She didn’t allow him to reply. “I wished for them to be happy. I’ve seen you silent in the corner,” she said, abruptly shifting the discourse so quickly, he struggled to follow. “A husband who was eager to be free of a wife he did not want would not stand in the same miserable spot, staring on as though he’d wrestle God himself for control of Penny’s soul.”
Only, with his absolute inability to heal his wife, the truth of his own invincibility stood more stark and real than it ever had before.
“I expect you have made her happy,” the dowager countess said softly, shoving to her feet.
As the woman let herself from the room, and the click of the door resonated in the quiet, Ryker stared at Penelope’s beloved features. Since the moment she’d tumbled into his life, she’d made him feel more than he’d ever believed himself capable of feeling. She’d taught him to laugh and smile and love. What had he given her? He’d kept her a prisoner here, for her protection, in a gaming hell she could not freely roam. And she’d nearly lost her life for it.
“Ryker,” that soft, breathless contralto ravaged by sleep and pain broke the quiet, and his heart jolted.
He yanked his gaze up to Penelope’s face. Her thick, midnight lashes fluttered, and the faintest smile hovered on her lips. “Penelope,” he rasped, and dropping to a knee beside her bed, Ryker gathered her fragile hand. “Ye scared the ’ell out of me, love,” he said, his throat working painfully. He angled his head back to call for the doctor.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Not yet. I wanted to tell you.” He strained to hear her feeble whisper. “I love you.”
His heart twisted. Ryker brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “Ye need to rest,” he said gruffly.
And for the first time he’d known her, she complied. Penelope closed her eyes and slept. Ryker stared at her, peaceful at last in repose. He’d set out rules to live by, to guide his life, to keep him safe. The greatest rule he’d shattered had proved the costliest . . . for him . . . for her.
Never love . . . and yet he proved himself selfish in ways he’d never believed, because God help him, he wanted her still. Loved her. Needed her. And more, wanted to be a man worthy of her.
The faint click of the door sounded in the quiet, and he jerked his head up.
Poppy ducked her head inside the chambers. Eyes swollen and red, her face a somber mask, there was little hint of the cheerful girl who’d threatened him at his wedding weeks earlier. She swallowed, that sound loud in the quiet, as she slipped deeper into the room. Odd, Ryker had four siblings, one a young sister he’d rescued at six, and he knew not a word of comfort to give this sad-eyed girl. Poppy pushed the door closed and lingered at the front of the room.
“She woke a short while ago,” he said gruffly. He owed it to this family to have raised the news as soon as Penelope had opened her eyes, but he’d proved himself selfish, unable to abandon his spot.
Even as a watery smile formed on the girl’s lips, a single tear trickled down her cheek. Not taking her gaze from her elder sister, Poppy, uninvited, drifted over to the bed. She claimed the chair beside Penelope.
The fire crackled noisily in the hearth, and they remained silent, Penelope’s soft breathing the only sound. “Do you know something, Ryker?” He no longer knew anything anymore. Which way was up or down, or who he was, or who he wanted to be. “Penny has always been my favorite sister,” she said softly. “Patrina was always so serious. And Prudence was ever so flighty. But Penny . . . she was my partner because we dreamed of grand adventures . . . and she never lost her spirit.”
His throat worked. How deep that bond was between the two women. Ryker had spent years believing himself brave and strong for keeping his kin at arm’s length, only to find with the words of this girl on the cusp of womanhood, she and Penelope, in knowing there was no shame in letting yourself love and rely on others, had been wiser and stronger than he ever had been.
“When we were children,” Poppy said into the quiet, “Penelope would drag me outside when a storm was threatening and run through the countryside trying to outrace the rain.” That image, so very real, and so very much Penelope, brought his eyes closed. “Now, she is so still.”
Yes, and she’d been that way since Niall had laid her in this very bed.
“I told our mama not to worry,” she said, dropping her chin into her hands. “That Penny is too stubborn to die.”
A chuckle rumbled in his throat, rusty from ill use and fatigue and fear.
“But I still worried,” she admitted, holding his gaze with a temerity not demonstrated by most men. “Because I love her and that is what you do when you love someone.” Poppy narrowed her eyes on him. “Do you know anything about that, Ryker?”
How easily she pried, and how easily she commanded his name. She could have led all the gangs in St. Giles together. His neck went hot. “Some,” he said gruffly.
By the narrowing of her hard eyes, she disapproved. “Some is not enough,” Poppy said tightly, all earlier weakness gone from her tone. “You had better know a whole lot about it, Ryker. Everything.”
I do. With all I am and all I want to be . . . for Penelope. But those words belonged first to his wife, and not with her lying in a bed, battling for every breath. He cleared his throat and slid his gaze over to Penelope.
Poppy leaned back in her chair and layered her palms along the arms, drumming her fingertips in an incessant beat. “I see,” she said with a wisdom better suited of one many more years than her own. “Tell me, Ryker,” she asked, calling his attention once again. “When she awakens, will you be the husband she has always dreamed of?” She motioned to the journals and as he followed her gesture, all the age-old humiliation and terror stirred.
He didn’t know what dreams she held of the man she’d marry or the future she’d hoped for.
“All the answers are in there . . .” She pointed to the journals. “And here.” Poppy tapped her forehead. “And you are very for
tunate, Ryker.”
“Fortunate?” he parroted.
She winked. “Why, yes, because you have me to help you.” Poppy grabbed three journals and thrust them hard against his chest.
Ryker folded his arms around them reflexively. He knew as much about earning any lady’s heart as he did the words on the pages. Penelope, however, had taught him there was no shame or weakness in accepting help where it was offered.
And he’d need all the help he could manage to make himself worthy of Penelope, even if it meant taking assistance from her sister, a garrulous, spirited seventeen-year-old girl.
A faint rapping sounded at the door, and they looked up. Penelope’s other sisters, their expressions wreathed in like anguish, swept forward. Suddenly an interloper in the gathering of Tidemore sisters, Ryker nodded his head and backed out of the room. Shifting Penelope’s journals in his arms, he closed the door, and found his way to his office.
As soon as he stepped inside, he looked around.
His face spasmed.
Ryker studied the vibrant tulip painting that hung above his desk and the porcelain vases at odds with the heavy mahogany furniture she’d dragged into this room weeks ago. No longer was it an austere, cold place meant to deter. It bore the traces of the warmth that came with Penelope’s every touch. She’d made it . . . a home, one that still bore the haunting strains of her laughter and joyous prattling.
We live here as husband and wife, along with your brothers. Granted, it is not the manner of home most people think . . .
He drew in a shuddery breath. The moment he’d spied her lifeless in Niall’s arms, Ryker’s heart, that organ he’d long believed himself wholly lacking, had died.
Ryker wandered deeper into the room and dropped to his haunches. Setting down two of Penelope’s journals, he held on to one, and then forced himself to open it. He fanned the pages. Dearest Fezzimore . . . the words danced by, in aged ink, of tales told long ago by a smaller, younger Penelope. A girl who’d once carried dreams of love and life, dreams that had never included an illiterate bastard from the streets.
That never mattered to her . . .
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel the pain as it rolled through him in sharp, agonizing waves. Drawing in a breath, Ryker snapped the book closed. Just as he’d had no right to marry her, he’d no right to her most private thoughts.
And if he was any kind of honorable man, he would have never married her in the first place. Would have realized she belonged to a respectable nobleman. But he’d never been good. There was and would always be so much black on his soul that no good could stamp it out.
She’d left them, and he could not allow himself to think about the significance of that decision. He knew only that in holding the journals close, he’d retained a piece of her. It is not enough . . .
A knock sounded at the door and his heart sunk. Oh, God. Please do not let her be dead. “Enter,” he croaked.
“Mr. Black.” Clara’s soft voice sounded over his shoulder. “How is—?”
“Alive.”
Uninvited, Clara entered deeper into the room and slid onto the upholstered sofa.
I believe you’ve gone through life carefully keeping people out. In every way. If the chairs are uncomfortable, people won’t wish to sit. If you are snarling and snapping, people will flee in fear . . .
The memory of Penelope’s husky contralto whispered as strong as the day she’d spoken them in this hell. He took a long swallow of his drink and welcomed the fiery trail it blazed down his throat, his efforts futile. No drink, no matter of business, would drive back the thought of her.
“I’m leaving, Ryker,” Clara said, interrupting his musings.
He stitched his eyebrows into a single line, and the woman who’d been a business partner and lover spoke softly. “I’m leaving,” she repeated.
Patrons and his brothers had been equally expressive in their shock over Ryker’s decision to eliminate the availability of prostitutes in the club. The women who chose to remain would work in various other capacities. Just one more change Penelope had wrought. “You don’t approve of the changes,” he noted, grateful for the momentary diversion from Penelope’s precarious state.
“It’s not my place to agree or disagree,” she pointed out.
Yes, that had long been the attitude he’d expected of all his employees. Ryker was the majority shareholder of the property and business, a carefully crafted plan to assert his role as master of the club. He’d neither sought nor tolerated anyone challenging his opinions. Until Penelope.
“But you disagree,” he noted.
“Many of the girls are content in their roles. They worry about how the changes could affect the success of the hell. If patronage falls and profits plummet, the first to go will be young women serving drinks and cleaning rooms in the club.” Her expression grew distant. “And some women, all they know is how to be a whore. They know nothing else and can be nothing else.”
“And do you believe I’d see those women without work and in the streets if that were to happen?”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think, it’s what they believe . . . and so some of them will come with me.”
“Where will you go?”
A pregnant pause stretched on, and he thinned his eyes.
“I would never betray the secrets of this club, Ryker,” she said quietly.
“And yet you’ll go to Killoran’s anyway.” The man whose thugs had nearly killed Penelope.
Clara reclined in her seat and settled her palms on the arm of the sofa. “Mr. Killoran’s clientele is not Diggory’s clientele.” No, he’d begun to cater to the lords who’d long graced Ryker’s hell. She drummed her fingertips in a distracted staccato. “And surely you see the wrongness of my remaining here.” When your wife does not.
The unspoken charge lingered in the air.
Yes, ultimately, from the moment Penelope had slipped her way inside his heart and laid siege to his club and every thought, he’d known Clara could not remain. Neither would he have been the one to simply turn her out until her future had been set.
“That woman loves you.”
He’d not discuss Penelope with Clara, or anyone. Nor this agonizing weight that had settled on his chest since Niall had returned with Penelope lifeless in his arms. “I wish you well,” he said. And he meant it. Though they’d never shared the nightmares and demons that haunted them, there had been a bond, forged by that unspoken connection. Even as he’d sooner see Killoran in hell, he wished Clara would find the peace that had proved elusive for the men and women born to these streets.
Clara opened her mouth as though she wished to say something more, and then with a faint nod, she left.
Clara forgotten, Ryker abandoned his office and set out in search of Poppy, desperately needing the help she had offered.
Fortnight Later
St. Giles
Chapter 25
Dearest Fezzimore,
Sin asked Juliet to marry him. I’m not entirely certain of the details because they both turn red in the face when I ask about it. I’ve decided I should like for my future betrothed to drop down upon a knee, his arms overflowing with branches filled with red raspberries. Can you imagine an edible bouquet, Fezzi?
Penny
Aged 14
“I expected I’d at the very least see the gaming floors.”
Poppy’s mumbled lamentations were met with a frown from the Dowager Countess of Sinclair and a prompt lecture.
From where she lay on the crimson sofa dragged in days earlier, Poppy kicked out her legs and hung them over the arm of the chair. “I didn’t say I wished to visit the tables,” she pointed out. “I merely said I wished to see them.”
Standing beside the door, with his shoulder propped against the wall, Jonathan folded his arms. “You are not playing on the gaming-hell floors. Ever.”
Lying in her bed, with her diary on her lap, Penelope smiled at the familiar bickering that ensued
between her younger sister, mother, and brother.
Since she’d awakened a fortnight ago, her family had set vigil at her bedside. The teasing and loving arguing and easy discourse that she’d yearned for these past weeks, however, left her oddly empty.
Staring at the trio, she watched as more of an outsider in a world that used to belong to her. But as Ryker had accused her of wishing to change him and his club, and shape it into what she’d always dreamed of as her future, so too had she clung to the memories of her childhood for the happiness she’d known.
Now she yearned to create new memories . . . with Ryker. Here.
Her gaze strayed to the door and a pang struck her heart. In the days she’d lain alternating between consciousness and a murky netherworld, Ryker had moved in and out of focus. His stark pleas for her to live and his words of love, however, were surely conjured from her deepest yearnings. So real, when she’d awakened, she’d believed those dreams.
“What is it, Penny?”
She started, not having heard Jonathan’s approach. “I’m tired, is all,” she lied. It was the surest, safest way to avoid questions and have her own musings.
Her mother sprang to her feet, and all but dragged Poppy to her feet.
“Why must we leave?” Poppy whined. “It is ever so . . .” She scowled. “Did you pinch me?”
The dowager countess scowled. “Your sister is tired.”
Poppy shot a probing glance back and then narrowed her eyes. “No, she’s not. She wishes to be rid of—ow, do stop pinching me, Moth—” Her words ended on a startled gasp as their mother opened the door.
Ryker stood in the doorway, the chiseled planes of his face a hard, unyielding mask that managed the impossible, silencing both Tidemore females.
There had been a time when she, too, had feared him in that way. Now he was the man who’d tenderly carried her through the hell and administered her bruised cheek. The man who’d seen a boy hungry in the streets and given him employment. That was the man she’d married.
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